Reduced Tillage Field Day – Summer 2017

Tools and Tactics for Organic Vegetables at Any Scale

August 14th, 2017, 4:00-7:00 pm

Location: Freeville Organic Research Farm at the Cornell HC Thompson Vegetable Research Farm, 133 Fall Creek Road, Freeville NYIMG 3302 2177evp
The Cornell Reduced Tillage Team held a field tour and discussion of practices to build soils and manage weeds in organic vegetables. Can tarps help replace tillage? How can we integrate cover crops with reduced tillage? What tools can be used for more strategic tillage and cultivation? Over 4o farmers and educators joined to talk about the latest research and hear farm experience. Topics included:

  • Tarping in direct seeded crops, cover crop mulching for summer transplants, and practices for permanent beds
  • Demos of strip till and cultivation tools in high residue
  • In-row cultivation tools with Integrated Weed Management Specialist Bryan Brown (NYS IPM)

Email Ryan Maher at rmm325@cornell.edu with questions and visit smallfarms.cornell.edu/projects/reduced-tillage/ for more on the project.
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This material is based upon work that is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under award number 2014-51300-22244.

Ryan Maher

Ryan began with the SFP in the summer of 2013 and focuses on research and extension in soil health practices for vegetables. He is a Baltimore native with family and educational ties to CNY. After graduating from SUNY-ESF in 2003 he spent two summers training on diversified vegetable farms, first in SW Oregon and then in the Boston metro area. In 2007, he graduated from Iowa State with an MS in Sustainable Agriculture focusing on soils in native grassland restorations. He spent five years with the USDA-ARS in St. Paul MN, coordinating research on nutrient cycling in perennial forage crops. Ryan, his wife Jackie, and daughters Gia and Olive are happy to settle in CNY and enjoy the food, farms, forested hills, and water of the Finger Lakes region.
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