I eased the radish out of the ground and snapped the top off. Gave it a quick rinse and did the final evaluation….Yes!!! It had crunch, wonderful flavor and no unpleasant after taste. I have grown radishes like this for years on all the farms I’ve worked. The simple delight in producing a near perfect radish is thrilling. Appearance, vigor, and good eating all from a planted seed. A simple delight…

The radishes along with other early crops provided a better than expected first market. Being new at the Vicksburg, MI  Farmers Market I had modest expectations. Other established vendors have regular customers and I needed to meet and make myself known. The produce really helped break the ice. A friendly greeting would get them to look my way then the lure of great produce would complete a new introduction. A quick exchange of where the farm was located and a comment about the great produce to come made for smiling Market goers. 

For the radishes to express genetic potential a lot of  has to be in place. A key variable at Tiller’s is the condition of the soil. Factors that impact the crop but the agronomist can’t "fix" with recommendations to "add this" and amend with "that". A loose friable soil with nice crumb. Good drainage with excellent moisture holding characteristics. No compacted plow pan. A high level of soil microbe activity and fertility. Happy plants and fantastic results.

 Maintaining fertility is a pleasure. It comes from work, habits and years of experience in growing with Bio-Eco concepts. Looking back the challenges I’ve had are in dealing with depleted and low biological activity soils. To produce nice crops from them can take years. So it is an absolute delight to be working soil with great characteristics from the beginning. 

Farmer Pete 

The Blog Barn

The story thus far: Our plucky heroes have traced Triticum monococcum C68-101, the wild parent of a tetraploid wheat (Line 149) with interesting salinity tolerance genes, to the University of Sydney. Maybe. Kinda. Sort of. But they keep digging, and their perseverance is not long in being rewarded. We hear again from Ray Hare.

You may remember that you asked me back in March to track down the source details of the T. monococcum used as the donor of the sodium exclusion genes Nax1 and 2. At last after some detective work I have a fairly good set of identifiers that match up.

The original seed, that was obtained by the University of Sydney, came as part of a collection of monococcums from Dr Ralph Riley of the Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge. Prof. Eldrid Baker assembled this collection of Triticum species back in the 1960′s. C68-101 is an accession identifier in the University of Sydney Wheat register with the accession number NS 3637. It is also known as “Triticum aegilopoides – 3″. All of the entries in the University species collection have now been lodged with the Australian Winter Cereals Collection where this monococcum accession has the AUS number 98382.

I have not been able to trace the original collection location. It is likely to be Israel or a neighbouring country. PBI Cambridge had links with the Hebrew University. I have seen no shortage of all manner of Triticum species in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel.

I would be fairly confident that other monococcums have these Nax genes. We checked out two others from this set and each one showed Na exclusion activity. We simply had to select one accession to conduct our studies.

As I said before, the A genome diploids remain rather under researched. Who knows what may come from this ploidy level. It is quite possible that few diploids were involved in the original formation of the progenitor tetraploids and some of this A genome variation has been lost in the formation of the hexaploids. The total variation in the A genome in hexaploids is likely to be small when referenced back to that in the monococcums. I have seen good isozyme variation evidence that clearly supports this belief, in the order of a few orders of magnitude.

I am happy to be of additional assistance.

Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

Cole Slaw can be Vinegar based or Mayonnaise based. In the fridge
tonight is a vinegar based slaw that will be served tomorrow during
Family group Sunday night. Whether it leaves my kitchen as is, or
Mayonnaised is yet to be determined.

My Wife and I first tried the
shredded Cabbage, diced baby carrots, Cider vinegar and Brown sugar
version. My Wife gave me the thumbs up. I went back to the kitchen
feeling Great. I could not shake the idea that maybe the mayo based Slaw
would also work. I added Italian salad dressing and Hellman’s Mayo. We
sampled again and My Wife confirmed, " This also very good." We decided
that we will wait til 4pm tomorrow night, taste, then add more
ingredients for additional dressing if needed

I also believe My
Wife may take a poll during morning worship service to determine if we
should take a Vinegar based or Mayonnaise based Cole Slaw. The Food theme for Family group Bible study is Texas BBQ.

Let me also mention that I was introduced to Roasted Corn at the Conroe farmer’s market
today. After eating a Roasted Cob I vote for roasted corn at 550 F over
boiled in veggie juice or water with butter. The corn comes off easier
and does not stick in your teeth.

The Blog Barn

The Livingstone Online website coming up pretty much out of the blue on my Facebook timeline a couple of days back reminded me that I had wanted to point to the online database of the Kew Economic Botany Collection, if for no other reason than that we haven’t done it before, and that the collection includes seed samples, not least a few collected on the good doctor’s expeditions. Then of course they went and posted something about the database on their blog yesterday. Anyway, we’ve talked about the potential value of museum seed specimens before. In particular, if you search for “sorghum seed” in this case you get (among other things) what is clearly a rather remarkable collection of material from Tanzania, sent to Kew in 1934 by the “Director of Agriculture.” Each seed sample is labelled with a local name. Wouldn’t it be great to go back and see if landraces with those names can still be found, and maybe even compare their DNA with anything that can be extracted from these old seeds?

Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

Farmers
Markets are increasingly offering products that are not locally grown. I
am seeing more and more produce that is the exact same stuff you can
buy at your local grocery store.

I don’t offer
my products at farmers markets but I do make my rounds to them
occasionally and talk to many farmers who sell at them.

The
number one complaint I’m hearing is the amount of vendors who buy
produce from wholesale houses or produce auctions and then sell it at
the market.

In fairness, not all of them are saying
it’s local but many rely on the fact that people assume it is local or
homegrown because they are buying at a farmers market.

If
you are buying tomatoes or cantaloupe at a farmers market around these
parts in mid May….it ain’t local by any stretch of the imagination.

This is a classic case of markets need vendors and vendors need an outlet.

My message isn’t these types of products should not be sold at a farmers market. That is up to the folks who run the market. I am all for a free enterprise system.

However, I think full disclosure is a good place to start.

But by far the best way to get what you pay for is still "Buyer beware"

Ask
vendors if they grew the product themselves. Sometimes they buy from
other farmers which in that case it may be local farm raised product.

But if it came from a wholesale house many times you can get the same conventionally grown stuff at your local supermarket.

Until next time…

The Blog Barn

Well!
It has been quite the week and weekend. Procter Center held a Food and Faith
conference, bringing together many people interested in making a difference in
their communities and lives. We had a wonderful weekend of education,
conversation, sharing, and learning. Thanks to all who participated!

The farm is certainly picking up in both
the amount of planting that happens each week and the amount of weeding and
irrigating that is needed. I have planted the first round of cucumbers and
summer squash as well as some tomatoes. All are doing fine despite how early in
the year it is. Even with the low temperatures at night the plants are
continuing to grow. Peppers and Eggplant are going to be planted on Sunday
(gotta get them in the ground before the rain!)

Starting next week there will be enough
ready veggies for harvest and sale. Keep an eye out on the main page for the
opportunity to place orders for and pre-pay for your Procter Farm veggies. The
kitchen at Procter will also be serving these first fruits of the farm.

The Blog Barn

• Ancient olives not that old after all. But still attractive.
• Giving up tobacco – in favor of purple sweet potatoes?
• Kew is now as much about cooking as growing. Visit the 18th century kitchens.
• Linking small farmers to markets, video from a conference.
• The International Treaty’s SMTA made easy. Well, kinda. It would have been even easier if they had linked to the site. Good thing there’s us, eh?

Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

My Livie is about to lose her first tooth.  It is wiggly and she is so excited.  She has heard about the Tooth Fairy but has not experienced her magic yet.  She
has big plans for her soon found fortune. 
I am serving carrots for lunch. J 

We are gearing up for another really big weekend.  Saturday we will be open on farm and we have a fair amount of produce already. 
Visitors can purchase: mixed loose leaf lettuce, Romaine lettuce, kale,
spinach, radicchio, yellow snow peas, leeks, beet greens, Swiss chard, and
onions.  I almost forgot we also have a
few strawberries.  We still have
many beautiful hanging baskets and bedding plants for sale.  I am down to only two strawberry pots and a
handful of plants.  Sunday will be at the
Old Cheney Road Farmers Market in Lincoln, NE from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.  We will only occasionally guest vendor at the
Saturday at the Manhattan Farmers Market in Manhattan, Kansas. 

My tomato is still turning but we will give it one more day
and probably enjoy it for lunch Saturday, BUT I noticed others starting to
blush.  I worked really hard this year in
pursuit of the early tomato and they are here. 
Love it.  As a grower you are
always looking for your edge, and for small growers like me it is the only way
to be noticed.  This year I will be the
first grower at ALL of my markets with vine ripened tomatoes.  Hopefully it will be enough to keep people
coming to see me week after week. 

Yesterday was fun.  I
spent the morning with my daughter’s preschool helping plant their
garden.  They will weed, water and pick
all summer long.  My girls were obvious
pros, but all of the kids we thrilled to help. 
This is the third year and many of them were looking forward to the
visit.  Last night I spent the night catching
up on watering and planting Asian cucumber plants.  This morning I am planting peppers and if
time…eggplant.  We will make a few deliveries this afternoon.  Tonight is t-ball and I
am sure all the girls will be as interested in Livie’s tooth news at practice,
but everyone is excited.  When we get home I will finish planting peppers and eggplant and artichokes. 

This year they
are starting blast ball which is a t-ball clinic of sorts for those who are not
old enough to play t-ball yet.  Autie
will start next Sunday.  Thankfully the
games start at 6:30 so I will be home and able to go.  She does not know yet, but I know she will be excited. 

My girls love on-farm visitors and we hope you
will come see us in the morning. If that does not work maybe stop by at the Old
Cheney Road Famers Market in Lincoln, NE.  Also remember we offer weekly deiveries to those who live in Marshal, Washington, Clay counties in Kansas as well as the community of Manhattan.  We also deliver to Jefferson and Gage counties in Nebraska.  We have some
great produce and lovely flowers.  Hope to see you soon!
The Blog Barn

• Pepe gets a prize from a queen.
• The Princess of the Pea gives no prizes, though.
• Oldest farming village in a Mediterranean island found on Cyprus. No royalty, alas.
• The Emperor of Agricultural Statistical Handbooks is out. Oh, and the online source of the raw data has just got some new clothes.
• Fish are in trouble. Well, not all. Kingfish, queenfish, king mackerel and emperor angelfish all unavailable for comment.
• No royalty connected with these beautiful pictures of Asian fish either. Does a former Dutch consul count?
• Quite a crown on this wild goat.
• The Royal (geddit?) Botanic Gardens Kew’s Breathing Planet Campaign: The Video.
• ICIMOD on the role bees (including, presumably, their queens) in mountain agriculture.

Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

17 Mai is Norges Nasjonal Dag, and I miss Norge on days like today. You just have to get used to it, I mean not being there, but it does not mean I like it. I try not to wast time on wish I was there, but some times….. 

This weekend we will plant berries, and more berries. So if you got nothing to do, come join us. 

The Blog Barn

It’s gonna be red, white and blue all over for the next two weekends! Armed Forces Day is this Saturday and then we get to celebrate Memorial Day on the 28^th! Let’s start with this Saturday…it is our chance to give thanks to the service men, women and their families for the sacrifices that they make so that we can enjoy things like shopping at the Bluegrass Farmers’ Market! There are folks in many countries who do not have that privilege. We salute you with pride!

So how are we going to celebrate Armed Forces Day at the Bluegrass Farmers’ Market? The red, white and blue will be flying! And, our farmers will have their own homegrown red, white and blue available! Look for…

STRAWBERRIES

RED RIPE TOMATOES

CUT FLOWERS

JAMS

ONIONS

GARLIC

CUT FLOWERS

P.S. These are the white goodies but I figured you all wanted to actually see what would be available! lol

BACHELOR BUTTONS

HAMDMADE SOAP

Now, let’s mention the green goodies that will be available…

SWISS CHARD

NAPPA CABBAGE

SAVOY CABBAGE

CUCUMBERS

ZUCCHINI

GREEN BEANS

PEAS…maybe!

BOK CHOY

ROMAINE LETTUCE

MIXED LETTUCE

BASIL

GREEN TOMATOES

HANDMADE SOAP

But, that’s not all of the colorful items available…

PATTY PAN SQUASH

BEET GREENS

SWEET TATERS

BEDDING PLANTS

HANGING BASKETS

HONEY

EGGS

HERB SEASONING

PEPPER JAMS

VEGGIES PLANTS

CONTAINER PLANTS

And, don’t forget the…

Smiling faces from our farmers!

Plus, a visit from the folks at Chiro One Wellness Center!

One more special thing to remember…

June 2, 2012 we will be celebrating our 2012 Grand Opening of the Bluegrass Farmers’ Market and we’ll be giving away market tote bags to the first 500 customers! Mark your calendar!!!

~*~ 2012 MARKET HOURS ~*~

3450 Richmond Rd.

Saturday 9 until 2 or until sold out

Tuesday 3 until 6 or sold out

We’ll be set up in the beautiful tree lined parking lot of Pedal the Planet and Fast Signs, right next door to the Glenn Auto Mall on Richmond Rd. It’s just a hop, skip and a jump outside of Man ‘O War Blvd. Parking is right there so you don’t have to drive around hunting for a spot to park. The parking lot is also paved and that makes it very stroller and wheelchair friendly!

********************************************

The Bluegrass Farmers’ Market

is Lexington’s largest

100% homegrown/produced farmers market!

And, each farmer is certified…

KENTUCKY PROUD!

And

GAP Certified

~*~*~*~*~*~*

We Accept

EBT/DEBIT

WIC & FMNP Cards!

See ya on Saturday!

The Blog Barn

Thanks to the very good offices of our friends at Seed Savers Exchange, I now have a copy of the most recent (6th) edition of the Garden Seed Inventory. I wanted this in order to see whether the loss of The D. Landreth Seed Company, America’s oldest, as it happens, while tragic for the business and its customers, would also be a great loss for agricultural biodiversity. Long answer short: not so much.

The Garden Seed Inventory is a catalogue of catalogues, listing all the varieties available from all the catalogues SSE can get its hands on. That makes it a very useful snapshot of what is out there (in the US), how widely available it is, and the ebbs and flows in comercially-available diversity of crops and varieties. The Introduction to the book contains lots of analysis of this type, and I thought I remembered that it listed all the varieties that are available only from a single supplier and each supplier’s “unique” varieties. It doesn’t.

It does, however, list the 27 companies (10% of the total number covered by the inventory) that list the most unique varieties. D. Landreth is not among them. It also lists the companies that had introduced the most “new unique varieties”. Perhaps unexpectedly, there’s quite an overlap with the “most uniques”. and D Landreth isn’t in that list either. All of which suggests to me that while the passing of D Landreth would indeed be sad for its owners and customers, it would not be an immediate disaster for commercially-available agricultural biodiversity in the United States.

Does D Landreth have any varieties not available elsewhere? That one is difficult to answer using the Inventory. More than 450 pages of closely spaced entries is a lot to look through, searching for those with a single source coded La1. It ought to be a doddle from the database that stores the original records, but I’m sure SSE has much else on its mind at the moment. Mind you, if 45 owners of the Inventory were to scan 10 pages each …

Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

What a wonderful Wednesday it is. We where blessed with more rain yesterday and today the earth and all the inhabitants here are overjoyed with the beautiful warm sunshiny day today.

The peacock that found his way to our ranch a few days ago seems like he likes it here since he already found a place in one of our large trees that he spends the night in and he is very content with haveing the llamas and alpacas visit daily.

It is a great day to wash and soak more fiber. I also have quite a few orders that need to be filled and shipped. I will get jumping, I opended all the windows and doors so the beautiful energy from outside can flood the house.

Wishing all a super groovy, happy and peaceful day

Yours Truly

Petra

The Blog Barn