(Morrisville, NY – Feb. 2016) It looks as though these warmer days may be behind us and the coming week we will return to the winter weather we all know, and try to love, here in Central NY. Come inside and join Cornell Cooperative Extension for a free session and free lunch Tuesday Feb. 9 at 10 a.m. in the office in Morrisville. Planned is a webinar of the New York Certified Organic Meeting on Soil Health.
The Agenda will include:
Rick Pederson of Pederson Farms, Seneca Castle will present on Putting Soil Health Knowledge into Practice. Pederson manages 600 certified organic acres and an additional 900 acres under conventional production. He grows a diversified crop mix for wholesaling to buyers throughout the Northeast. He will talk about the crop rotations he has developed to provide income and at the same time build resilience in his soil.
Tom Kilcer of Advanced Ag Systems, Kinderhook will present his research on Alternative Forage Rotations to Protect the Soil on Marginal Land. Kilcer will share his data on double cropping with winter grains and summer annuals to keep the soil covered and allow fieldwork to be done when soils are more likely dry. He will also cover solutions to storing nitrogen for such a system in organic production.
In the Reducing Pasture Compaction with Daikon Radish session, NY Organic Dairy Initiative Project Manager and Cornell University South Central NY Regional Team Small Dairy Support Educator Fay Benson will share the results of planting brassicas in compacted areas of pastures after a very wet grazing season.
A farmer panel on How to Decide Whether to Sell Forages to Dairy Farmers or Plow Them In for Green Manure includes Thor Oechsner of Oechsner Farms, a 600-acre certified organic enterprise growing diversified grains in Newfield. Oechsner is also a partner in Farmer Ground, a small cooperatively owned grain milling business in Trumansburg.
Interested in attending? Call 315-684-3001 ext 100.