Farm Report: December 2006
by Erica Renaud

With unprecedented warm days, it is not surprising that we are still outside tilling, seeding rye, harvesting leeks, and adding to the compost pile; however, outside activities are not the norm these days. While Emily Skelton leads the team through seed cleaning and quality testing, with the help of Will Emmett and Wade Collins, the rest of us have dispersed to various projects. Emily Gatch is hot-water treating any seed lots with potential seed-borne diseases, while Kelle Carter organizes all of her field notes from the growing season. Joe and Erazmo have continued with outside building projects; they have moved from the pot washing station to replacing the storage shed roof. I am, as usual, pinned to my desk collating research reports and developing plans for 2007 trialing and breeding projects.

The biggest task over the last few months has been the Farm's contributions to the Professional and Garden seed catalogs. Some of you will have already received the new Professional Seed Catalog, which offers the professional grower over 200 varieties that have been trialed on our farm and on working organic farms to determine their appropriateness for larger production systems and a variety of markets. The Garden Catalog should also have arrived on your doorstep. It includes over twenty new varieties and dozens of different tools and books to support you in your organic garden and organic kitchen. The Farm staff propagates and cultivates these varieties to support Seeds of Change in gathering the most accurate data for the catalogs and seed packs.

To enhance efficiencies and capacity, we are preparing for some major changes in our operations in 2007. In order to further develop our seed-cleaning capabilities, we will add a Spiral Separator, a Belt Grader, and an Indent Cylinder. As we enhance our brassica seed production and breeding programs, we have chosen some equipment that will improve our ability to clean these small, round seeds as thoroughly as possible. Both the Spiral Separator and the Belt Grader will be used to separate round seeds from other seeds. This is particularly important if there are any weed seeds that are flat or triangular in a round-seeded lot. The Seed Indent Cylinder will be used to separate plant parts and weeds in carrots, onions, and lettuce seeds as well as in some flower varieties. The Indent Cylinder can also calibrate seeds based on their length to obtain more uniformity in a seed lot that can then be pelletized for production farming.

In 2007, we will also be focusing on the efficiency and quality of our pathology and testing program. As we expand our Professional Seed Program, we are simultaneously working to address disease concerns of professional growers in the regions in which we sell seed. Part of that program has been to screen our varieties in any crop groups that we know to be at risk of contracting any diseases. This project will improve and expand the capacity of Seeds of Change's Quality Program by providing the equipment necessary to hot-water treat seed lots that have tested positive for seed-borne diseases.

A professional seed company must be able to assure its customers that seed-health safeguards are in place and that both preventative and curative measures are taken to ensure the absence of seed-borne diseases. A small hot-water treatment system was devised in 2005 as a predecessor to a full-scale seed treatment operation. The new seed disinfection unit that we will install in 2007 will have the capacity to increase treatment to 33L per batch compared to the 0.3L we were able to treat previously.

We do hope you are enjoying a restful winter break. Have confidence that we are carefully cleaning, testing, and trialing our seed for your gardens and farms. We want to encourage those of you with unfrozen ground to keep sowing your winter cover crops, as we continue to do. It may be the eleventh hour, but winter rye, even planted at this late date, will still help protect our soil from erosion and, in the spring, will offer fertility to our organic soils.

With best wishes for the New Year,
Erica Renaud
Research and Farm Manager & the Farm Staff at Seeds of Change

Photo Caption: Winter Rye growing at the Research Farm.

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