Project Title: Amish Vegetable Grower Season Extension Training Workshop Round 2 (2004)  

Project Leader: Karen Delahaut

Situation:  Since the initiation of the first produce auction – Central Wisconsin in Withee in 1999, two other auction sites have been established: Cashton in 2001 and Badgerland in Montello in 2003. The auctions provide a wholesale outlet for a geographically isolated clientele that has limited mobility as a result of their lifestyle. Because unlike their retail counterparts, wholesale growers don’t have the opportunity to interact with their customers their standard of quality must be higher to reduce the likelihood of rejection by the produce buyers due to previous experiences with low quality produce.

Since price premiums are often associated with “out of season” produce, many fresh market growers are looking to add season extension to their farming operation to capitalize on the early and late season markets. As a result, many growers have erected greenhouses, hoop houses, and high tunnels in which to grow plants and produce for sale.

The audiences for this project are Amish and Mennonite communities in the Clark, Columbia-Marquette, and Monroe-Vernon County areas. However, despite the agricultural background of the Amish and Mennonite population, the area of vegetable, fruit, and bedding plant production is new and they are having difficulty ascending the learning curve. To further complicate things, growing vegetables in greenhouses is much different than growing the same vegetables outdoors. Spring is often wrought with problems ranging from attempts to heat greenhouses with wood stoves to water quality and pH issues, to improper cultivar selection that results in poor quality produce that, in some cases, is unmarketable.

Response: A series of three workshops, one in each produce auction location were conducted to address the issues identified as listed above. Knowledgeable speakers in the various topic areas presented information that would assist the growers in becoming better, more profitable farmers.

Results: One hundred seventy-eight growers were educated at the workshops. Participants learned to increase the marketability of greenhouse-grown produce and improve their greenhouse production skills. This was accomplished through a series of winter educational seminars held in the locations of the three produce auction sites. Invited speakers addressed issues unique to this group of growers such as heating and ventilation without electricity or gas; water quality and low-tech irrigation options; fertility and soluble salts management; and the selection of cultivars appropriate for greenhouse production.

Follow-up spring site visits and open discussions at the auction sites were held to address their specific situations and concerns as well as to see how they have implemented what they learned at the winter seminars.

A post-workshop evaluation was conducted of all participants to determine if they gained knowledge during the session.

Some of the key specific responses to the question “What four ideas taught today will help you most as a grower?” include hoop house production, solar greenhouse techniques, variety selection for early maturing greenhouse and in-field crops, greenhouse IPM, beekeeping, and mulching.