Transcript
Plant People: Fun fact, we listened to that intro as we talk, ah get ready for the podcast, and it'll never not feel weird to hear myself do that intro. But anyways, welcome Hort Culture, y'all.
Brett: I didn't hear the intro.
Plant People: Shut up.
Brett: I promise I didn't. I promise you I did not hear it.
Plant People: Oh, you didn't? Oh.
Brett: we can We can add it in.
Plant People: Well, I don't know.
Brett: We can add it in after. It's not a problem, but...
Plant People: Well, I heard it, and I usually hear it on, when we record, so um don't know what that's about, but...
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: ah
Brett: Everything else looks fine, so I'm sure it's fine.
Plant People: ah As you can probably figure out by this point, we are filling in for Ray and Jessica who are out ah for, again, various reasons, various wonderful reasons, ah but they will be back with us soon.
Plant People: And I am covering the technical part of things and or if nothing goes wrong, it is my fault. So ah we're we're rolling with it. Rolling with the punches here, guys, because that's what hort culture is. Just rolling with the seasons, rolling with the punches.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: It kind of felt like you slipped into like a sales kind of pitch energy there for a second.
Plant People: I've got my marketing energy today, like, going.
Brett: Yeah, I can I can see that.
Plant People: Yeah. It's all about how how do I say...
Brett: what How come? What do you think? What do you think that where do you think that's from? Hmm.
Plant People: I'm still just ah reeling on, you know, the the past season of trying to get things out the door. And well, we've I got to teach. I think I've talked about this already.
Plant People: But, you know, then I taught my first like CCD marketing course this, you know, kind of last quarter. And that was really exciting.
Brett: What did you teach about? Where were you teaching it? How many people? How excited were they?
Plant People: Now that you've asked, I've like immediately forgotten everything. ah But, oh, it was mark ah choosing your market. So like market opportunities, exploring markets.
Brett: Like exploring markets, thinking about those.
Plant People: You know, are you a wholesale girly or are you a retail girly?
Brett: Bullitt County.
Plant People: Like what are we talking about? And I was in Bullitt County. So shout out to Nathan. We appreciate you. And I had over 20 people, I believe. So um and they so they hung with me for a solid two hours.
Plant People: uh bless their hearts and they they also hung out afterwards which i think means that i did a good job because they had lots of questions after so
Brett: People tell me I have a a voice for retail and a face for wholesale. i don't know what that.
Plant People: because because in wholesale you're like a stern businessman and you have that you have a good businessman face that's what it is
Brett: Oh, I see. Yeah. They, yeah, not because they wanted to keep me in the back. at the this is The loading dock is where we, as far as close as you want to, we want you to get to get to customers.
Plant People: No. No.
Plant People: Not at all. We all know that's not true.
Brett: Well, so I have a little a little mini hack ah that i It's not really that big of a hack, but...
Plant People: Ooh.
Brett: Um, so we've recently, or this past year we planted some trees like fresh new trees and in the ground.
Brett: I need to qualify that for myself because all of my other ones are in little tiny pots, but they're in the ground.
Plant People: Yes, for you, it's important.
Brett: And, um, I was trying to figure out a way we've talked about before with trees. Like you, you kind of want to give them a slow, gradual watering, but deeply periodically.
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right?
Brett: And so they sell these like tree bag things where you can fill up these things and you, it's like a donut shape, kinda you put it around the tree and then it'll slowly drip out water.
Brett: You can also obviously get drip drip tape.
Plant People: Leak.
Brett: And i'm I'm not an overly frugal person, but I've been trying to challenge myself to not buy new things if I can try to figure out something else just for various various reasons.
Plant People: Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Same.
Brett: And so i I had this old um brewing bottling bucket from when I was brewing beer.
Plant People: Okay.
Brett: If you're not familiar with that, it's also, what's that?
Plant People: I remember that phase of your life. I remember that phase of your life.
Brett: Yeah, it was a different time. And so it's it's like this got a little spigot on it. um People will actually use them for like a hand washing station sometimes at farmers markets for sampling or whatever.
Brett: And i was like, you know what? I'm going to use this. And so I take the little bucket out there. i sit it at the edge of where i'm goingnna where I'm going to water, like on the mulch thing, fill it up with some water.
Plant People: yeah
Brett: And then I just turn that spigot on so that it just lets out a little bit of water, just a little flow.
Plant People: I love it.
Brett: Thank you.
Plant People: Look at that. It's only in one spot. Are you moving the bucket around occasionally?
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: Like, or every time you water, it's a different side of the tree.
Brett: Yeah, different side of the tree each time.
Plant People: Okay.
Brett: it's They're pretty small trees.
Plant People: Yeah. yeah They're not blueberries, so it's not as important.
Brett: Correct. Correct. And ultimate like.
Plant People: Blueberries have no root hairs if anybody was interested.
Brett: Brazilian Brazilian waxed blueberry roots.
Brett: um
Plant People: That's one way to think about it.
Brett: Yeah. It's <unk> how I'm thinking about it. That's how I'm choosing to think about it.
Plant People: That's how we all are going to think about it from now on.
Brett: But but yeah, I um i What else is I don't know if there's anything we were we talking about what's going on with us right now.
Plant People: Were we? um i was just saying like some of the things that I have been up to this past quarter and that was one of an exciting thing with CCD that I've been up to.
Brett: Mm, that's right. That's right. That's right.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah. And you've now the CCD team, the rest of the CCD team has been up to something pretty cool. We've talked a little bit about, but like, I feel like we should brag a little bit more.
Brett: So this is we're just sort of blending our normal our normal structure of intro and the thing. Oh,
Plant People: Yes. Why not?
Brett: man. Ray and Jessica leave and it's just chaos.
Plant People: If you're watching...
Brett: Alexis is just, I'm not giving her enough structure to push back against.
Plant People: What structure? What is structure? who who
Brett: Yeah, I know.
Plant People: It's just a concept.
Brett: What did you say last episode?
Plant People: Time is just a concept.
Brett: Something like, buy the book? And I was like, mm-mm.
Plant People: Just because you can doesn't mean you should, remember?
Brett: Yeah. So, so to, to, so we're talking to, we want this episode to be a little bit of an informal reflection on the first part of the year, both the growing and weather and all that kind of fun stuff, but also a little bit about what's stuff that's coming from us from CCD.
Brett: um And maybe stuff that you're seeing right now in your plants or in your markets, that is a product of this last little bit, little period of time.
Brett: Does that sound like a, what we talked about?
Plant People: yeah yeah so yeah it can be you know a little bit of what you might be seeing in your garden ah as well as yeah what kind of just some cool stuff and stuff we've been working on that's coming up which i am finding exciting and i'm forcing myself to find exciting because right now it's just stressful
Brett: Yeah.
Brett: Yeah. Yeah. Well, so you were, you were offering a, I don't know what the term in improv is, but ah some sort of thing that I was supposed to pick up that I instead just dropped.
Brett: Um, yes, we have been as there's probably some cool term.
Plant People: A segue. I was offering you a segue.
Brett: If they have any improv people, just let us know.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: Um,
Plant People: drop it in Drop it in the comments. Five stars.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: This is what you should you should have said
Brett: Handback or something. I don't know. But, um, the, we, we've had a program for a number of years, uh, called marketing for all, which is this training program for marketers.
Brett: And the idea is that it kind of is one Oh one two ah one level content. And we've been doing it since 2017, uh, in different format forms and formats. And this past year, um,
Brett: um My colleagues came up with the idea and have really you know owned it. i I had started the program originally, but they've really taken it to this next level.
Brett: We did this six-week session and it was... ah two weeks in February, all of March, and then two weeks in April with the same between 12 and 15 people in the same place each week.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: So each there was six sessions. There were two hours each across this whole six week window. and We covered all of these different topics um related to branding and marketing and some of the technical side on photography and graphic design and that kind of thing.
Brett: And it was a really cool, rewarding experience. um One that I know last last episode, we talked a little bit about how, ah you know, in a bouquet of peonies, you're seeing something that was started as a rhizome or whatever, three years before maybe, or
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: a seed for other things, a seed six months before. In that case, it was a grant that was written in January of 2024 was what funded and then led to the, so we had those cycles in and this this crazy weird academic and nonprofit world as well.
Plant People: yeah
Brett: um but But it was a really cool, lot of hard work, a lot of energy and and thought, and and we have a lot of good evaluation stuff that we're going to be able to use to even improve it a little bit more. But that was a big part of um our initial push. Usually stuff kicks off for us right after or pretty close after the ah the new year with the fruit and vegetable conference. But we didn't have that.
Brett: this We didn't up having that this year, Alexis. What ended up happening?
Plant People: yeah that a big old ice storm came through and we were like we can't ask people to drive hours and hours to a conference uh that is not safe so we pivoted hard and i think it was the first cancellation ever in the what 30 years has been going on 20 years something like that the fruit and vegetable conference has been happening but It was absolutely the right move there. So we we pivoted online into videos.
Plant People: ah So that was that was an interesting take. And one thing... Yeah. any thoughts Any thoughts on like that from fruit and veg? I mean, that it just feels like it was a year ago, even though it was a couple months ago.
Plant People: And we're still like looking at data and planning based on that. Like we just the cut flower working group ah extension group met. today actually and talked about you know what we saw based on the videos we did and the zoom talks that we did to kind of like make up for that with people and what we want to do pushing forward so like we're already planning for next january for that based on feedback and you know more feedback we want to get but so that's sort of where i'm thinking but it feels like that was ah literally a year ago and it was just a couple months
Brett: I mean, it is it is May, almost June, almost half a year ago.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: I feel like I'm in, ah we've kind of completed what we needed to get through and now we're back into planning stage. I feel like that's where I, and I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of being at, starting at CCD.
Plant People: So ah this is my first, ah first experience as a CCD person in
Brett: Woo.
Plant People: And that's been interesting, but I'm planning, I'm excited. and I want to tell you, I'm just going to jump the gun. So um mechanical weed control field day, the first Kentucky mechanical weed control field day, which is based off of a field day in the Midwest. That's been happening for many years that ah I was able to go with some other technical advisors from and and take some farmers and some cool people up there thanks to some SARE monies. So thank you, Brett and SARE, for those monies.
Plant People: ah But we were able to go up and see some really cool, ah you know, equipment that people can use, whether they're organic or not, ah for weed control. And I mean, we saw everything from like, you know,
Plant People: $100,000 plus ah robots that weed your fields, really large tractors all the way down to just some new cool hand tools that are available. And we said, you know what?
Plant People: We have a lot of new growers. We have a lot of, you know, mid to experience growers who maybe are ready to level up, but need more help in the, you know, they want to level up, but they don't have enough people or funding for to hire more people for weed control, stuff like that.
Plant People: And we want to focus on specialty crops instead of because we also saw, you know, things for corn. So we are doing the Kentucky Mechanical Weed Control Field Day on September 23rd at the Horticulture Research Farm in Lexington. And we're going doing lot of I am putting a shameless plug out there that if you are interested in that, we are going to have, it'll be an all day thing. We'll have lunch available.
Plant People: ah So in the future, I'm working on getting a registration page up. ah You can sign up and register and we'll we'll drop that in the show notes in the future. But if that sounds cool to you and you'd like to know what's available out there from hand tools all the way up to, ah you know, some larger four wheel tractor devices for specialty crops, um we are going to have...
Plant People: ah field day that you can come like see all that stuff you can try a lot of that stuff as well and I'm just I'm really excited about that and I've got a cool team I'm working with to plan so shameless plug what look at September
Brett: why Why might someone want to mechanically control weeds?
Plant People: because um yeah yeah
Brett: When you say control weeds, you mean kill them or generally slow them down to such an extent that they don't become a problem for you?
Plant People: yeah
Plant People: Yeah, yeah, because
Brett: And then you are going to do it mechanically. What is that like? You're just sort of going in through the motions, no light in your eyes anymore. You know, it's just a mechanic or is there something? I don't know. What does that mean?
Plant People: mechanical ah versus like spraying.
Brett: And why would you might maybe want to do it
Plant People: So yeah a lot, you know, specialty crops cannot be sprayed the same way that, you know, we have Roundup ready corn and soybean, for example, right? so you can spray Roundup right on those and kill all the weeds around them, but you don't kill your your crop.
Plant People: You don't have that in specialty crops, watermelon, vegetable, flower, whatever. ah So you got to do weed control somehow. So you can use something like black plastic,
Plant People: You can use mulches. ah There's lots of different ways. But when it comes down to it, doesn't really matter what form you're using. You're going to do some sort of weed control. and And in our world, I think a lot of it ends up being by hand, at least for a lot of cut flower farmers. I know a lot of it is by hand.
Plant People: Yeah. which is a form of mechanical for sure. But if you're wanting to elevate that, to maybe a walk behind tractor like a BCS or a Grillo, or you know maybe you're at a couple acres and you're wanting to cultivate those weeds in between ah your rows. So you've got two rows of lettuce,
Plant People: of head lettuce in in a bed and you can ah use a ah something called a finger weeder or a basket weaver to get right up close to those plants and kill all the weeds right up close to them but not the plant itself. And so It's very helpful for people who are maybe wanting to expand an operation in a way that makes sense for them without a bunch of people.
Plant People: So that would be why I would recommend mechanical weed control. And again, it could be like, we'll have we'll have people bringing some really cool new hoes. ah So it doesn't have, you don't have to be at the scale that you want a four wheel tractor, but maybe one day you would, or a two wheel tractor even.
Plant People: If you're just at a walk behind will hold wheel hoe stage, We'll have some of that. We'll also talk a little bit more about like solarization and things that you can do that don't even necessarily ah require something with a wheel on it to to help with. So I'm very excited. We're planning. It's pretty crazy right now.
Brett: That was a really good fill while my microphone exploded, microphone stand exploded. um
Plant People: Did it just like, did you move it or I was trying not to watch you and lose track of what I was saying?
Brett: I was like making a slight adjustment to it and the bass just was blew up. So um yeah, I think that I do think that weed control is like one of those keystone issues of sustainable agriculture moving forward, I think it's one of the, I won't call it dirty little secret, but one of the unspoken tricky things with organic agriculture, for example, is that, you know, herbicides just logistically are a pretty elegant solution to a lot of weed problems.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And,
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: In general, if you're not doing mechanical weed control, even if you, i mean, even if you are, you're not doing automated or, or, you know, higher level, you are probably paying a laborer to go out and remove the weeds in some way, or you're using a lot of plastic to block the weeds from germinating, both of which have sustainability related concerns we'll say.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And so I think it's, it's a real, go ahead.
Plant People: Or you're, yeah, or you're tilling the soil like a lot and we all know how that is for, you know, microbiomes.
Brett: Hmm.
Brett: We don't all know.
Plant People: Oh, well, that's a whole other episode now, Brett. So we've talked about soil before, but.
Brett: Yeah, but there are there are people who would be critical and concerned about a lot of tillage and its impact on the soil structure, including the microbe micro and macro life within the soil.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: Fair to say?
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Brett: So maybe we can do a hot button issue ah episode later on, including one talking about tillage.
Plant People: I that's yeah that's a fascinating one I love that we should bring on Sarah from oak and get her kind of point of view so she works with a lot of organic farmers who are very concerned about their soil health and kind of ways they mitigate that while still having to do tillage because they can't use herbicides or they want to use less plastic because again sustainability issues of it all so organic and sustainable are not always synonymous although that is the goal I would say for yeah
Brett: Right.
Brett: yeah There's so many, yeah. So many interesting tensions there.
Plant People: Nobody at me for that. I said that that is the goal, but it's not always synonymous, okay?
Brett: Yeah. I think anyone who's realistic, anyone who's realistic and serious about the conversation would acknowledge that for sure. um
Plant People: It goes goes all the ways.
Brett: Yeah. I think, well, and like within organic certified organic standards, almost all of the systemic herbicides are not allowed. And so, so organic producers don't have the option of going out and spraying some
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: dicamba or some roundup or two 40 or whatever it may be, um, onto, and they're also the genetic engineering component of a roundup ready corn or soybeans or whatever, again, not allowed.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: Therefore, as a result, you can't, you can't do the same thing.
Plant People: Right.
Brett: And so that that's part of the reason why the partnership with Oak, but it's also something that is really, really useful and, um, a smart thing for any producer pretty much to be thinking about.
Plant People: Oh, yeah.
Brett: And in Kentucky, we we have so much water that like we had weeds are a major issue for us that, you know, it's, i would say, yeah, bath is bad.
Plant People: Mm-hmm. bad. It's real bad. And it comes up through the plastic a lot of times. Like there's nothing worse than you lay beautiful plastic, which is a feat in itself.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: You know, if anybody has ever had to or have seen, you know, the plastic rose and you plant everything in it and it's looking great. And like two weeks later, yellow nutsedge is popping its way up through.
Plant People: busts through because it's so pointy it'll bust right through that plastic and you just look down the row beautiful beautiful and then it's like hair has just grown ah practically overnight in your in your plastic bed and it is so frustrating and I don't know if you all ever had that at the farm but that I've seen some things and it's just
Brett: Hmm.
Brett: Well, so so the one I believe it's the CSA fields at the the organic CSA fields at the farm before they became certified organic.
Plant People: mmm
Brett: And even before when they were used for other reasons in the past, a number of years ago, they were historically used, I believe, as the like weed control test fields.
Plant People: Oh no.
Brett: And so they would literally so noxious weeds in that field to then test and see if herbicides or different, you know, mechanism, whatever worked.
Plant People: Oh.
Plant People: Right. Which is great. Like that's a needed research. Like by all means.
Brett: Yeah, but if you're talking about an area that you cannot subsequently then use herbicide on and you're trying to grow vegetables, it's a whole thing.
Plant People: Oh, wow. I, I did not know that. So, uh, more, even more props given to the CSA crew who manage it.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: ah
Brett: Yeah, i believe that I believe that I was told that or maybe just confirmed that by J.D.
Plant People: but Bless their heart.
Brett: Green, who would know.
Plant People: ah The weed specialist or was the weed specialist.
Brett: the Yeah, he was the he was the guy.
Plant People: He retired after 30 plus years.
Brett: And so, yeah, he was like, oh, yeah, a long time ago, he used to do this.
Plant People: So. And then laughed and laughed as they tried to control the weeds.
Brett: Dang, JD, I didn't know. um Yeah, so let's see. ah Well, this this year, I mean, 2025 is the anniversary of the the u k ccd
Plant People: Holla!
Brett: known as known by several different names across time. But we hopefully if you follow the the Center for Crop Diversification on on Facebook or on Instagram, you've seen some of the posts celebrating things or explaining some of our backstory or some of the people who used to work here.
Brett: um We've been doing that. We've been, we're also going to be putting together, or we have been working with our ag communications folks to put together a video. um We're going to have a little bit of a,
Brett: party for for us and some of our partners to celebrate.
Plant People: It's mostly for us.
Brett: oh Yeah, mostly for us.
Plant People: Hmm.
Brett: So that, mean but that's, and and and at the end of last year, we did a, in in this is this is something where I didn't know the term in improv, but in the term, ah in the world of web design, they would call it a sprint where we we ah had everybody kind of working and pushing toward developing the new CCD website.
Plant People: sir
Brett: which is launched. And so if you haven't gone on there and checked it out yet, it's ccd.uky.edu.
Plant People: And it's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.
Brett: And what's your, what's your fit? Like a lot of it's similar. there's so We didn't want to get rid of any of the things that were useful about the old format, but they were updating the, like the type, the the system that we use, the Drupal platform.
Brett: And so we had to, had to update or they would delete it.
Plant People: We had to get a new, yeah, yeah.
Brett: Um, but so what's, what are you most, what are you most excited about as far as some of the, any of the new stuff on that?
Plant People: I really love, as a person who like likes to have you know information kind of quickly and at my fingertips to compare before I like do a hyperfixation on something, I really love that we pulled out some infos like specifically on the crops, but also on the markets. kind of I mean, crops, markets, a bunch of this stuff of...
Plant People: Just the highlight, like the elevator speech of whatever that thing was. And what I mean to say is, um and we base this off of if you had taken the Hort Biz quiz, we talk about land, labor, capital. And so like what crop would be right for you based on the amount of land, labor, capital that you might have.
Plant People: And so we sort of pulled out these highlights and maybe that's something we'll, we can screenshot and use on the Instagram, but ah of, you know, if you want to go look up watermelon, kind of right on that page, very simple.
Plant People: hey, if you have plenty of area and blah, blah, blah, and these types of markets, watermelon is for you. And so before you spend a lot of time looking into the budgeting of it and, you know, all of the things that go along with watermelon, you can see up front, you know,
Plant People: if you have enough land labor capital for something like watermelon, as well as like some disadvantages of it, you know, how much space it takes up or the markets that you have to hit for it, you know.
Brett: Thank you.
Plant People: um If you like Asian vegetables is a great one that we have ah some info on. And, you know, one of the things we say is if you're not in a very like urban diverse market,
Plant People: sales can be hard for something like that. And so, you know, right up front, oh, well, I live in a rural area. So ah maybe that's not the crop for me. And so I just like that we had done something like that personally from the way I've used the site in the past.
Brett: Yeah, i
Brett: I really like.
Plant People: There's a lot of cool things, but i that one comes to mind.
Brett: Yeah, I really like the way that like the new dynamic content has been working. um So we have these like, i guess we call them news stories.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: They're kind of like a blend. Some of it's news. Some of it is. almost like a blog post, sometimes it's just featuring a particular resource, or it's, you know, something along those lines. And, and then those those come together to form a newsletter, but it just allows it to me, it feels like a much more um modern approach to updates and information.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: that it's We still have our newsletter that you can sign up for to get every month um via email. And you can still follow us on social media and get updates there.
Brett: You can go to the site and you can see the stuff there. And all three of those work together to share information and in a way that that it's like, we tell people to do this for their businesses.
Brett: And now we are actually doing the thing that we say, which feels nice.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Brett: ah
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: and And it just, the old, the old platform didn't really work for that. And we are at the mercy of whatever's available to us from the university.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: But um yeah, that's the thing about that.
Plant People: Yeah, and it it does use a voice to something, like because, you know, the members of CCD are usually the ones writing it.
Brett: I'm,
Plant People: And so I might, you know, for me, I might be talking about the irrigation videos and the irrigation stuff that, yeah, you could just go click on that page and and follow along. But it's sort of like me giving a voice to like, if you're doing this, I love using this publication or i this is ah this video was really is really helpful for specifically this kind of stuff.
Plant People: Yeah. And, you know, an occasional cute picture of my dog might pop up ah as part of the irrigation a photo so ah or the cover crop photo or whatever it is. But ah yeah, I like I like that. It feels a little bit more um in tune with that. We work with people um and we talk to people and I feel like it talks to people better.
Brett: Yeah. Well, in, um I guess in January or February, we did, you know, that's conference season. There's a lot of different conferences we were at.
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: We went to the Oak Conference and did a really cool presentation with ah Chelsea from High Five and Kayla from the Kentucky Flower Market about visual merchandising approaches and just kind of for the real world.
Brett: That was really cool and fun. um And then a couple, maybe about a month later, a little more so more than a month later, we we went to the the Kentucky Extension Conference.
Plant People: Oh yeah yeah, we did.
Brett: that was the And that was the second one, I think.
Plant People: Showed up and showed out.
Brett: Yeah, the second one that we that I had been to. um And we led a couple of sessions, participated in a bunch more. What did you talk about? what did you all talk about
Plant People: ah
Brett: or yeah we we were on the left We were on a thing together. What did we talk about?
Plant People: we yeah i would say ah We as a CCD team presented. ah so The CCD team talked about ah ways that we are planning to fit with agents to basically better support them in the county so they can support their growers like boots on the ground. so Just ah you what we can do to help them further their knowledge and their programming and ways that we can fit in to just kind of like help out. like think like Like that Market Ready you talked about.
Plant People: you know, ways that this can fit into their plans of work and how they can provide that and how to get in contact with us. So ah it was more of talking about how Extension works sort of as a whole and specifically CCD, but how the that gets, you know, back to the people from the from campus and back to the people on, you know, actually doing the work. And so and That's what we talked about. And then Savannah and I, Savannah ah has been on an episode before and she's a member of our CCD team, joined a couple other extension folks in the cut flower world, just kind of talking about the Kentucky industry, how it's grown, how it's changed, what's coming and you know, what we're doing about it. And, you know, got some feedback as again, from those agents actually in the counties working with farmers on what they're hearing as being, you know, needed and valuable.
Plant People: So that was pretty cool. There was a bunch of really great sessions. um I did feel pretty motivated after hearing some of the other things that people are doing. ah Just the great work that is out there um to support and how we can work together.
Plant People: That was good.
Brett: So as far as, you know, we we work supporting, um, a, a culture and an industry and, uh, communities that work with plants, most of which live outside.
Plant People: yeah
Brett: And as a result, they, and we are, are beholden to the weather. How would you, how would you comment on 2025 weather wise, like for, you know, for our grower community,
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Yeah. Well, I can tell you i had a talk with a a commercial grower today about botrytis, which is a disease ah that hits.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: It's a fungal disease that we see. We tend to see in high tunnels because it likes humidity and it you know it likes wet, but we're seeing it everywhere, inside, outside.
Plant People: inside And at times of year that we don't normally see it too bad. And that's because it's been a very wet spring and it's been a cooler spring than normal. um I guess maybe not normal. I did say, i have said in the past, it it was a very respectable spring.
Plant People: And it was, but the part about it was that we did have so much weather so consistently. ah You know, it was like every day it rained and it rained a lot. And so a lot of things were flooded.
Plant People: You know, people had cropped fresh crops in the ground. They got washed away or they rotted. ah Or if they were something that's been in ah they all got disease or are getting disease problems. and So we're kind of seeing that the end of that because it's starting to warm up and a lot of diseases actually thrive in a little bit of those slightly cooler temperatures. So kind of in the 70s is where they really, really thrive.
Plant People: So yeah, I would say that um if you have been to the farmer's market and you're wondering why something hasn't been available or ah maybe doesn't look the way it normally does, the weather was actually not as cooperative from a precipitate, mostly from a precipitation factor ah this year as it normally is.
Brett: Yeah. And for, for some folks well within our state and within our listening radius, which is the entire world.
Plant People: Duh.
Brett: But for some people like to say, to say that there it's been wet is a,
Plant People: Understatement.
Brett: an understatement, you know, like we had some historic flooding in areas of Frankfurt and some places in Eastern Kentucky and Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky continues to have these kinds of cycles of flooding and issues there.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: um So like, yeah, I would say rain has been a big part of the spring story.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: I think last like last winter to me was, it was quite cold and we had like, it got colder earlier and
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Plant People: you
Brett: um But on the flip side, this spring, with the exception of a couple of days in April, we didn't really have a lot of bad cold Right.
Plant People: Yeah, it wasn't like the wild temperature swings that we tend to see where it's like 85 degrees one day and then it drops to, you know, 40 the next day, which I'm not exaggerating.
Plant People: For those of you who live in Kentucky know I'm not exaggerating.
Brett: Right.
Plant People: But if you're not from here, that is a legit thing that happens in in spring. um which is really hard on some of those spring crops. And it's hard on the growers because they're harvardve having to harvest really fast if they even are able to harvest everything. And then, yeah, it's wild. And, you know, we've talked about apples and just the cycle is weird. But yeah, it was a little bit more consistent. Like it just kind of stayed cool.
Plant People: um And we're just getting us kind of a more gradual warmup, which has been nice. But yeah, I would say, You're going to, in your garden, like if you've had anything in the spring, it could be even be your bedding plants, some of your perennial plants. um you're going If you haven't already, you might start to see some signs, um not signs, symptoms of...
Plant People: ah disease pressure because that they've already taken part. They're probably going dormant. Once it gets too warm, they shut those diseases. A lot of them, not all, but a lot of them will shut down.
Plant People: And so, but you're going to see the damage and you're going to see it kind of later. And so often there's nothing you can do about it. at that time. you got ah It's a preventative type thing. So that's just kind of to warn you that it's out there and it's happening.
Plant People: Some of those spring things might lose a lot of their leaves you know before July. So don't panic.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: It's probably going to be okay.
Brett: And, and in some like with a year like this year, especially in some places, there's almost nothing you could have done anyway. Like it's because it's just so much water so frequently that anything you're putting on that's protective other than moving it inside, you know, you're not really going to keep it with like dehumidifiers pulling the moisture out of the air.
Plant People: With all the rain...
Plant People: Yeah, literally shielding it.
Plant People: ah Exactly, yeah. Yeah.
Brett: Um, ah You know, and so it's just one of those, one of those things that happens. And, and I can say there's, there's certain areas of the state where they didn't get hit as hard with rain and stuff and other issues.
Plant People: so
Brett: And they're on track with their CSAs and their farmers markets and then places where, and it's, it's just one of those unfortunate like nuances where,
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: It's like, oh, RCSA behind. Yours is then theirs is already going. Well, it's it was just a different and different set of circumstances that that went on.
Plant People: The pocket of storms just didn't hit them. Like, yeah.
Brett: but um yeah i
Plant People: Or the hail didn't hit them.
Brett: um
Brett: Any other reflections so far? on i mean we so we did have We had a couple of roundtable conversations with some growers about
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: rising costs and particularly about tariffs and the way that that may or may not um impact their businesses.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And I think a lot of what I heard was we're not really sure how it's going to play out necessarily. But one of the things people are you know concerned about are the rising costs of inputs and how that could that could and particularly for into the fall and into next year affected.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And it's you know, it's interesting because things like peat and cocoa quar is not really like a domestic source for that.
Brett: And so like by definition, they're an internationally traded product, um, as opposed to something like, uh, I don't know what leather.
Plant People: Yeah, I mean. Right.
Plant People: peat bogs filled or formed what like thousands of years ago plus so we can't really just like come up with that we can come up with alternatives hopefully uh if needed and definitely should because peat bogs are you know special but uh yeah it's not a thing that we can do ah if we tried
Brett: Yeah.
Brett: Yeah.
Brett: and And the a little amount of interfacing that our industries do with these global trade channels are are really variable. So some groups, some organizations, some farms, it's like ah very, very in touch and and pluged plugged in with this
Plant People: mm-hmm
Brett: with this and Others, it's kind of like, well, um maybe my trays are going to be more expensive next year or I'm not going to be able to get certain certain bulbs or certain varieties of seed or something.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Brett: But it's, yeah, I mean, that that's definitely, um we are grant funded. And so it's been a wild time for that as far as,
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: not knowing if stuff's gonna be funded and and that kind of thing. That's been part of it, ah part of of our our reality. and
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: um But we just we just keep kind of moving forward.
Plant People: Trucking towards the mission. Oh.
Brett: Alexis was named Outstanding Extension Specialist for the Kentucky Association of State Extension Professionals. She, yeah, and she's been lording lording it over everyone.
Plant People: Brett writes a really good, he likes to lie. He nominated me.
Brett: I love to lie. ah did take a risk I did take a brief break from lying to write ah to write that. But yeah, she's been lording it over us ever since.
Brett: But you know we're we're proud to have her on the team.
Plant People: I basically just, like yeah, I just take it with me everywhere and i I bring it out and I put it in the chair next to me as if it was a human. And I'm like, no, no, I'm sorry, that seat's taken ah but with my award sitting in it.
Brett: this is where This is where the award goes. um
Plant People: Do you have an award? When you have an award, you can have a chair.
Brett: You can have a chair for it, but not this chair. There are many like it, but this one is mine. So I guess, I mean, i you know you mentioned the one year coming up on the one year anniversary working with CCD.
Brett: And I'm curious, this the podcast has kind of been, i mean, there's there's some continuity in some to some extent, but like this, it's been the one constant from your old job to your new one.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: What's been your, and not not like, oh, it's good and whatever. Nobody cares about that. I want to know more about like what's what's been surprising or how has your role changed or shifted or like what do you think?
Brett: How are you thinking differently now than you were before?
Plant People: you Yeah, I think my brain has opened up.
Brett: yeah
Plant People: So as an agent, you know, you're, uh, you're thinking big picture and at the same time thinking very like Mike, uh, micro scale with someone coming in the door with a leaf in their hand and they're saying, do you know what's, you know on my maple tree or, ah you know, a grower calling you and saying, can you come out and check out my watermelons?
Plant People: And so, uh, you know, very important things, but, you know, affecting one person in that way and versus what I do now, I think is so so much big picture to affect though, like, but instead of affecting one watermelon farmer, I'm trying to make a hundred watermelon farmers, you know, more successful.
Plant People: And so, you know, thinking of it in that range and then even, you know, what CCD does is, So much more towards the marketing side, which is, you know, fine. And it's the marketing and budgeting and economics of specialty crops. And there is production obviously involved in what we do, but we are more of the champions I feel like we're production champions of other people doing the actual like thing.
Plant People: And I mean that like we have a vegetable specialist. We have a fruit specialist. We have these greenhouse special, you know, we have all these people who are very specific. And I think CCD is a champion of them and making sure that their information is getting out. Maybe we make cool graphics that make it make sense with the farmers or we help, you know, them market those plants that the,
Plant People: vegetable specialist is teaching them how to grow, right? So it's, which is weird for me because as a horticulturist and a plant person, ah so much of what I did was more on the production side and answering those really production-based questions. So I do miss that. I miss, um,
Plant People: Teaching more regularly is really nice. I love talking to people about how to do something. And maybe that's just my my need for acceptance and appreciation. I don't know. but So it is much different not being as public facing. ah But it's it's been good just to be able to think on a more macro scale of how something can affect a lot of people and what are a lot of people's needs and how do we approach that versus you know, one or two people's needs and in in a county.
Plant People: So um that's been fun. It's been a good change. I think my brain was already working towards that with a lot of the stuff that I was doing. So just kind of ah accelerated that plan little bit.
Brett: That's an interesting interesting way of framing it. And I i think it in some ways, the the way that we think about what we're doing is very similar to the agents, but the scale and scope, which is what you're pointing out, is what's different.
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brett: but i But I think that in the case of a lot of the campus and state-based people, statewide people, it's both the scale and the way they think about it that's different.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And what I'm getting or what I what i made me think of is I want to say that this was there was a book. It was a book I read many years ago, and was about a white whale and a man's quest know it wasn't about that.
Brett: It was about it was about kind talking about and imagining a future where college majors are no longer disciplinary.
Plant People: Wrong book, wrong book.
Brett: And instead they're organized around like problems or issues.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: So you wouldn't, you wouldn't, um mitt you wouldn't major necessarily in engineering. You might, you might actually major in something like water.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And so then you, it's more of an issues based thing. And it makes me think about the way that we approach stuff is that like the specialist people are very disciplinary.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And I mean, obviously we have a disciplinary bent, but we're like so much more oriented to the problems themselves, the concepts and problems themselves.
Plant People: Sure.
Plant People: Uh-huh. Yeah.
Brett: And even thinking about how to solve them from like a grower perspective, which feels there's like a lot of kinship with the agents in that regard.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: But where we don't have a queue of people expecting us to solve their problems right then and there, which allows us to think a little more strategically.
Plant People: Right, exactly. Mm-hmm.
Brett: But that, yeah, I like that. I like the way you described that.
Plant People: Oh, well, thanks. that's That is what i what i have noticed. So it is, i say i'm the I'm the horticulture specialist with no specialty in the department ah because they I think they all, except for maybe Sean Wright, although over the years, Dr.
Brett: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Wright has been on the podcast before and he's sort of the specialist of everything that no one else wants to take.
Brett: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: And he's very good at that, of these kind of niche crops and herbicides for specialty crops and stuff. But So he's excellent of that. And that's where I'm kind of like, um, I don't know what I'm the specialist of other than they say I'm just the CCD specialist. And I'm like, okay, but sure.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: Well, I mean, it makes me think of our last episode and and just the way that at the real way that most of the enterprises in this state overlap is that they have lots of different components going on in different ways.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And they're they're thinking about it as like as a system.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And so like, I could think of your, you know, it's like you're a specialist for, you know, horticulture, farm-based horticultural systems thinking or something like that.
Plant People: sit
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Brett: And and that's really necessary because it, the diversity, wait i mean, there are people who grow just vegetables or grow just one type of vegetable, but the, for every one of those, there's dozens who have fruits and vegetables and flowers and
Plant People: Right. And they're
Plant People: Yeah, or, yeah, and like even 20 different vegetables and, you know, how many markets are they selling them to?
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: And those are all different as we've talked about before. And, you know, the last episode talking about different markets and what that means. And, yeah, so that's Phil's rave. Horticulture systems. I like that. I'm going to play that. I don't
Brett: Well, and I'll say it, like, it has just been really wonderful to have you specifically the person here and to have someone who knows so much about horticulture and has so much expertise these various systems and connections and, but also grounded experience with, um,
Brett: with the work ah in in extension to it's just been cool. And that's why everybody everywhere is putting your face all over their news things. And she's been on like, like 12 different university videos. And there's like this thing I look up and there's Alexis with sunflowers on like the splash on the president's email or something. I'm like, fine then.
Brett: Cool.
Plant People: Right. Right time. Right place, man. Just.
Brett: Yeah, we'll go with that.
Plant People: ah
Brett: No, it's been it's been fun. um Any any
Plant People: This is just the episode of cool things that about me. um That's what the.
Plant People: That's what the title's going to be.
Brett: so anything anything you're looking forward to in the next little bit? And one more reminder of when is that ah mechanical feet we view that thing?
Plant People: You cannot get it right. Mechanical weed control field day, September 23rd. When we have registration up, we'll start posting that and, uh, you know, making that available so you can click and join us, uh,
Brett: And that's open to pre-registered members of the public.
Plant People: Any public technical advisors, if you're you know someone who helps farmers you know decide equipment and you want to know what's out there, ah so we'll have various equipment. We'll have some ah exhibitp like them coming in and bringing in some cool tractors from Tillmore and Earth Tools and all these different places to show off some cool new stuff. for just Maybe you've never seen a rotary plow work and you want to see it in action,
Plant People: you know, it'll probably be there and you can see that and, you know, talk to people who have used it. And um yeah, so it'll it'll be good. And they'll also be, you know, like, you know, some someone from SARE will be there. It'll probably be Brett.
Plant People: ah But in theory, it might be somebody else. You know, CCD will be there. There'll be also some like educational people. So if you've ever wanted to, you know, kind of talk to them, maybe talk about a resource or ask some questions,
Plant People: ah you know, they'll be there and some of our specialists will be there as well. So it's pretty much anything and everything.
Brett: There will be Brett and also educational people.
Plant People: There will be bread and also educational things. Correct.
Brett: Brett will be droning on into the into the abyss.
Plant People: ah And a really good ah Kentucky Proud lunch. And I say Kentucky Proud just means that our Food Connection, University of Kentucky Food Connection, who will be providing a lunch from local growers because they're wonderful.
Brett: Local lunch, baby.
Plant People: And Chef Tanya.
Brett: And it'll be in the best the best produce time of year September.
Plant People: Yep. Yep. Yep. We're going to nail it. So. ah
Brett: I'm excited.
Plant People: sign up for that and right now I'm just looking forward to getting i don't want to say getting through those things because it makes it sound like it's not positive but like getting those under my belt because they're just such a big part of what I'm doing so that I can move on to another item that like I'm excited about working on which is great like to to know that you have more cool things that you can work on like one after the other is like is a good thing to know ah keeps you motivated
Brett: Mm hmm. Beware the sophomore slump, though, you know, you hit that that first hit and then people expect you to have more hits.
Plant People: I mean, who are you talking to? Hit after hit after hit.
Brett: Oh, wow. Wow.
Plant People: All I do is win.
Brett: Win win no matter what. Wow.
Plant People: ah It's going to be great. It's going to be everything's fine. Everything's great. It's great.
Brett: Alexis, we really do need to help get you some self, some self esteem and confidence. I don't know what you're gonna.
Plant People: What is imposter syndrome?
Brett: We need to work on that.
Plant People: I don't have that.
Brett: i got just posture syndrome.
Plant People: oh All I do is win. butd ah Except when I have to drive my car by myself and I'm alone with my thoughts.
Brett: Damn, I like that.
Plant People: Then i am not winning. And if that is also you, felt.
Brett: Okay.
Plant People: If that is also you, dear listener.
Brett: I actually I like that. I like being alone with my thoughts.
Plant People: You like being alone with your thoughts? It's because you're like ah deep, thoughtful, kind human and that's what I love about you, Brett.
Brett: Yeah.
Brett: Yeah, maybe.
Brett: Maybe I just love that love my own the sound of my own voice in my head.
Plant People: Could also be that and that's fair too.
Brett: Voice for retail.
Plant People: You three. you three
Brett: Face for face for wholesale.
Plant People: Well, anything you're excited for, Brett, before as we kind of like finish this up, want the people to know?
Brett: Well, mainly excited for all of the all of the leaves to fall off my spring things that are now diseased and just waiting for the countdown for that to happen.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Brett: um I don't know.
Plant People: Rake those babies up.
Brett: i'm i this thiss like I feel like every time, every year now, over the last maybe five or ten years, I've gotten more, I think, more in touch with the like cycles of plants and seasonality.
Brett: And aside from like the gardening seasonality, but like the the natural world and and the cultivated landscaped world and just another round through that is really exciting. I've been enjoying watching all the different pines extend their candles and put you know prepare for new needles.
Brett: And we took a little walk around the Arboretum a a couple weeks ago at this point.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: Yeah, it was. i'm I'm just.
Plant People: Arboretum was nice, yeah.
Brett: I'm really looking forward to those things in addition to just seeing all of this work that you and and our other CCD team members have, and me, have put into, um I guess I am other CCD team member, but I refer to myself in the third person.
Brett: um see all that come to fruition and and be able to celebrate 25 years and celebrate this really cool, needed and grounded field day that the people went on the Midwest version of it last year were so stoked about.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And just to hear them how excited they are to see that happening in kentuck in Kentucky and us leading in this area. I'm excited for that too.
Plant People: Yeah. I'm excited to celebrate the people who also got us to this point, you know, like the person, like my predecessor, um, Christie and, you know, was in it from the get go. She was the CCD or the new crops opportunity center. And then it was her and Brett, you know? And so to really, ah celebrate and acknowledge the fact that none of this would be happening without, you know, the, those people is I think super special. And, uh,
Plant People: I'm just happy that they're going to get hopefully a little bit of little bit of recognition and also some good food. So win, win there. But awesome.
Plant People: Well, you can find us on Instagram at Hort Culture Podcast.
Brett: Thank you.
Plant People: And, ah you know, we try and post fairly regularly, give you tips. We also share what ah some of our cool partners that are out there. so if you're wanting you know you'll just get some tips and tricks uh from that and you can also shoot us an email that is in the show notes and ah you can leave us five stars and you know we will have our other co co-host back with us so you don't have to listen to brett and i just like riff on things that we enjoy if you don't want to anymore because we can have Ray on to also do that and Jessica but Jessica will be back with us at a little bit longer later of a date don't worry she's coming back we love her so much and ah we also love you so much and we appreciate you guys being here and listening and giving us ideas sending us emails and saying you know you loved it and you want to hear more ah we're very grateful to you for being here so have a great one
Plant People: Go plant something and, you know, touch some grass. See y'all.
