Woody Agriculture Weblog
The Future of The World Is Nuts!(TM)

Posted by Phil Rutter, 6/10/08 at 9:19:11 AM.

As you may recall, we got very very wet on last year's Field Day; in fact the counties around here all wound up as official Federal Disaster areas.

Which did us no good; we lost both our commercial mowers- they were in Rushford for pre-harvest maintenance- and under 10 feet of water, for 3 days. No, you can't fix that.

Did FEMA help? Please. Not a dime. Insurance? Not covered. State of Minnesota? They had good intentions- but it was so late, we were just too exhausted to go begging one more time.

There was one organization that DID help - Sow The Seeds.

http://www.sowtheseedsfund.org/

Basically, these are folks who know us, and cared. Had to fill out about 2 pages of straightforward, non-humiliating questions- and we received $5,500 to help out.

It was/is a huge help. And here is the major outcome; a replacement for the lost Mainline walking-tractor, which we could not otherwise have afforded to buy.

These things are real tractors; designed for small rough farms in Europe, and work in vineyards. The agility of this kind of mower is critical when working around the hazels. And- it's a diesel.

So; the first thing we did, before mowing anything; was add some sacramental hazel oil to the diesel tank.

Works fine, of course; though this particular brand of hazel oil would be just a bit too pricey to use as diesel fuel on a regular basis.

The new walking tractor went on to mow beautifully, for about 9 actual hours of run time that day- and used up about 2/3 gallon of diesel.

That's about the annual yield you might expect from 2 good hazel bushes.

We're expecting a REAL hazel harvest this year; we may have 2-3 TONS of nuts coming on the bushes, and we're going to try to mount a real effort to get them harvested. We're going to need a lot of volunteers- check back here for more info as we get closer.

I can't emphasize enough how important the help from our friends and neighbors, through Sow The Seeds, was.

Thanks, folks. It made all the difference.

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Thursday, May 15, 2008

Quick update- it's been a VERY cool spring, which does slow us in the solar greenhouse; we're short a lot of heat. Not just us: http://www.startribune.com/local/18969734.html?location_refer=Homepage

But- we did start decapitating hazels yesterday- which means the first standard tubelings will start shipping in about 2 weeks. Given normalish weather.

Don't worry that this will make your planting "too late" - we're still well within the good planting windows for standard tubelings.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

The info @ badgersett email service will be significantly slower than usual until mid- to late June, both due to the season and to worker (my) availability. Philip and Meg are both being kept more than completely occupied with the spring planting, both in the greenhouse and in the field. I am buckling down here in Cleveland to get my M.S. project finished up and out of the way, in order to set the stage for finishing my Ph.D. within a year from now. Yes, I know it's silly to be working on both at the same time (and have them be different projects). The circumstances that led to it being that way are silly too; I'll tell you about it if you're interested.

Anyway, I might as well take this opportunity to point out that yes, really, I'm going to be going full-time with Badgersett next June/July, when I finish up my life as a biorobotics engineer here in Cleveland. Though I know from experience that "full-time" is kind of a silly term to use when a farm is involved. "100% effort" is probably more reasonable.

Whatever you call it, I'm looking forward to tackling my real life's work. For those of you who haven't found it, and are interested, I did write a little treatise on why it is that I'll be doing this; you can find a link to it on the personnel page.

In short what I think this means for the company and what we offer, though, is that although our responsiveness will remain slow for about another year, both that and the company in general will be picking up seriously at that time. Of course, with sufficient capital investment it would be possible for us to pick up before then, but in our current severely undercapitalized state, limping along until then is more or less the way it goes. I have to say, our customers tend to understand this and put up with it pretty well. Thanks, guys.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

A good part of the roaring silence you hear from me/us here is the nature of the year- it's cold and wet. According to today's Star-Tribune, as of Sunday, 1% of Minnesota's corn crop has been planted- normal for the date is 27%.

http://www.startribune.com/business/18351594.html

That does affect us, and the growth of the tubelings in the greenhouse. It's slow- and you need to know that your plants are GOING to be later than normal- that's not a probability, it's a fact. Plant growth is well behind normal this year.

One possible help- we do have some unsold Bare-Root Dormant tubelings available; and for folks with orders already in, we'll swap you, if you want. That means- you'd be getting more expensive, older plants, for no extra charge- and you could have them right now.

Email us or call if you're interested!

Another reason for the quiet- we had to let our one remaining employee go- hard times. So it's just the Meg and I doing the work here these days- which was being done by 4 people a few years go. So be patient.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

We've posted a rough outline of this year's short course on the 2008 Short Course page. I'm here holding down the fort while Dad is away for a couple of days finalizing this year's material. This year we're also having the first invited talk; Norm Erickson will be giving a presentation on his planting. It's not on the official schedule, but he's also planning to give a talk on the energy scene Saturday evening.

We are still accepting late registration; if you're thinking you might make it check out Short Course testimonials.