Farmers can’t change the weather, but they may be able to increase the chances of their crops succeeding in spite of winds like the ones the region experienced earlier this month. Or rain and floods like those of last summer. Or the persistent plant diseases that can seem to plague the fields.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst has received a $179,000 grant for a three-year project to help vegetable farmers withstand extreme climate conditions and other problems through changing the way they till their fields. The effort is funded by Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), an agency of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The joint project between UMass Extension, Cornell University and vegetable growers in Massachusetts and New York will study “deep zone tillage,” a method researchers hope small farms can use to resist wind and water as well as plant diseases such as Phytophthora capsici, a soil-borne plant pathogen particularly destructive to cucumbers, squash and related vegetables.

Last year, many Massachusetts vegetable growers lost as much as 100 percent of particular crops, with flooded fields and plant disease problems contributing to their problems. A grower of hybrid tomatoes who lost half of a crop could have had financial losses of more than $10,000 per acre last year, according to USDA’s Farm Services Agency.

Ruth Hazzard, Extension vegetable specialist at UMass Amherst, says that the grant will help farmers take advantage of the new techniques, not yet widely used here, by adapting them to the unique conditions of the smaller vegetable farms of the area. The technique involves shallow tillage of a narrow zone along each crop row while slicing deeply through compacted layers underneath the row, leaving most of the field unturned, and assisting crops to survive both drought and flood. Conventional plowing leaves the soil bare for several weeks each spring, so strong winds can carry soil away.

Several western Massachusetts farmers have begun to use deep zone tillage this growing season, including Plainville Farms and Lazy Acres Farm in Hadley and Warner Farm in Sunderland. Allan Zuchowski of Lazy Acres says he first learned about the technique at last year’s annual UMass Field Day for vegetable growers. Although the results of this year’s experiments won’t be known until later in the growing season, he reports that he’s “pleased with the science” of the new technique.

The grant will help UMass Amherst and Cornell to fund equipment, tests, educational programs and publications as well as to pay portions of the salaries of researchers and technicians involved in the project over the three-year period. UMass Extension and the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station at UMass Amherst will provide specialized equipment to be loaned to some of the participating growers to allow them to try the new techniques.

Kathleen M. Carroll
UMass Extension
Director, Agriculture & Landscape Program
University of Massachusetts
104 French Hall -230 Stockbridge Road
Amherst, MA 01003
kcarroll@umext.umass.edu
413-545-0895 fx 413-577-1620
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