{"id":4695,"date":"2016-01-11T21:24:26","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T21:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/?p=4695"},"modified":"2016-04-06T11:54:08","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T11:54:08","slug":"farm-focus-vermicompost-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/farm-focus-vermicompost-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Farm Focus: Vermicompost Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"Concurrent to developing our vermicompost program to increase\u00a0our production volume, we\u2019ve conducted field trials to test its efficacy. Last winter we planted 400 of new dapple dandy and flavor\u00a0king pluot trees behind our packing shed. All the trees were treated\u00a0with our thermophilic compost and other organic nutrients to ensure healthy growth and development. Ninety trees also received an\u00a0application of vermicompost directly into the root zone while being\u00a0planted. All trees have been monitored for growth. After one full\u00a0season of growth those treated with vermicompost are taller and\u00a0more robust.\n\nWe\u2019ve also looked at how vermicompost application can help trees\u00a0with poor performance and stunted growth. In 2012 we planted\u00a0about 1,200 peach trees on 6 acres that we acquired from a neighbor. Most of these trees have grown very well with the exception\u00a0of about 200 trees that were planted on a portion of the field that\u00a0had been flooded. The trees in this area are markedly stunted in\u00a0height and branch count. We applied vermicompost to these trees\u00a0and they are improving for the first time in both height and branch\u00a0growth.\n\nEncouraged by these results on our own farm and by numerous\u00a0articles published about the benefits of vermicompost on soil health,\u00a0pest management, and crop productivity, we are excited to expand\u00a0our operation in 2016. This year we hope to double our production\u00a0area. We presently have about 400 feet of windrows and are working on adding an additional 200 feet right now.\n\nWe have some plans for new trials this year as well. More problem\u00a0trees and areas on the farm will be treated with vermicompost. Our\u00a0new acreage will receive applications of vermicompost and thermophilic compost in sequence so we can take advantage of the unique\u00a0properties of both types of biology in order to build soil health before we plant.\n\nChristophe will be busy in the lab conducting biological and chemical tests. We want to be able to tailor our vermicompost for specific\u00a0crops and their needs as well as to work on developing biology in\u00a0our vermicompost to fight specific disease problems.\n\nWe\u2019ll keep you updated on our vermicomposting progress and trials\u00a0as they happen.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Concurrent to developing our vermicompost program to increase\u00a0our production volume, we\u2019ve conducted field trials to test its efficacy. Last winter we planted 400 of new dapple dandy and flavor\u00a0king pluot trees behind our packing shed. All the trees were treated\u00a0with our thermophilic compost and other organic nutrients to ensure healthy growth and development. Ninety trees [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-farm-focus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5HwAU-1dJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4849,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4695\/revisions\/4849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}