Virginia Tech

We went to four different labs at Virginia Tech. The first lab was a tissue culture lab. Tissue culture is done to produce plants much more quickly than seeds. Bananas are a fruit that must be grown through tissue culture because they are sterile. They have done many projects with potatoes and potato genome sequencing. Virginia Tech made the specimen to sequence.

Next we went to the plant pathology lab and got to work through some pathology issues. It was really fun to try to figure out what was wrong with each specimen without very much information about the specimen. Some of the specimens allowed us to run a virus test to see if the problem is possibly a virus.

Then we went to the insect collection and saw A LOT of different insects. There were over 700,000 specimens in the collection. The collection is currently at Price Fork Research Center but is going to be moved to another location soon.

Finally we went to the nematode lab and saw how they separated the nematodes from the soil. They have a semi-automatic elutriator that separates the soil from the nematodes. They also have a desktop version scanning electron microscope that allows them to see the nematodes up close and study them.

Potato Farm, David Long

There are 45,000 acres of potatoes grown on the eastern shore. Red Skin potatoes get the best price. Potato chips are sliced thinner and have a higher specific gravity. The superior white potatoes take 95 days to mature. 100 pounds of potatoes makes 12 pounds of chips. They plant the last week of February to early March when the soil temperature reaches 45*F to start growing. The potatoes are harvested the first week of June to the last week of June. 28 days after the vines are killed they let the potatoes sit in the soil to gain skin. 1 acre of potatoes cost $3,200. Diseases are the biggest problem with potatoes. Late blight and the Colorado Potato Beetle are two of the main diseases. Having crop insurance is useful but the government or the agency always gets the better end of the deal.

Valley View Farm

Mr .Phillips tour was my favorite tour of the entire e-term. He knew more about what he was talking about than anyone we met. He is able to work a full time job, be sustainable on his farm, and have a pasture that is so thick you can barely walk through them. He allows 3 acres per cow/calf pair. He doesn't want to be sustainable, he want to be better to sustainable. He has won several forage awards. Instead of trying to increase his herd he has been decreasing his herd to a sustainable number to allow the cows to not need feed through the winter.

He does not sell any hay off of his farm, he keeps all of his forages on his farm for his cows. Rolling out hay is better than keeping it in a feeder because the hay can help reseed the pasture. He practices strip grazing and rotational grazing. He works all of his cows by himself with his one person operated head chute.

There have been no cows bought in 25 years. Mr. Phillips had his own definitions for higher education degrees. B.S. (Bull Shit), M.S. (more of the same), Ph.D. (piled higher and deeper). He doesn't like a disc hay bine he likes the regular old fashion hay bine. He has a bull that breeds everything and does not use fly tags. This man is a genius!!

Mountain View Farm and Vineyard

Mountain View Farm and Vineyard is located in Roanoke,Va and is run by Andy and Megan Siebel. The farm was purchased in the early 1960's. They have 450 acres of grapes, pasture, and hay land. They had dairy but switched to beef and then in 2000 put in the grapes. Megan manages all of the labor, chemical spray, and books for the vineyard. They have 100-120 cow/calf pairs that they A.I. with Angus and breed back to Hereford. They have a total of 20 acres in grapes that produce between 100-80 acres of fruit.

They have 8 different varieties of grapes. The start-up cost per acre is $25,000 and make no money in the first 3-5 years. Finally at 7 years out they break-even. Each vine has 60 feet of roots. They have a large perimeter fence to attempt to keep wildlife out but it doesn't always work. They are not an organic operation and they have contracts for their grapes. The cows do winter graze the  vineyard area.

This was a totally different aspect of agriculture that was very interesting to see. Especially how they harvest the crops.

PolyFace Farm

Polyface Farm was a very interesting visit. Joel Salatin does not use any pesticides, herbicides, dewormers, or antibiotics. He has non-hybrid chickens that live in egg mobiles and follow his cows around to keep them from getting worms. The egg mobiles and cows are moved daily. He has 2 houses and 400 layers in each house. He claims that he can collect eggs from 50 chickens in the same time he can collect eggs from 800 chickens. He also is a self proclaimed "Lunatic".

He has 5 miles of water lines run to water the chickens in the egg mobiles as well as the hogs, and broilers in movable huts. The cow manure did not look healthy is was very green and slimy where it should have been brown and thicker. He feeds non-GMO feed to all of his animals but 15-20% of their feed comes from the pasture. During the winter he puts his layers, rabbits, and pigs in the hoop houses and then uses the bedding from that house to plant his vegetables in the summer. Joel Salatin claims that pink eye, black leg, pneumonia, mastitis, and milk fever are all genetic diseases (they are not in any way, shape or, form genetic)!!!!!!!! He says that out of his 1,000 cows (we maybe saw 25) he only has 2 cases of pink eye each year! He dogged Tyson, Purdue, and Pilgram's Pride chicken.

A cow day is the amount of food one cow will eat in a day. Most average 80 cow days per acre but he get 400 per acre and he has not planted or fertilized in 50 years (no way in hell this is possible). He has a total of 3000 chickens and the broilers are moved everyday. He also feeds his predators and believes that a grey owl will pick up a opossum to save his chickens. The only way to farm is with a "Portable Farm"  (here's where the self proclaimed name comes in real handy). Land value has increased tremendously over time and the land on his farm is worth $8,000 an acre. He only feeds hay 40 days a year where the average is 120. Horses and mules tore up the fields ruined the dirt and now his free range pigs are going to fix it. His death losses are 3-4% for the layers/ 1% for the cows and pigs/ and 6% for the broilers.

Every farmer is responsible for their own locality and we should not worry about the rest of the world, they can take care of themselves.

So this farm did nothing but make me mad and prove how many idiots there are in this world that believe his crap. There is nothing about this farm that I could take back home and it was a waste of money. There is no way he makes a profit off of his farm, maybe off of the farm tours though. Seeing people that wanted to have his autograph and shake his hand even fueled the fire more.

Novozymes

The company goes by: Better Business, Cleaner Environment, and Better Lives. They are the world leader in industrial enzymes and microorganisms. They have half of the world market in enzymes and microorganisms. They employee 5,200 people worldwide. The company is $1.8 billion company with 14% going to R&D. They have 700 products in 130 countries in 30 industries. 60% of their business is related to agriculture. Their three big sections are BioAg, BioPharma, and Biologicals. They do 15 repetitions for each study that they do in the air conditioned, climate controlled greenhouse. They do not do field tests all studies are done in the lab. They have no transgenic plants and all of their products are general use.

This business was somewhat confusing for me but it was an interesting concept behind the research. The random placement in the greenhouse was something else that I was unsure of. Although the plants are in a trial there is no research on how they will preform in the environment without the protection of a greenhouse.

Houff's Seed and Fertilizer

This business started as an unhappy dairy farmer that did not like the quality of the fertilizer and seed company. The farmer started fertilizing for himself through Allied Fertilizer. In the early 80's and 90's the fertilizer business grew and they started a trucking business to help haul the fertilizer. There is a railroad right behind the fertilizer plant so they began to use rail cars to haul as well because it was so much cheaper but the quality is much worse (1 week = 3 weeks). They started retailing Pioneer Seed in the late 80's - early 90's. They are the only distributor for Pioneer in the state. They serve 3 counties (Rockingham, Rockbridge, and Augusta). They have 250 direct customers but serve many others as a distributor. Danny Clindan is the Seed Manager at the plant. The deliver to the companies within 24 hours of the order hitting his desk. The mother plant is in Laurinburg, NC.

They started doing seed treatments 4 years ago and now treat over 35,000 bags of seed each year. 7 years ago only 2% of soybeans were treated and now that is up to 80%. The treater can run through one cycle in 10 minutes. They can do up to 2 trailer loads a day. They store all of the liquid fertilizer outside in big tanks and store all of the chemicals inside. The average field size that they cover is 7.5 acres. They are starting to move into the dry fertilizer business and already have a bio-solids business.

They also store salt for VDOT in large buildings. The farms do not have to pay for the bio-solids, the plant that is getting rid of them pays to have them taken away and disposed of. The application rate depends of the type of field being sprayed and the crop that is on that field.

This business shows how one business can lead to another and then another. There are always opportunities you just have to go for it.