Brix Bounty Farm

The Art, Science, and Craft of Profitable Onion Production

NOFA Summer Conference

Saturday August 12, 2017

Amazing alliums, unsung farm hero, nutrient rich onions are capable of grossing $40,000+ per acre. We’ll review production steps and techniques to ensure a successful harvest. From start to finish: variety selection, propagation, transplanting efficiency, beneficial insects, nutrient management, pest and disease management, cultivation, harvest and post harvest systems.

Derek Christianson: Farmer and community educator at Brix Bounty Farm.

Workshop attendees – here are copies of the powerpoint and handout…

Brix Bounty – 2017 NOFA Summer Conference – Profitable Onions Powerpoint

Brix Bounty – 2017 NOFA Summer Conference – Profitable Onions 6 slides per page

Brix Bounty – 2017 NOFA Summer Conference – Profitable Onions 2 page handout

We are in the process of drafting “Crop Pages” to help our community make the most of the Brix Bounty Harvest.  Over the course of the next year, we’ll be updating individual crop pages with availability, nutritional notations, and recipe suggestions.

We’ve started with Cabbage.

Check it out and Enjoy!

Saturday January 16, 2016

Worcester, MA

NOFA/Mass Winter Conference

Making Major Money with Minor Crops: 

Producing Profit on the Edges

Local demand for fresh goes beyond tomatoes; we’ll examine a selection of crops which are consistently high profit producers for us at Brix Bounty Farm. Using in-season monitoring and enterprise analysis, we’ll cover our key levers to success producing basil, cilantro, choi, parsley, scallions, shallots, and summer leeks profitably on a small scale…

Jan 2016 Powerpoint – 6 Slides       Jan 2016 – Powerpoint – Full Slides

Basil (in Focus) – Jan 2016      Shallot Enterprise Budget – Jan 2016

It’s snowing again… a good excuse for more wintertime reading and celebrating the bountiful winter conditions with the family.

I really appreciated the perspective John Slack (Boreal Agrominerals, Ontario, Canada) brought to this year’s Soil & Nutrition Conference.  His presentation on the “Agricultural Landscape:  The Geochemical Province” inspired a trip to the library to pick up James Skehan’s Roadside Geology of Massachusetts.  John is fond of testing soils well beyond the top 6” weak acid Morgan analysis… favoring a deep soil analysis, examining soils through the A, B, & C horizon using a stronger Aqua Regia extract to determine geochemistry; with a bit of help from US Geological Service – (USGS) Maps.  Really excited to learn that John Slack will be working with the Bionutrient Food Association to carryout a soils mapping project in the Northeast this April.

For those looking for a quick perspective of Massachusetts Geology – Check out the article by Barosh & Miller (.pdf) posted on the Environmental Engineering Geologists Website.  Of course there is always the Wikipedia perspective.

I found the Bedrock Geological Map of Massachusetts (published in 1983) on the USGS website and also their online maps quite helpful – check out their Digital Geological Maps by State, to learn about your state…  Learned something new, we’ve got Alaskite (an alkali granite) as the bedrock under the farm on Bakerville Road in Dartmouth.

MIT Open Courseware has an Introduction to Geology Course available for those looking to gain a basic introduction to the topic.

Enjoy the storm.

Greetings,

Here are .pdf copies of our presentation Growing Profit & Health – Cation Trace Minerals & Vegetable Production (Copper, Iron, Manganese, & Zinc).  Hope the workshop was worthwhile, let me know if you have any feedback to share.

Just a couple of other quick items…

1.  Someone asked for a copy of bibliography/recommended reading – if there is anyone who wants a deep dive on specific studies/academic papers let me know, but here’s the general reading list worth considering…

• The Intelligent Gardener, Solomon & Reinheimer – http://www.newsociety.com/Books/I/The-Intelligent-Gardener
• The Ideal Soil 2014, Astera – http://www.soilminerals.com/
• Hands-On Agronomy, Kinsey – http://www.acresusa.com/hands-on-agronomy

I should note that the Soil & Health Yahoo group is a great forum for mineral balancing/mineral fertility conversations – http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soilandhealth

2.  This year’s NOFA Bulk Order (http://www.nofamass.org/programs/bulk-order-program) has micro nutrients on page 5 – I’m not sure what quantities are of the sulfates form of traces listed, but this is another option for folks looking to purchase bag quantities of traces.  I should note that in our experience some of the traces (Zinc Sulfate especially) will quite readily take on moisture and make subsequent measuring & mixing difficult.  I would recommend storing any sulfate forms of traces in a rubbermaid container, and if you want Zinc to be easy to use down the road, take additional measures to minimize the introduction of moisture.  Potentially storing smaller quantities in ziploc containers…

I neglected to discuss applicator/worker safety on Saturday.  Protective gear is a good consideration, you can access MSDS on any material you purchase and I recommend doing so.  Wearing respirators, eye protection, and gloves may be recommended – we use common sense at the farm, always have a clean bandana with us when we are mixing/spreading, don’t mix in a closed up space where you’ll be exposed to dust for long periods of time, and wash hands after working with any material.  We trust each farm/garden will figure out what the best protocol is for them…

3. Hope to see some folks at this year’s Soil & Nutrition Conference (details below), I recommend you register soon to guarantee your spot as we anticipate reaching capacity this year… and here’s the link to info about our season long series (Mar 22, June 14, Sept 13) we are hosting at the farm – http://www.nofamass.org/events/growing-vegetables-health-quality-and-profit-season-long-series

Thanks,
Derek

We had initially invited Jerry to be one of our featured speakers at this February’s Soil & Health Conference, knowing full well it was 50/50 whether his health would allow teaching in the new year.  By mid-September we transitioned our conference planning to plan B and have put together a promising line up, including John Slack from Boreal Agrominerals in Ontario.  John Slack, and his father before him, have been the force behind marketing Spanish River Carbonatite (see http://www.borealagrominerals.com/resources.html) and we are really excited to have John sharing his knowledge of soil development and geo-chemistry with our community.  

John will be joined by Mark Fulford, Bryan O’Hara, Dan Kittredge, & myself in Northampton on February 11th & 12th – http://www.nofamass.org/events/2015-soil-and-nutrition-conference … we’ve already got more than 90 folks registered from throughout the Northeast and are looking forward to a lively 2 days.  The return to Northampton with farmer friendly registration fees and Mira’s delicious cooking guarantee the conference will be great.  Hope you’ll consider joining us this year.

~Derek

We are really looking forward to our first full season trialing BioNatural’s Blooming Blossoms bio-inoculants.  They have 2 different soil application products and a foliar product; all 3 are focused on harnessing the capacity of Azotobacter to fix Nitrogen.  They are just one of many folks marketing biological inoculants; you can see a list of other suppliers on the new Bionutrient Food Association website.

Their NutriFoliar  has proven to actually “fix” Nitrogen directly on the leaf surface.  We have been pleased to secure our supply through Crop Services International in Michigan; Juneau Sales in Minnesota is another supplier.

We’ll report back later this season with details (and hopefully some pictures) of our results.