Organic Sweet Potato, Heirloom Curcurbit Seed, and Blackberry Production

	Project Leader: Doug Wiley, Tres Rios Agricultural Cooperative, Avondale, CO Technical Advisors: Mike Bartolo, Arkansas Valley Research Center Steve Peters, Seeds of Change, Santa Fe, NM Gary Auld, Food Science and Human Nutrition, CSU Project Year: 2002

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Project Summary

The 2002 growing season was quite challenging. As the severity of the drought became increasingly apparent, cooperating growers were faced with decisions about not planting certain crops or allowing some planted fields to go without water. The uncertainty of the season's water supply created the need for the cooperators to reduce costs where possible and forced the reassessment of the project's objectives and methods. The original idea of soil testing, followed by plant testing, soil amending and foliar feeding was curtailed due to grower budget constraints and severe crop stress in many cases. Therefore, the central soil nutrition part of the project became more focused on analyzing soils and extensive crop observation to determine any apparent deficiencies present on cooperating farms. Two additional Tres Rios member farms, Frost Farms and Larga Vista Ranch, were added to the project to gain baseline data for inclusion in future specialty crop programs. The sweet potato variety trials and heirloom cucurbit seed occurred, but the introduction of blackberries and sweet potatoes in Tres Ríos markets did not occur because of poor shelf life and winterkill.

Click here for the full text of the 2002 Final Annual Report (Word Document).