Breaking ground

This is Carmela Massaro, of Twin Parks Farms with her new puppy, Adelle. Her and her partner, Dean, farm over 800 acres of tillable land south of West Salem, and have been certified organic for 20 years. Their major crops are corn, soybeans and spelt (a low gluten relative of wheat). Her favorite part about farming is getting up in the morning before the rest of the world does. Raising row crops organically is all about mechanical weed control, and she says having equipment problems can be a major setback. Despite the busy row cropping, she is my most enthusiastic and open-minded collaborator. She's never grown pumpkins before, but has a small amount of acreage detached from the rest of her farm that she has generously donated for our experiment. Not only is she planting our pumpkins, but her secluded patch of land will be one of our floral strip sites as well.
This Thursday, Carmella, her farmhand, Mike, and I hand-planted about 400 seeds across 7 rows for our 2010 pollination experiment. Twin Parks is the first of two sites that we will be using this summer to polish our skills in the field before the large-scale experiments take place in 2011 and 2012. This is officially my first research site, ever. I hope it goes well!

Have a good weekend!