Brookside Energy Farm, January 2007

At the Brookside Energy Farm in Willits, California, Energy Farm Development Specialist Christoffer Hansen has been hard at work preparing the soil for spring crops, with much welcomed help from Rachael Adaire, who is part of Mendocino College’s Regional Occupation Program.
Here’s the latest from Christoffer in Willits:

At the beginning of February we overturned the sod and took advantage of a continuing long break in the normally wet winter weather to prepare the land ahead of schedule for our spring crops. Our onsite energy monitor (weather station) recorded a total of 1.29 inches of precipitation in the month of January, which is unseasonably dry for Willits. To put this in perspective, the National Climatic Data Center reports that from 1960-1995 the average rainfall for January is 11 inches, making January the wettest month of year, for this period. According to our data (which was only one station), this January saw about ten times less rain than normal.

The surprise dry spell was an opportunity to work the dry soil early without risking compaction. The amount of moisture in the soil is a critical factor in assessing the potential of the soil to compact. Dry soil has friction between soil particles and is not easily compacted, while the water in moist soil acts as a lubricant between particles allowing soil to compact more readily. For more information on soil compaction, follow this link to Kansas State University Agronomy Department’s primer on Soil Compaction-Problems and Solutions.

We overturned 20,000 sq feet of non-uniform sod with two rear-tine Toro Rototillers (8.5 hours of run time for each tiller) and utilized five gallons of unleaded gasoline for both machines. The rototillers were set to the depth of the loose sod (approximately four inches), and were used to cross-cut the orchard and annual sections as we worked to prepare spring seedbeds. After the sod was completely incorporated, we sprayed five gallons of activated compost tea over the soil. This activated compost tea is an infusion of microbial life intended to boost the biology in the soil and aid the processes of decomposition and nutrient cycling.

In the second and third weeks of February, Rachael Adaire joined the farm team and has pledged 120 hours of work to the site as part of Mendocino College’s Regional Occupation Program. This is a partnership between Mendocino college, the local 501c3 WELL, and the Brookside farm. Rachael has experience in two previous Community Supported Agriculture projects in Northern California, and brings a good deal of agricultural knowledge with her. With her assistance, we planted 17 of 29 planned orchard tress, five blueberry plants, and sowed a number of strawberries, asparagus, tree collards, and rhubarb plants. She has also started peas, contributed to the discussion of the well and irrigation system, and designed a chicken coop.

The Brookside Farm Project has received generous donations from the community for plants, seeds, and orchard trees. We hope to see some rain in the following months and are moving forward with beginning compost piles and compost crops, planting perennials, and finalizing the collection of necessary seeds. More applications of compost tea are also scheduled for the site.

 

Vancouver Energy Farm, February 2007

At the Vancouver Energy Farm, Mark Bomford, the manager of Post Carbon’s Energy Farm on the UBC campus, is continuing his behind-the-scenes winter work of planning and preparation for the 2007 growing season. Among other things, Mark has hooked up a nifty wireless linkup that relays internal temperature and moisture data from the aerobic compost system to a computer 600 meters away, data that he’ll eventually be sharing over the internet. Here is Mark's report:

We’ve drafted a basic design encompassing 200 plots (0.2 ha) of different energy crops and 0.8 ha of soil-building area and field layout is progressing. Suppliers have been identified and some orders are in for the majority of the seed this year, and detailed cultivation plans for crop treatment are under development. Our aerobic compost system now has a successful wireless linkup that relays internal temperature and moisture data to a computer some 600m away. We look forward to having this data freely shared on the internet.

The next major field activity will be spreading compost for the existing standing over-winter field crops. Gaining experience in this procedure will be vital in light of the potential that overwinter crops hold as energy producers on the coast. Field trials in Denmark portray a particularly enticing picture of high-yielding overwinter canola varieties which we are eager to explore in 2007/08.

In light of the interest and potential in producing grains and oilseeds locally, we are re-opening efforts to repair old threshing equipment on the site and determine a suitable oilseed pressing strategy. As the final batches of canola seed from the 2006 crop are cleaned, it is encouraging to think of the potential applications of locally-produced biodiesel. But it's also sobering to calculate some of the cost, labour, time, and energy balances of the experiment. An estimated ROEI figure has not yet been calculated for the 2006 canola biodiesel initiative, but it is clear that the farm's current costs of production are at least one, maybe two, orders of magnitude greater than the current market price for biodiesel.

At the close of this month, Mark visited the COABC (Certified Organic Associations of British Columbia) conference in Armstrong, BC. The interest in energy crops among organic producers is strong, primarily for use on-farm. The opportunity to share ideas and experiences gave us a wealth of information which we can apply to the Vancouver energy farm initiative. Independent growers in BC have had considerable success using farm-produced human-powered equipment and implements and using farm-produced biodiesel to keep off-farm inputs to a minimum.