Agriculture: Bring it to the Table 2015

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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2015

AGRICULTURE: BRING IT TO THE TABLE

The Northern Virginia Daily

Sustaining the next generation

By Kevin Green MOUNT JACKSON - As longtime producers in the area, Debbie and Allen Sinclair, of The Sinclair Farm, relish a role educating future generations about an ever-evolving world of sustainable farming.

Recently, a senior agroecology class from the Massanutten Regional Governor’s School visited The Sinclair Farm for a hands-on learning experience about sustainable agriculture practices.

Kara Bates, a natural resources ecology teacher at the governor’s school, said, “They’ve learned about what sustainable agriculture is … now this is giving them an opportunity to see a sustainable practice in operation.”

Allen Sinclair, 71, and Debbie Sinclair, 58, own a 25-acre vegetable and produce farm in Mount Jackson where they harvest a wide variety of products, from tomatoes and lettuce to carrots on a year-round basis.

Prior to the class tours, the Sinclairs provided the students an overview of the farm and some of their recent energy efficient practices, which have included new solar panels and a unique Debbie Sinclair leads a group of students from the Massanutten Regional Governor's School in Mount Jackson around the Sinclair Farms in Mount Jackson recently. Rich Cooley/Daily water reclamation system.

“We have a little over 15,000 square feet of green house space,” Allen Sinclair said. “That means that when water hits that top, where is it going to go?”

Chesapeake Bay, the Sinclairs added three concrete water reclamation tanks - that have tubes extending to the green houses - to catch this runoff.

The tanks have the capacity to collect Rather than have the water as added thousands of gallons of runoff water, runoff to potentially further pollute the which Sinclair said they can then use ON THE COVER: Debbie Sinclair, co-owner of Sinclair Farm in Mount Jackson, shows off her hydroponic tomato plants to Massanutten Governorʼs School students, from left, Autumn Wild, 17, of Stanley, Rachel Friedenberg, 17, center, of Mount Jackson, and Maggie Chu, 17, right, of Luray, during a recent tour of the farm. Rich Cooley/Daily

Senior Kinsey Wilk, who was raised on her family’s produce farm in Fort Sinclair noted that the new solar panels Valley, noted after the tour that she have resulted in their monthly energy was impressed with the Sinclair’s water bill being slashed from between $1,300 reclamation system. or $1,600 a month to around $356 per “It’s really interesting. I feel like that month - a cost savings of nearly 75 can be utilized on a much larger scale. percent.

Doing something like this, it really “It’s a great feeling, to be able to show minimized impact,” she said. them, because then it’s real,” Debbie Wilk, 17, is planning on attending colSinclair said. “When you learn about it lege, where she hopes to study enviin a text book ... that’s one thing, but ronmental engineering and establish a when you can walk around and you career in that field, before returning to can feel it, then it connects.” farming. to water their seasonal outdoor crops.

The Northern Virginia Daily

AGRICULTURE: BRING IT TO THE TABLE

“I’m thinking about, throughout college and when I have a career … doing (organic farming) as more of a side project and helping other (community supported agriculture) and other local farmers,” Wilk said.

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Wilk and her fellow classmates are using this visit as a way to develop ideas for a mid-term project of designing a sustainable city. She mentioned after that the tour that they have an idea about local towns using water reclamation systems.

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“They have a lot of innovative practices in place, and a lot of the things that they’ve done, they’ve created themselves or they’ve sought out the experts to get those practices in place,” Bates said.

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Bates added, “We can look at websites and we can look at other resources, but actually seeing it in place impacts them a lot more and they are able to internalize it a lot better.”

Bates added, “Do I have grandiose visions that they’re going to pursue degrees in agriculture? Some of them will, but a majority of them won’t.”

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Kinsey Wilk, 17, of Fort Valley, walks past solar panels at the Sinclair Farm in Mount Jackson recently. Wilk and her fellow students from the Massanutten Regional Governorʼs School in Mount Jackson, toured the facility.

“But we all have to eat, and my hope is The farm has installed 176 solar panels to use for greenhouse that at the minimum, is that … when they’re on their own and making those operations. Rich Cooley/Daily

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choices, that they’ve remembered these “We don’t have that many years left to types of experiences.” make a difference in farming, so we’re For Allen and Debbie Sinclair, tours pushing as hard as we can and educatlike this are a major part of what they ing as many people as we possibly can do as farmers in the Shenandoah about what we consider to be a healthy Valley. way to grow food,” Allen Sinclair said.

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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2015

AGRICULTURE: BRING IT TO THE TABLE

The Northern Virginia Daily

Cover crops a growing practice

By Kevin Green

As farmers looked to find ways to be more efficient, Matt Kowalski, senior conversion specialist at the Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District, said more producers are turning to cover crops.

The practice of cover crops, Kowalski said, is planting any number of species of plants to “cover” the soil and prevent wind and water erosion damage between seasons.

“Cover crops are really taking advantage of getting something green growing on a field that would otherwise be dead and unprotected,” Kowalski said.

“Most of the time, when people talk about cover crop, we often see them talk about winter cover crop,” Kowalski added. “That’s the biggest amount of participation we see.”

Kowalski said that the district has seen upward of 80 or more cover crop applications in a given season from local producers in Shenandoah, Warren, Frederick, Clarke and Page counties.

The practice is something that variety gardeners Lee and Jaz Draper, of Purple Rooster Organics in Edinburg, are experimenting with as they grow their garden.

This past season, Lee Draper said that they used winter rye, clover and alfalfa species on a single acre of their 10-acre farm. The result, Draper noted, was a significant drop in weeds due to the allopathic qualities in the rye that suppressed weed seeds.

Kowalski said that cover crops can also benefit the soil by microelements such as nitrogen and phosphorous, which he said boosts the water quality for crops.

“It’s also an advantage for the farmer,” Kowalski added. “When he comes back the following spring, he can till them in, and then all of that organic material and the nutrients get reincorporated into the soil.”

Once the cover crop season was through, Draper said they used that plot of land to plant sweet potatoes, peanuts and an experimental sweet corn variety.

Lee Draper, of Purple Rooster Organics, surveys a 1-acre plot of land where he and his wife Jaz harvested peanuts, sweet potatoes and corn. Draper planted three varieties of cover crops last winter on this land, and is looking to continue using cover crops this year. Kevin Green/Daily

Although, Draper said that he cannot tell if the use of cover crop resulted in that harvest’s quality given the sample size - he noted that the practice is something they are looking to continually tweak moving forward.

“More and more people are recognizing it advantageous, not just to conservation of their water or to their soil, but seeing it as an advantage to them,” Kowalski said.

For this season, Draper said they have planted rye Kowalski said that installing cover crops can, again along with hairy vetch, which he said could depending on the plant species, cost as much as $100 act a “nitrogen fixer” for his garden. per acre. He noted that the district does provide tax Despite the higher costs of organic seed and work to credit of around 20 percent per acre for farmers. install the plants, Draper indicated that he thinks He estimated that around 25 percent of the row-crop farmers that he is aware of use cover crops in some cover crops make sense for the bottom line of production. fashion.

Although the district has seen a fair amount of signup in previous years, Kowalski also noted that Draper noted that most of those plantings were for their numbers do not account for farmers who indepersonal use - especially the corn variety - but that the crop ended up being of good quality this season. pendently implement cover crops.

“In farming, the percentage of profit is so low, I don’t think you can do without it,” Draper said. “You should look to use cover crops to your advantage, even in conventional farming.”

The Northern Virginia Daily

AGRICULTURE: BRING IT TO THE TABLE

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2015

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Shenandoah working to enhance beer, wine trail

By Kevin Green

Shenandoah County Tourism is working with regional partners to unfurl an expanded beer and wine trail for the Northern Shenandoah Valley, said Director of Marketing and Tourism Jenna French.

etals from resling to drier bordeaux blends.

flavor of the growing conditions that we have here in Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley,” Foster said.

De Mello said that their wines will be on sale and available for tasting for the first Foster added, “The hops are going to be like the grapes in that a cascade hop time when the tasting room opens in grown in the Shenandoah Valley is going November. to taste slightly different than a cascade Muse Vineyards, which was awarded a hop grown in Washington or Oregon.”

The trail - which French noted would be medal in the 2015 Governors Cup, is similar to the Blue Ridge Whiskey Wine also working toward opening a new tast- North Mountain is looking to partner with craft breweries across the region, ing room at its Woodstock-based vineLoop - would look to combine the and even harvested a batch of cascade yard.

Co-owner Sally Cowal noted wineries and craft brewery partners from hops for the Woodstock Brewhouse in recently that it could be open in early Rockingham County and the City of July.

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Harrisonburg.

“We’ve been in talks about some specific branding and titling … so it’s all in the works and we hope that by spring we’ll be able to roll that out officially,” French said.

French said, “In just a handful of years, we’ve grown with the number of vineyards … and I see the breweries really taking off in that direction. There’s such as demand for it.”

Over the past year and a half, Shenandoah County alone has witnessed a rise in craft breweries - between the Woodstock Brewhouse and Swover Creek Brewery - and hop production as well as a growing list of wineries.

This demand is part of that reason that North Mountain Vineyard owners Brad and Krista Jackson-Foster planted hops three years ago - with the goal of targeting home-brew and craft operations.

Within the next six months, this list is going to grow with the addition of tasting rooms to established grape-growers Muse Vineyards and De Mello Vineyards.

California native Ed De Mello, who owns and operates De Mello Vineyards out of Quicksburg with his wife Wendy, noted that they are hoping to have their new two-story, old-style tasting room open in mid-November.

De Mello, who moved from the San Francisco area to the valley more than a decade ago, noted that he established his vineyard in 2007 with the intention of slowly growing and establishing the operation.

A few years ago, De Mello said he realized that simply growing and selling grapes was not financially sustainable.

So he decided to work toward building a tasting room and bottling numerous vari-

Karl Roulston, part owner of the Woodstock Brewhouse, said that they brewed a seasonal wet-hop pale ale similar to its popular Seven Bender from this batch that ended up selling better than anticipated.

Foster noted that, as the Brewhouse becomes more and more popular, they will be looking to expand on the sampling of hops they provided this past summer.

“These smaller craft breweries are looking for local products that will reflect the Ed De Mello noted that he believes the

growth of craft breweries and wineries will be a good thing for the valley in the future.

“We’re really seeing the growth of people taking the next step to our valley, not just stopping in Linden or Winchester, and taking that extra half-hour to get down to the valley,” De Mello said.

“We feel that 10 years this will be the place to go, honestly,” De Mello added.

“Especially with the microbreweries that are coming in there. That’s a huge attraction.”

To aid the branding and marketing of the regional beer and wine trail, French said they will be applying for a $10,000 grant through the Virginia Tourism Corporation in November.

“Really, we look at this program to enable the participants to be able to cross-promote one another,” French said.

“It all comes back full circle, because they’ll be promoting their neighbor … and it helps with the overall economic development.”

Grape harvest boosted for region good growing season overall.

were able to harvest grapes.

After a year of up-and-down weather, the fall harvest for grape producers in the Northern Shenandoah Valley appeared to have ended more positive than previous seasons.

“A lot of our early-maturing stuff came in a little bit early. We were running a week to 10 days ahead of schedule due to the hot and dry summer we had,” Wolf said.

Newcomb helped opened Valerie Hill in 2012, and noted that this season was “a very good” first harvest for the vineyard.

Tony Wolf, professor of viticulture and director at the Alson H. Smith Jr. Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Winchester, said that he would classify 2015 as “a very high quality vintage year” despite some late-season rainfall.

Wolf added, “Some of our white varieties, things like chardonnay … those varieties came in at the end of September and looked really very good. We had some excellent fruit quality.”

By Kevin Green

Tyler Newcomb, co-owner and vineWolf noted that quality in the harvest yard manager of Valerie Hill grapes depended on the specific vari- Vineyards in Stephens City, noted eties, but that the region saw a pretty that 2015 was the first year that they

“The majority of the summer was warm, but very dry - that’s exactly what we as grape growers are looking for,” Newcomb said, noting that he even completed picking his grapes before the Hurricane Joaquin-related rain.

“We were fortunate … my fruit ripened early enough that I didn’t have to worry about some of those SEE GRAPES, PAGE 6

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AGRICULTURE: BRING IT TO THE TABLE

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2015

Grapes from page 5 prolonged rains that we had a couple of weeks ago,” Newcomb said.

For producers like Ron Schmidt, of Cedar Creek Winery in Star Tannery, that extended period of rain did not seem to have a heavy impact on the harvest.

“We had kind of wet weather in the spring, then it was real dry throughout the summer, which was good,” Schmidt said, noting that it “would have been catastrophic for a lot of the wineries” if Hurricane Joaquin had come through the state.

On the same token, Schmidt said, “The fruit that came in before the rain was better than the fruit that came in after the rain, but it wasn’t that bad - at least out here.”

On the late September rain, Wolf said, “We could have done without that, but in hind sight, it didn’t have quite as much impact as we had feared - possibly because the weather was so cool at the time.”

to produce some very good wines off of this year’s grape harvest, noting they have “a good amount of fruit in the cellar.”

“A good problem to have is we’re running short of tank space, but we’ll squeeze it somehow,” Foster said.

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Newcomb noted that they were able to harvest three of the five-planted acres they have at Valerie Hill. He said that he is expecting great quality from the grapes that they are looking to bottle at the vineyard.

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Wolf said, “I think what we’re going to see is some really nice wines coming out of this season.”

Wolf added that the 2015 yields and tonnage of grapes appear to be up from previous years for the state. This could be good news for a bustling Virginia wine industry that is experiencing a shortage of grapes.

As the research center is gearing up for and registering interested parties for a beginning grape grower’s course in November, Wolf said that he is seeing an increased interest in this facet of the Other producers were forced to wrap up their late fall harvests slightly earli- industry. er than expected due to a frost that hit “Some of our established vineyards are the valley last week. expanding and the industry is doing very well,” Wolf said.

Brad Foster, of North Mountain Vineyards, said that they completed “I think there will be continued presmost of their harvest before last week’s sure, though, for Virginia grown fruit frost, but were forced to harvest those in the future, because there’s always grapes earlier than expected. going to be more wineries coming

The Northern Virginia Daily

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