There's no better way to kick off the growing season than by finding out that we've been selected for grant funding! Last fall I applied for a research grant through the USDA NCR-SARE (North-Central-Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) organization. The project that I proposed to work on at Old Plank Farm involves making and using Actively Aerated Compost Tea for fruit and vegetable production. Our project was accepted and I am eagerly waiting to work on it this summer.
Actively Aerated Compost Tea (or AACT) is a liquid soil amendment that is full of beneficial microbial life. Microbial life is often seriously lacking, if not completely missing, in agricultural soils in our region. Without microbial life, plants are more susceptible to pests and disease, and they require soluble fertilizers to feed them. (Kind of like if our gut microbiome is weak or missing then we are more sickly and we don't process food very well).
Soluble fertilizers, even if they are organic rather than conventional, aren't great for the environment, and that's what we want to avoid using at Old Plank Farm. With beneficial microbial life restored in the soil by applying compost tea, plants can grow and thrive as nature intended. This is the heart of our belief that the best organic farming style is "farming in nature's image." It is my hope that the outcome of my work will help show that using compost tea can compete with other more mainstream organic practices of today.
The only real downside of using compost tea is that it's hard to work with unless you have some biological training and have a microscope to use, neither of which is very common on farms around here. Thanks to NCR-SARE's grant funds, I'll be able to consult with other soil-life experts around the country, sample their products, learn more details about effective AACT production and use, and share all this with farmers in this region!
The research that we'll be doing at Old Plank Farm this summer compares the productivity and profitability of vegetable crops treated with AACT vs vegetable crops treated with an organic soluble fertilizer product. I'll post updates here a few times this season as the project progresses. For now, you can learn more by reading my full project proposal on NCR-SARE's website: https://projects.sare.org/sare_project/fnc20-1206/