MOSES is holding a number of organic farming field days this summer in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Field day topics will include: small grain and forage production; organic dairy production; organic vegetable production and extending your growing season. Field days are held at certified organic farms where experienced organic farmers will showcase their farming operations and offer tours of their fields.

MOSES works in partnership with organizations, businesses and government agencies to help host its field days. Each half-day session runs from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm and is for all farmers who are interested in organic and sustainable farming practices. Free organic resources and materials will also be available to take away. Attendance at field days is free for all interested farmers. We welcome walk-ins but do ask that you pre-register. To pre-register and for directions to the farms, call or email Jessica Tupa in the MOSES office at 715-772-3153 or jessica@mosesorganic.org. For more information, you can also go to the MOSES web site at www.mosesorganic.org and click on the calendar of events.

Meg Moynihan, Organic and Diversification Specialist at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, reports that 2006 and 2007 organic dairy farm performance information for a collection of 20+ Minnesota organic dairies is now available at: http://www.finbin.umn.edu/output/114447.htm

The farms are participating in farm business management education programs, which means they work directly with farm business management instructors and the data is collected carefully and systematically. The farms get detailed enterprise reports they can use for planning and benchmarking. The cumulative data is posted anonymously on a public database called FINBIN.

The data has been collected through a project led by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, funded by USDA Risk Management Agency. Other key partners include: UMN Center for Farm Financial Management; OCIA MN Chapter #1; Sustainable Farming Association of MN; and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (home of the instructors who enroll farmers in the farm business management program).

Meg advises that you can also run other reports, including whole farm, crops, livestock, etc. To do so, start at www.finbin.umn.edu. If you want data on organic only, select “organic” under special sort items to include.

Lamberton, Minn. – The University of Minnesota Southwest Research and Outreach Center (SWROC) is pleased to announce receipt of a $20,000 gift from the Cooperative Regions of Organic Producer Pools (CROPP). CROPP is an organic-farmer-owned cooperative of the Organic Valley Family of Farms™ products, based in LaFarge, WI.

The CROPP gift will aid in the initiation of an outreach and research program at SWROC in the use of high tunnels for organic vegetable production. High tunnels are polyethylene covered, greenhouse-like structures where crops are grown directly in the ground.

Terry Nennich, Extension Professor at the University of Minnesota Regional Extension Center in Crookston, has been investigating the use of high tunnels in Northwest and Central Minnesota for the past five years. According to Terry Nennich, the primary advantage of high tunnels is their ability to increase air and soil temperatures inside the tunnel and thus extend the growing season earlier in the spring and later in the fall. Additional benefits include decreased pest pressures and higher yields.

In Lamberton, CROPP gift funds will be used to aid in set-up, infrastructure, and labor costs for a high tunnel being built in May 2008. This tunnel will be used to begin a program in Southwestern MN in high tunnel organic vegetable production research and demonstration. Gift funds will also help support a symposium on high tunnels at the SWROC in the fall of 2008. Future plans include the construction of additional high tunnels and the expansion of high tunnel research at Lamberton. Research objectives will likely focus on fertility management, and will be based on experience with the high tunnel in 2008 and discussion generated at the fall symposium.

According to Carmen Fernholz, UMN Organic Research Coordinator, “There is a growing market for local and organic produce. Vegetable production in high tunnels could be extremely beneficial to Minnesota and the rest of Upper Midwest where the growing season is short, to help expand the availability of fresh, local produce.”

To tour the new high tunnel, attend the UMN’s Organic Field Day, to be held July 10, 2008, from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm at the SWROC in Lamberton. For updates on the UMN’s high tunnel project and other organic agriculture research, visit: www.organicecology.umn.edu.

For more information on high tunnel research, visit:
http://www.extension.umn.edu/source/fall07/fall07-03.html
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2008a/080313NelsonHightunnels.html
http://plasticulture.cas.psu.edu/H-tunnels.html
http://aesop.rutgers.edu/~horteng/hightunnels.htm
http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/manuals/m00173.htm
http://www.hightunnels.org/
http://hcs.osu.edu/news/detail.lasso?id=480
http://www.anrcats.msu.edu/press/050107/052407_plastictunnels.htm

For more information, contact Kelley Belina, UMN Research Fellow, at 507-752-7372 send an email to beli0019@umn.edu.