Matcha-Pungo Farm
First year transitioning to organic grain production
Wade and Daren Hubers
Hyde County, NC
Total farm acreage: 2000 acres; land in organic: 50 acres (two 25 acre fields)
Rotation:
- Corn and soybeans—2 year rotation. However, would like to lengthen rotation by adding one more summer crop, such as buckwheat or a seed crop—possibly cover crop seed—or sunflowers. A three year rotation would help break the cycle of billbug damage.
- Planning to rotate organic blocks within conventional blocks of the same crop so that the organic does not have any borders with fields that had corn the year before.
- Corn blocks (fields) were planted this first year with 2 varieties side-by-side, to see which yielded best. Organic seed from NC+ Organics was used. Varieties chosen were recommended by the seed company.
- Buckwheat was planted as a cover crop on 5 acres just after the corn was harvested to help control late weeds in the field and to see how buckwheat would perform as a crop. After corn was harvested, the field was disked once, and buckwheat seed was spread at 60 lb/acre. The field was disked once more after seed was spread. After the buckwheat set seed, it was harvested and the yield saved for cover crop seed for the next year.
Buckwheat cover crop (9/2/04)
Buckwheat seedlings (9/2/04)
Row spacing: 30” for corn (planning to go to 20”); buckwheat broadcast; soybeans will be 20” or less.
Weed control:
- Rotary hoed (3 times on one field and 2 times on one field because organic soil was too ‘fluffy’ and plants were being pulled out).
- Cultivated with Danish tine (2 times).
- Plan to add a spring tooth harrow to mechanical weeding equipment in order to have a better machine for cultivating weeds in the organic soils. This machine will disturb soil less and get more weeds, esp. in-row weeds.
- Interested in using a coulter 2 times after corn harvest to till the top inch of soil so that weed populations can be reduced in the field during the fallow time (thereby reducing the weed seed bank); and 1 to 2 times in the spring to get breakdown of residue and to destroy weeds. A coulter doesn’t take a lot of horsepower and can go fast with it in order to get more done in a day. It also does shallow cultivation which is beneficial in the light organic soils.
Fertility Management:
- 3.5 T/acre of layer chicken litter from Braswell Milling (an organic layer operation in Nashville). The litter was free, but cost $10/T freight for hauling from Nashville.
- 120 units N/acre with 3.5 T litter/acre.
- Planned to apply Chilean nitrate from United Agricultural Products (UAP), but was worried that the form was not approved organic, so did not apply. Corn crop looked so good (i.e. good color) that it possibly wasn’t needed anyway.
Insect Pest Management:
- Problem with billbugs on edges of organic field that was next to where corn was the previous year (and next to large ditches where cattails—an alternate billbug host—might be).Billbugs reduced corn stand at these edges by up to 50%.
- Interested in trying the parasitic nematode or the Beauvaria fungus to control billbugs.
- Also, may plant corn earlier next year to get corn seedlings as large as possible before billbugs emerge. This year corn was planted late in order to allow organic corn to have the most warm days to get a good, fast start.
- Cultural control tactics for billbug: change rotation a little (i.e. rotate in larger blocks and with organic fields surrounded by conventional fields).
- Possible soybean insect pest concerns: fall armyworm and velvet bean caterpillar
- will plant Group III beans and plant early to try and avoid these insect pests
Harvesting and storage:
- Harvested corn at about 28% moisture (fairly early) which makes it easier to control mycotoxins.
- Corn was dried (and cleaned) after harvest.
- Farm has ability to store corn until late Feb.-early March, or as long as they can get 40-45 F in tank.
- Willing to use their bins to store other farmers’ organic grain.
Yield:
- Corn: 112 bu/acre in one 25 acre field; 67 bu/acre in field with extensive billbug damage (25 acre field).
- Buckwheat: over 750 bu/acre.
Marketing:
- Selling corn to Braswell Milling.
- Want to sell soybeans to Braswell Milling, too, but need to have them crushed.
- Rose Acres is a large (3 million) chicken layer operation that has located to Hyde County. Because this is such a large operation, there is a demand for corn and soybeans for feed for the layers. A cooperative group of farmers are planning to build an identity-preserved soybean crushing plant in the county. The soybean facility will be able to process organic soybeans and will be a great asset to farmers who want to get into organic grain production. The manure from Rose Acres also can provide a good source of fertilizer for organic crops. The cost of hauling fertilizer from farther away (Nashville), hauling soybeans out-of-state to be processed, and hauling meal back to NC may be too much to make the organic operation profitable and convenient enough to make it worthwhile. Having Rose Acres to provide a local source of fertilizer, and the soybean crushing facility to process the organic beans so that the meal can be sold in-state makes the organic operation much more possible.
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