WSU Organic Farm, Pullman, Washington
Brad Jaeckel

Farm Profile: Brad Jaeckel has been the farm manager for the WSU Organic Farm since 2005.  He came to the Palouse with a background in organic vegetable production and has continued to specialize in vegetables, small fruit, herbs, and flower production.  As well as managing the WSU farm he teaches a field course on organic production during the spring and summer semesters.  WSU is currently expanding the farm to a new 30 acre site closer to campus that will increase production, diversity, and teaching capacity.  The WSU Organic Farm has provided research ground for quinoa and other alternative grains for the past three years, fitting these crops into a rotation with the vegetables primarily produced on the farm.  Brad lives in Moscow with his family on Orchard Farm, a small mini-farm which supplies his wife, Kate, with herbs and flowers for her natural body care business.  It is also a testing ground for hoophouse production, small animal trials, and kid friendly gardens.

What we will see: The WSU Organic farm is host to our intercropping trials and breeding line evaluations.  The intercropping trial evaluates interactions in a  multi-species, agroecological approach to growing quinoa in the Palouse.  Two quinoa varieties (Oro de Valle and Cherry Vanilla) are grown in all possible combinations with three intercrop treatments (clover, clover/fescue, and a no-plant control - with medic intercropped along the borders plots just for kicks), under three deficit drip-irrigation regimes. In collaboration with researchers at Brigham Young University, we are evaluating over 700 breeding lines from five populations for agronomic and seed-based traits.  WSU graduate student Hannah Walters, along with special guests Rick Jellen and Jeff Maughan of BYU, will discuss these two trials.  As an added bonus, undergraduate students Josh Gefre and Victoria Barth, and graduate student Adam Peterson will happily discuss their amaranth, millet and perennial wheat trials with any and all interested parties during the post-tour, on-farm Cocktail Hour sponsored by FAIR.Spirits.

Clark Farms, Pullman, Washington

Ian Clark

 

Farm Profile: Clark Farms is a Palouse area family farm that grows primarily wheat and garbanzo beans. Through the decades the family has grown a lot and so has the landbase, now sitting at about 7,000 cropping acres. Everyone in the family seems to have their own ideas on how to run the farm, but somehow every year we all seem to agree enough to seed something...weather permitting. With so many folk and diverse ideas it is hard to really say the farm operates in any single way, but then perhaps that is the very essence of the operation.

What we will see: Clark Farms is located in the heart of the Palouse, a region which boasts some of the highest yielding dryland winter wheat worldwide.  We will have the opportunity to see a 33-entry quinoa variety trial surrounded by 2 acres of Cherry Vanilla quinoa on a marginal field on this conventional family farm.