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Exploring the University of Kentucky's Robinson Center and Robinson Forest
100 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of the Hort Culture podcast, we discuss some of the many exciting programs going on at the University of Kentucky's Robinson Center and Robinson Forest with Dr. Shawn Wright, horticulture specialist at the University of Kentucky. The more you know, the more you grow!
Robinson Center for Appalachian Resource Sustainability (RCARS)
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction and Future of Horticulture
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Hort Culture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture. I feel like I have to lead this off for pairing you, our wonderful listeners that there was some talk about.
00:00:20
Speaker
extinction and dystopian futures. I don't feel like we need to bring that in. Not any more than usual. Not any more than usual. But you know how we're all going to grow our own food and it's going to be plants and life is going to be better. And that's definitely where we're going with that. So it's going to be great.
00:00:40
Speaker
More plants, less emails. Yeah. See, no one can be mad about that. I think what led to the negative thoughts and sentiment was somebody brought up emails and technology and then I took it downhill from there. Yeah. So yeah. Unfortunately emails, but that's
Meet Dr. Sean Wright
00:00:56
Speaker
okay. Cause there's always plants and we have expert plant people that are far more knowledgeable than Ray or I ever could be. And one of them is on our podcast today and that is Dr. Sean Wright. So hello.
00:01:09
Speaker
Well, thank you. Glad to be here. Sean, speaking back on the email thing, Sean is one of about six people in the University of Kentucky that actually responds to emails when you send them. Thanks. For that alone. As much as he hates it.
00:01:27
Speaker
You know, and he said, you know, there's this just like, you know, we talked about technology before we got on the podcast, but I have to say, Dr. Wright, that I have a file for just your replies to emails because they're so well structured and bulleted points, the whole nine yards that I have a file for your replies because I reference them for whatever commodity crop that you helped me with that week. So I've got them on pumpkins. I've got them on apples and some other crops. But yes, very appreciative of your, um,
00:01:55
Speaker
you know, your great replies to emails. I always appreciate those. Yeah, you're setting me up for standards. I have to do that for everybody. Thanks. There's a red flag that just went off somewhere in the back of your mind. I know you're like, wait a minute. Why are they building me up?
Dr. Wright's Role in Kentucky's Horticulture
00:02:15
Speaker
At the Center for crop diversification, you know, we try to keep our publications updated and
00:02:20
Speaker
Sean is a big reason why we're able to do that. He does a lot of great reviews and feedback and updating things. And there's a whole lot of different things across the world of horticulture, but you're physically located and I guess supposed to focus on in the eastern part of the state. Is that right?
00:02:40
Speaker
I actually have statewide responsibilities, particularly for small fruit, medicinal herbs, hops, some of the unusual crops. But yeah, I am based in Brethett County at what is the Robinson Center for Appalachian Resource Sustainability. Used to be known as the quicksand station.
00:02:59
Speaker
Prior to that there was a USDA plant introduction station actually located right here with UK and Started out as a site of the world's largest hardwood sawmill in the early 1900s But my main responsibilities working with the agents and things are from I-75 East those issues arise depending upon the crop and the commodity I do go statewide and
00:03:25
Speaker
Thank goodness. I see you in meetings all across the state, and I didn't know if that was an official thing or if you're just the best man for that. Come here, pause the emails. Yeah, that was his first mistake. Don't do that. You've covered a lot of topics. Yeah, that's amazing. How long have you been at the Robinson Station? 14 years and about 11 days.
00:03:51
Speaker
Not gonna happen. All right. He's not counting. But who's counting? Yeah. There's still hope because he didn't mention how many hours. So we're good. We're good. Yeah, not counting. I can't believe it's been that long now. Was that when you replaced Dr. Jones or am I thinking along the wrong time? I can't believe it's been that many years. Yeah, I believe Dr. Jones retired in 2009. The position was
00:04:16
Speaker
vacant for a while and the agents saw a need to get this position refilled in some shape or form. So they worked with the dean and the department chair.
00:04:27
Speaker
reformulated the position. And so now, whereas his position was a tenure tracking extension specialist position, mine is more of a broad based extension horticulture position, don't have the hassles of tenure that to deal with, allows me to focus more on working with the agents and the clientele.
00:04:50
Speaker
Yeah, and it shows. I mean, that does show. And that was such an incredibly important position. I know I worked a lot with Dr. Jones. He was just a former.
00:04:58
Speaker
very well known and respected UK extension specialist here within the state of Kentucky, but we were so worried when he retired. I mean, we were very nervous and I remember those meetings with the dean and it was just a critical position and we didn't, you know, we knew it'd be a tough position to fill, but you've done an absolutely fantastic job of that. So we hit the lottery because that is a critical position, not only for the eastern part of the state,
00:05:24
Speaker
A lot of your topics I know are maybe a little bit more heavy in that area in forestry.
00:05:30
Speaker
Yeah, the rest of the areas that you cover all across the state, super important. It's basically just a Dr. Wright hype show. That's right. That's this episode today, guys. In addition to the extension stuff, you also do some research stuff, research trials and plots and things at the station. We'd like to get into the historical, some of the things you've done in the past a little bit, but
00:05:58
Speaker
As far as this year, what kind of stuff do you have out, um, or, or what do you have ongoing? I know you have a lot of perennial stuff mixed in with some annual stuff. So what are you, what are your points of focus this year? Well, this year, actually we're still in the process of recovering from back to back floods in 2021 and 2022.
Flood Recovery and Research in Horticulture
00:06:16
Speaker
Um, we just received notification from the university. We can rent a man lift to finish erecting our new greenhouse. So we hope to get that up in the next month or so.
00:06:26
Speaker
our hops trial, which had been a trial that we'd had here for many years. Unfortunately that was underwater the last two floods there. And we're actually going to be replacing that out. One thing that's, it's not a research trial, but we think that it's going to be a very beneficial trial for our clientele and the agents in Eastern Kentucky. Because we have the Trella system, heirloom bean production, the pole beans are traditional crop in Eastern Kentucky.
00:06:54
Speaker
And what we've done is we're in the process of collecting heirloom bean seeds. Ted Johnson from Lee County has brought some over. Darryl Sloan donated some seed and things. So as we get that, we're going to be growing it out on the trellis and just saving that seed, distributing it back out to the agent so they can share it with their client. It's really cool. That's going to be going on. We do have a new blueberry trial that we received funding for that will be going in.
00:07:22
Speaker
Not this year, the plants will be grown out in pots because here in Eastern Kentucky, we're going to be dealing with the cicada brood emergence next year, and we don't want those bushes to be exactly the right size to be attacked by the cicada. So we're going to grow them out in pots for a year, and then we'll plant that next year, take out what was left of the old trial. That also was underwater.
00:07:48
Speaker
We're hoping to put in a full cabbage trial this year. We can do that once we get our greenhouse up. We can grow out our transplants for that. We've got our paw paw orchard that we're establishing. One of the interesting things we're dealing with that, working with our entomology colleagues and the folks at Kentucky State University,
00:08:10
Speaker
Pawpaw is a traditional native Appalachian crop. It doesn't ship well, but it does sell well in farmer's markets. And we had some donations from Kentucky State University. So we grafted seedlings. And we had 60 trees out right now.
Pawpaws and Pest Challenges
00:08:28
Speaker
Unfortunately, what we found is that the trees seem to be particularly susceptible to ambrosia beetle. And talking with Dr. Besson, our entomologist,
00:08:38
Speaker
It seems as though what I would perceive as a very low level infestation is enough to kill off the trees. We don't know. We are looking for some control measures. We can put out traps for that. One of the challenges, because it's such a minor crop, is finding pesticides that are labeled for use on paw paws.
00:08:59
Speaker
So Dr. Besson is our representative to the IR4 project, a specialty pesticide project in that. And we're looking at seeing if we can submit a proposal that he will then lift up to the national level for that IR4 project, not focused just on the ambrosia beetle and paw paws, but also with some of the disease issues that paw paws express and things. So excited about that.
00:09:26
Speaker
We are, as our orchard, apple orchard is declining over time and things. It was in here for many years.
Financial Challenges in Apple Production
00:09:33
Speaker
We're not really replacing it to the level that it was at before. Everybody always thinks that they want to grow apples. Yep. That's the first call they did. I've got people that moved in. They want to grow apples. And like I tell people, you can easily grow apple trees. Apple trees are not a challenge to grow.
00:09:53
Speaker
But to produce high quality apples is another story because they do require a lot of spraying and pruning and things and people don't appreciate the amount of work that goes into producing apples with changes with the college and things over years and that ways when Dr. Jones was here, they were able to grow produce and that which was how he funded a lot of his project.
00:10:16
Speaker
We can no longer do that here, so we're more dependent upon funding through the Hort Council grants and other things to support our project here. And unfortunately, things that don't have a lot of financial support backing them tend to get moved lower on the priority list. Our new faculty pomologist, Dr. Brent Arnoldson, is looking at establishing a new pair, European pair planting down here. We do our
00:10:45
Speaker
Asian pairs are still doing fine. And there is a market for those people seem to like that. I'm more of a fan of the European pairs myself. But Brent has talked about putting one of his European pair variety trials down here. Again, not next year because of the cicada issue, but the year after that. So that will be going in.
00:11:09
Speaker
would be putting our new high tunnels back up again for the third time after this flood. One thing that we're going to be doing different this year is traditionally in the fall, we had our College of Ag. We would host the field days for the College of Ag here every other year.
00:11:27
Speaker
And then we would also hold an activity called pumpkin days where we would get a group of pre-k of first graders that would come in with their classes. We'd usually get anywhere from 1100 to 1300 people here at that event and things. It was a huge effort with all the agents and schools and that involved here helping out and things. We couldn't do it without everybody's help and things.
00:11:53
Speaker
But the kids would come in, they'd learn about nutritional aspects of pumpkins and things, and then they would get to go on a wagon tour out to the field where then they would get a pumpkin out of the field and things and all that. So it was a full day event. We had the 4-H agents, the FCS agents, the Ag agents, anybody and everybody, local college students, FFA students coming in from various counties helping out. So huge activity. And then we also had an activity related to the
00:12:23
Speaker
Forestry activities that occur here called win with wood or kids would come in high school kids and would compete in various Forestry focus projects like wood ID would working tool ID ID compass and pacing those types of activities wildlife ID invasive species ID this year what we're going to be doing is we're going to combine all three of those major activities into one week and
00:12:51
Speaker
rather than stretching it out. We're hoping to have our new pavilion back up. The last remaining structure from when the Robinson hardwood mill was located here ended up getting torn down after the flood, putting up a new pavilion there. And we're hoping to have that up and have everything there because previously we would have to rent tents and porta potties and everything else. So if everything comes together and the contractors can get everything done in time and that,
00:13:21
Speaker
should be a very good event for us this fall as well.
Community Connection and Horticultural Challenges
00:13:25
Speaker
We'll let everybody know or have a save the date notice out. I don't actually know what that is off the top of my head. You have it out there. You know, one of the things as I'm hearing you talk that jumps out at me is that
00:13:40
Speaker
a lot of the challenges that you're talking about facing, whether that be these major events like flooding, but also things like disease pressure, what it means to grow things in proximity to lots of forested land, atypical geography with hills and hollers and everything in between. Also, you and I have known each other for a while. I can remember the deer pressure and other types of
00:14:06
Speaker
pressure and pests, all of those things that you're facing because you are located in the eastern part of the state are the same things that the producers are facing. And it just gives this credibility and sympathy, I guess, to the university, at least from my perspective of like, this isn't something where you're like, you're telling me that you got flooded out. And I'm like, oh, man, that's terrible. Here's some stuff to help. Like you, you all are experiencing a lot of the same things that folks in that part of the state are experiencing. And I, I just wonder, you know, is that
00:14:36
Speaker
Is that something that's, that's you feel like is, is a, is you feel that as you're going through it and you sort of feel the sense of connection to that place. And what's it like talking to people like crazy people like us from campus sometimes or from other parts of the state? Whoa, wait a minute. Actually it is an advantage. Uh, two, two topics you touched on there.
00:15:02
Speaker
My pathology colleagues love us over here. They're going to be a disease. We're going to get here. They love doing research over here. But as far as being part of the community, we are very unique in that and that we are part of the community as you drive across the bridge into quicksand. We're the first thing that you see. We have many events here. The quicksand station itself
00:15:30
Speaker
We don't have locked gates in that, keeping people out, which can be a challenge when you have research trials out. Unfortunately, we've had some issues with things like that in the past that have made for some challenges. But we were always a prime location that people would like to come here for their prom photos and things.
00:15:48
Speaker
up against the old barn or on the bridge or something like that with the old building and things, the community building. So, we are definitely a part of the community. People look at us like that. That's how they knew who we are. It's interesting, the quicksand community itself here used to be the county seat prior to Jackson being the county seat. So, this was the hub of Brethett County at one point. I believe home county of Sturgill Simpson as well.
00:16:17
Speaker
Yes. Brother County. Maybe we're going to be close on timeline, but maybe people will get their prom photos taken in the man lifter, putting the greenhouse together. Well, let's hope we get it done sooner than that. Yeah. I was trying to remember, Dr. Retta, there was a forestry outpost that had a meeting room that we used to use. Are those facilities still up there by the fire at the base of the fire tower?
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, a few years. Well, I was just maybe a year or two before I arrived. I don't remember the timeline exactly, but we had the Robinson Forest used to be separate from the Quicksand Station with some administrative reorganization that went together. The Wood Utilization Center, the Robinson Forest,
00:17:06
Speaker
and the quicksand station all became under the purview of a single director at that point. But yep, that's still part of us, still a lot of things going on there.
00:17:16
Speaker
The forestry faculty use that quite a bit up there. The fire tower is still up there. They have a Facebook page and everything else.
Infrastructure Damage from Flooding
00:17:24
Speaker
You can check it out and occasionally somebody will hike up there and take a picture from the top of the fire tower. It's the best place for lightning bug viewing that I've ever seen. I would go up there during meetings and stuff and climb the tower, which is, I don't know if you can still do that, but when the wind blew, so did the tower. It was quite an experience.
00:17:41
Speaker
Unfortunately, they did experience a lot of flooding at the forest as well. The roads going in there were devastated that took over a week to get people actually in there just because the bridges washed out and things. So they've been doing a lot. A lot of the roadways through the forest were destroyed and things. So, you know, that whole Perry, not Brethet County stretch through here. We just had a lot of damage and people are still recovering. Even even up in Letcher County and things, they have flooding up there as well.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah, I was trying to recall and I knew that some of those roads are very low line and there was washing problems even years ago. In fact, our Dean at the time,
00:18:22
Speaker
Ran into a ditch and he was not making the meeting and we were calling and calling. Of course, there was no cell phone service at the time. And it turns out he was in the ditch and someone had to go and pull them out. Dealing to the ditch. Yep. Dealing to the ditch. And I also remember, I don't know if, I think it was up in that area. You don't have to give specific locations or details, but there was once upon a time, a ginseng kind of a research plot up in there. You mentioned no lock gates. And that was one of the issues at the time was, um,
00:18:51
Speaker
theft about taking I believe is a technical term but that caused some problems but there was some neat research going on a ginseng up in there. Actually the whole ginseng subject is very interesting.
00:19:04
Speaker
That project first began back with C.R. Roberts many years ago. Project existed. I'd have to go back through my data here and pull that up. But it was almost a 43, 44 year continuous project where C.R. Roberts, Joe Wolf was the scout for the whole time of that project.
00:19:25
Speaker
She was the first technician. They established ginseng plots across the state because it is an enlisted species and the CITES regulations there. So it has to be evaluated before it can be exported. So what they did is they established these ginseng plots across the state. Joe would go around every year and examine different plots to see if the populations were increasing, decreasing.
00:19:52
Speaker
make the recommendations then to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, at which point they would then report to the USDA, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and then they would issue export certificates and things. That has now transferred KDA into that relationship with the university and things and have lumped it now. And I think it's under the Division of Plant Protection at KDA or Natural Parks.
00:20:20
Speaker
It got lumped into one of the divisions at KDA right now, but they've reestablished that. But over the time I was involved with that project for about, I think it was here eight or nine years before it came to an end. And even in that time, we saw that ginseng populations were decreasing in a lot of the established plots for a couple of different reasons. Invasion of invasive species like garlic mustard.
00:20:49
Speaker
site disturbance. People would come in and clear cut forest not being aware that it was there. Development of home sites. People just weren't there and they would clear off an area and put a trailer in there and things. And unfortunately poaching
00:21:04
Speaker
was a significant issue. It was just right after I started that we did change the regulations in terms of when ginseng could be harvested and things got pushed back about two more weeks until the first week in September before it could be harvested because prior to that a lot of the berries weren't ripe and so the populations were decreasing.
00:21:27
Speaker
It is improving. There's always that risk that is it continues to be poached and climate change, development, various other aspects play a role here that the federal government may step in at some point and say, due to the endangered nature of this species, we're no longer go allow export for a few years.
Ginseng Cultivation and Market Dynamics
00:21:48
Speaker
Wow. And that's just
00:21:51
Speaker
just the way it is. We can cultivate ginseng. I had an email from one of our agents just recently that someone had moved in. They wanted to actually cultivate ginseng.
00:22:03
Speaker
We can certainly do that, but there's no reason to do that unless it's for their own use because if you're treating it like a crop, it needs to be exported and in order for it to be exported, it either needs to be wild grown or wild simulated. It's even easy for somebody like me that's not
00:22:22
Speaker
an expert on ginseng to tell when ginseng has been fertilized and cultivated because the root is much larger, it's cleaner, it grows faster, the neck scars are much further apart and things, and there's no market for that type of ginseng in Asia. In fact, Wisconsin used to have a large acreage of ginseng under shade cloth and they've been ripping it out just because there is no market for that type of ginseng anymore.
00:22:49
Speaker
I know nothing about ginseng. What's the reason? It's just like the chemical composition different? A lot of that has to do with the philosophy of Asian medicine. They feel that it balances the key better things depending if it has had to struggle and grow for survival in a natural environment. That's what they're looking for, particularly if it has certain
00:23:14
Speaker
shapes to it, what's called a man-shaped root. I actually have some old ginseng in my closet here that we rescued from the flood and things here that, you know, I have some roots that are 40 years old and things that are just huge. But those roots are becoming few and far between. I always tell people I'm more than happy to talk to anybody if they're interested in working with their ginseng, examining their patch and things.
00:23:44
Speaker
But the first thing I tell them is don't tell anybody that you have ginseng. That's one of the things that I would like to see Kentucky do more with. Ohio has done that. Is ginseng in Kentucky, if it's poached from somebody's property, it's just treated as a misdemeanor because they don't look at the value of that end crop. Whereas Ohio treats what would be the end value of that crop if it was sold on the open market. So just a small patch can quickly approach felony level
00:24:14
Speaker
theft. They have much less issues with poaching in Ohio than we have here in Kentucky. Interesting. I was trying to think of some of the other neat things that were going on up there. I think it was the first shiitake mushroom demonstration. Dr. Hill, who's retired long ago,
00:24:32
Speaker
That was a neat thing. And I mean, what else is going on before we move away from the woods? Because I'm always interested. Yeah, I was thinking that this ginseng kind of falls into this category of non timber forest products. Yeah, exactly. It's not wood. It's not timber that's being.
00:24:48
Speaker
And I'd imagine, you know, both based on people who assume that they know what's going on or what's available or what's possible in Eastern Kentucky, pushing some of those things or coming into the eastern part of the state and saying they want to do this thing. What's been your experience with some of those other ones? I'm thinking about, you know, the wild, wild foraged mushrooms or things like golden seal or
00:25:11
Speaker
other things like that. I do work closely with my colleagues at NC State, Dr. Davis down there and Appalachian Sustainable Development over the hill there and Virginia and things, colleagues in Tennessee, West Virginia and that, you know, we are part of that, those ARC counties and things. So there's certainly an interest in that.
00:25:35
Speaker
The thing that needs to be kept in mind with a lot of these non-timber forest products is it doesn't take very long to overwhelm the market for those.
Non-Timber Forest Products and Health Claims
00:25:44
Speaker
Also, you have to be very careful when you're working with that. We do have an herbalism group in Kentucky that is interested in a lot of these products, but you have to be very careful in that you don't make health claims related to these products because then you
00:26:00
Speaker
fall into the realm of regulation through the FDA and things like that. So I am not a medical doctor. I do not make medical recommendations for any of these. I can tell people how to grow them and things are happy to do that. But I won't discuss any of the medicinal properties or reported
00:26:20
Speaker
treatments and uses for these just because that's a whole other realm that I don't want to get into. But certainly there is a market for it. We're trying to establish a few more of these non-timber medicinal herbs and a little patch of wood that was taken over by honeysuckle just below our orchard.
00:26:40
Speaker
trying to get a few things established in there just for educational demonstration purposes. I would like to do a little bit more with that, but we just don't really have the ground here at the quicksand station to do that. And there's issues with trying to do any type of manipulated research at the Robinson Forest. They're trying to maintain that area very pristine up there. But certainly anybody that has interest, we can talk about it and see what their
00:27:08
Speaker
possible opportunities are. I have some colleagues across the university, particularly with the FCS agents, were actually in the process of rewriting some old fact sheets that were out on foraging
00:27:25
Speaker
wild greens and things should have the first one available not too long down the road in that. So things like harvesting dandelion and poke and various other things. Watercress, some of my favorite. There's that kind of watercress, not the bitter kind. Although those should be coming out again, it takes a while.
00:27:45
Speaker
We ran into some issues with UK legal and trying to develop an acceptable disclaimer statement just to limit liability and things because we don't want anybody harming themselves of that, particularly with mushrooms. I am not a mushroom expert. I can recognize a few, but I'm not even going to attempt to do that. We do have a couple of people at UK now that are developing their expertise in mushrooms and things, and I always refer those questions to those people as well.
00:28:17
Speaker
Uh, is anybody doing anything with ramps sometimes called wild leek or wood leaks? Yeah. Uh, ramps, it's actually ramp season. Now I've seen the notifications coming out of North Carolina and things, uh, actually ramps don't do particularly well in Eastern Kentucky, but you better in West Virginia, uh, the Western portion of Virginia, North Carolina, uh, far Eastern Tennessee and things.
Challenges with Ramps Growth
00:28:43
Speaker
Uh, our slopes and that are just terrain here just tends not to be ideal for ramps in Eastern Kentucky. I rarely ever saw ramps growing up in the Eastern foothills. It was rare to see ramps. We've got a couple farms around here that have them. I have not experienced a phytochemical feeling like it was leeching from every pore in my body. Like I did when I ate ramps.
00:29:10
Speaker
It was like I was wearing a constantly refreshing
00:29:20
Speaker
Refreshing alone constantly applied to smell nice. Yeah. You know, like sometimes you eat a bunch of garlic and you're like, Oh man, I can like smell my sweat. Smells like it was like that, but like a whole other level. So I don't know. North Carolina. Yeah. They're serious about the ramps. If you're working with Davis and everything down there, just wasn't part of the culture growing up in Eastern Kentucky ramps were not.
00:29:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think I think they were harvested back pretty hard or a lot of habitat loss because they used to be like all over like the word for Chicago
00:29:55
Speaker
Like is a French rendering of a native American. I think it was Miami Algonquin, their word for ramps, which was like Chicago or like stinky onion. You mentioned a couple of other, you know, longer term trials. Some of them have been underwater. You know, one of them that I know people,
00:30:20
Speaker
There's been booms and busts of excitement about across time, and we've seen craft breweries pop up, and beer needs hops, so grow hops for the beer, right? There's some market complications, but you've been involved with hops, and maybe start out with what kinds of varieties you all played around with and experiences you've had with that, and it seems like you're going to be shifting to beans, so that might be a little bit of an indicator. Indicative.
00:30:51
Speaker
Actually, following up on the good news again, I keep talking about grants and things that are coming up, but there is a group of my colleagues across the Southeast that are working on submitting. We had submitted a pre-proposal and are requested to submit a full proposal for a HOPS project that's targeted specifically to the Southeast.
Hops Production Issues
00:31:15
Speaker
as a Davis at NC State has a hops breeder that she's been working with at NC State and things so if it gets funded we hope to see more with the hops production for
00:31:28
Speaker
People that aren't familiar with hops, it's a cone, it's a natural native plant that grows in Kentucky, but it's highly susceptible to mildew diseases. And so as the mildew diseases developed in Eastern Kentucky, the majority of that production moved to the Pacific Northwest, where it's a dry arid climate and they don't have the disease issues. Here in Kentucky, our growers had to apply
00:31:54
Speaker
several fungicide applications that other places wouldn't have to apply to the cost of production or much higher. And, you know, I understand that these brew pubs and craft breweries and that have to make a living as well. But what they were willing to pay for locally produced Kentucky hops was not equal to what the cost of production was.
00:32:18
Speaker
So there's still a few hop producers out there that are growing hops. They're drying the cones and using them for teas. There's some people that are collecting the binds and selling them to the green industry for making reese. This time of year, the hop shoots that come up are very good stir fried or can be pickled. Very niche high-end restaurant type of things, but again, very limited market and things like that. In terms of cone production,
00:32:48
Speaker
There's just until we can change our costs of production, have things that are better adapted to our conditions here, our costs of production just tend to be too high relative to what the local brewers are able to pay for our production.
00:33:06
Speaker
I have to say, Dr. Wright, you saved my dad because he called me one day and he's like, Lexus, I'm going to grow hops. My dad who's never grown more than a garden was like, I'm going to do it. And I was, he's like, I got a source for telephone poles where he has a source for those. I have no idea. But he was, he was down. He had it dead. And I was like, you are not growing hops. And he was like, what? Why? I was like, you are not, you are not doing it. I'm not going to allow it.
00:33:33
Speaker
Do not associate with the people who are telling you to do this. Trust your daughter who has a master's degree in this. Yeah, the telephone pole salesman. He was like, oh, but like there's all these brutes. I was like, dad, I have one thing I have a value I can offer you. And that is to tell you, you are not to grow hops and I forbid it. So thank you for helping me help him.
00:33:53
Speaker
I'm glad and hopefully with this grant, if it's funded 10 years from now, actually 11 years from now, I'll probably be retiring if I make it so long. Hopefully, we'll be able, if I'm still around, then we'll have some information that we can share with growers and say hops are a new great crop for Kentucky. Yeah, disease resistant or something. Then we're going to be looking at low trellis systems and some other new varieties that are released and things.
00:34:22
Speaker
We'll see, you know, unfortunately, one of the big expenses is the cost of capital just for the large trellis system that's required. That and just the scale of production, an average hop farm in the Pacific Northwest is hundreds of acres. The top acreage we had in Kentucky at one point was five acres and they were in business very long. So, you know, when you still have to buy dryers and sprayers and everything else, there's just not the economics of scale there.
00:34:51
Speaker
When you and I had talked about hops in the past, I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole doing some research on the industry and also on the consumer side too. I thought one of the things exactly along the lines of what you're talking about is that a lot of the work that would have to happen in order for it to make sense in a place like Kentucky, you're talking about decades of work.
00:35:14
Speaker
because you're having to breed things that are, yes, they're adaptable to the climate, but even on the consumer side, if you're talking about smaller acreages, something that has some sort of a unique value proposition to the customer side, so you see hop
00:35:29
Speaker
hop varieties that are actually trademarked, things like Amarillo and others where there's this very specific taste profile and there's this very specific unique niche. I mean, it's not niche in the sense that you're selling it direct to consumer at a farmer's market, but it's within the industry.
00:35:46
Speaker
There are bulk hops that are used for bittering, and then there are flavoring hops that are used for all the beer nerds to look and say, oh, I haven't heard of that one before. I'm going to order it. And that was something you opened my eyes to initially, is that a lot of the centennials and the others that people are going to grow, they can get the bulk commodity high quality bittering hops and even base flavoring hops from the Pacific Northwest. So that's really exciting to hear that.
00:36:11
Speaker
They're going about it in this really intensive, longer-term vision way because that was something that jumped out. I was really deep into it for a while with the flavor compounds. You brewed some good beer. Yeah, that's true. You're currently into a bread. I don't know. It was cool to put some more context to what Sean had already been telling me about
00:36:34
Speaker
you know, the way that this kind of stuff works and the pelletizing and the baling and all that kind of stuff as a whole, you have to dry it and they're not used to taking wet hops and there's a limited use for those things. So there's all kinds of reasons why thus far it's been kind of a challenge, but this research, this is actually the first I'd heard of it that this is really exciting and cool. I'm excited about that.
00:36:59
Speaker
And I know there's other, some other perennial stuff that you've done. And you mentioned that kind of the potential revamp of the parts of the apple orchard and the European pears. Are we ever going to have peaches in Kentucky? We actually do have commercial peach production in Kentucky, just not in Eastern Kentucky. We are not suitable for commercial peach production in Eastern Kentucky. We just lose our crops to
00:37:29
Speaker
frost every year. Yeah. But we grow beautiful peach trees, just not beautiful peaches. Exactly. Yeah, same with apricots. We don't have to put the energy into the fruit, they... Yeah, right, they're just... People, yeah, they shoot for what, three years out of 10, and they consider this or something like that a success. I mean, because there's such a high value crop and whatever that number was, I don't know, I don't remember the hard number, but it's not 10 out of 10. Yeah, every three years, yeah. It's not 10 out of 10.
00:37:55
Speaker
One thing we did get, we did receive a specially cropped block grant from KDA this year for looking at a small planting of currants and gooseberries we're going to be putting out.
Niche Crops: Currants and Gooseberries
00:38:06
Speaker
So that's another perennial crop. Again, a niche crop, but something suitable for the small scale market grower, something different and things. So kind of excited about that as well, replanting our blueberry trial and things.
00:38:20
Speaker
here at the center. I don't know anything about livestock. The only livestock I've ever worked with had six legs and a stinger, but they did bring in some cattle recently. Right before the flood, they had just got a new hoop barn up and then they got taken out, but they rebuilt that. They had one
00:38:41
Speaker
crop of cows I guess you would say came in don't know anything about cows but they they fed them out and they were looking at two and a half to three pounds per day weight gain which is what they were looking for and now supposedly in the next few weeks or so they're going to be bringing in some unbred heifers and doing a project with that so the station actually when it was first established after the hardwood mills shut down the land was donated to the university and
00:39:10
Speaker
livestock was one of the first projects that they had here where they were exchanging improved poultry for the wild chickens that were running around, improved swine for the pigs that would run wild through the chestnut orchards and things. So I guess in the past they've had dairy cattle here, they've had sheep here, they've done goat projects as well and things. So bringing back a little bit different,
00:39:41
Speaker
Try to adapt with the changing times and things. I remember the goats being a big component there in years past when, you know, certain breeds came into the state and sheep have a history in Kentucky. I know here in central Kentucky, a big history, but also Eastern Kentucky. I remember there being some sheep producers, so sheep and goats, but it was always interesting to me. You know, I grew up with cattle and.
00:40:05
Speaker
and tobacco and fruits and not fruit so much as vegetables, more vegetables. But it was always a consideration that something like a cow, we looked at a cow calf as one unit, but it was incredible to think in my mind. It was an early lesson that that's one acre and dedicate to a cow calf pair. And that's not always easy to come. I grew up primarily in Johnson County, where we farmed growing up.
00:40:30
Speaker
But to dedicate one acre, I mean, that was a big deal. Dedicate one flat acre, I should say that was tillable. It just didn't happen. We did a lot of bench grazing and stuff. So is there any like civil culture type grazing or any like alternate grazing systems that planned over there, just like standard grazing top setups over there? This actually is a confined operation. Folks here do.
00:40:54
Speaker
the agents, they have their Mountain Cattlemen's Association, they work closely with them things. I never say it in on any of their meetings, though I've smelled their replies that have been cooking before. They do a lot of like reclaimed mongrazing, have lots of experience of that. I know Charles May has worked
00:41:13
Speaker
It worked a little many years with him over there and they do a lot of good work. Yeah. I was just kind of, it's kind of curious that they're bringing some of that back. That's, you guys are into everything over there. My goodness. What a, what a wide variety of things, not only fruits and things, vegetables, but also free critters now. So, you know, I like to tell people that we're here to make the mistakes so that our clientele don't have to.
00:41:37
Speaker
If my stuff fails, I still get a paycheck. I would rather me fail than them fail. And that's the approach. I think my agents often bring me in as the
00:41:51
Speaker
Grim Reaper when they don't want to deliver. And I don't mind doing that because I would much rather tell a farmer all the negative possibilities and say, you know, these are all the things that could go wrong. You know, I don't want them to lose their retirement. Say I have to work an extra 20 years or until I'm dead because I failed at an operation. I'd rather have them say because of you, I didn't take a risk and I lost out on $500,000.
00:42:21
Speaker
I don't mind that. I just don't want people to lose out on the things. And that's just me. I'm risk averse naturally, so this position is excellent for
Risk-Averse Horticultural Strategies
00:42:31
Speaker
me. I can take these risks and still get paid.
00:42:35
Speaker
Yeah. I say that with the center, with our publications, we try to be fairly realistic and that we often, I think that we crush significantly more dreams than we inspire. But if the dream is founded on faulty premises, then it's not really the one that you want to necessarily follow, but I've always appreciated. Another thing, your realistic
00:42:56
Speaker
approach. And another thing I've really appreciated too is I see you kind of working with and supporting some of the grower organizations. You mentioned the chestnuts and made me think of the Nut Growers Association. I know you've supported some of the strawberry growers and others. Are you still working a good bit with some of those grower organizations? Anything particularly going on? And another one I'll just throw out there that we've seen over the last number of years is maple syrup.
00:43:25
Speaker
Yep. Well, we've got the we've also got the Kentucky Vegetable Growers Association and the Kentucky Society of Horticultural Science, our fruit growers and things like to work with the beekeeper organizations and things as well. It's these
00:43:41
Speaker
Grower groups are really the driving force. As the university, as our budgets get tighter, as our agents get spread thinner and thinner, it happens all the way up through the department and things. We don't have the number of specialists working in the department that we used to have and things. So we rely on our growers groups, the commodity groups, if you will, to
00:44:03
Speaker
do a lot of this work. We're here to support them in any way we can, function as educational advisors and things. But certainly like the Maple Producers Association here, the Kentucky Maple Growers, Shad Baker down in Letcher County has been really one of the leading proponents for that group. They've got a lot of things going on.
00:44:23
Speaker
work with some of those folks, great opportunities there, depending upon where you're at. I would like to put up a little sugar shack here, but we just don't have the tree species here at the center that would be suitable for them.
00:44:38
Speaker
And that's the sort of thing where it's important to talk to people and say, before you get too heavily invested in this, let's see what you've got going on. We also work with our partners at Kentucky State University as well, the 1890 land grant institution. I have some great partners over there. One thing that they've got that I really like to promote, particularly in Eastern Kentucky, where we have a lot of small growers.
00:45:00
Speaker
if they have their small farms grants that they offer up to people and things that can provide. People think, well, what's $2,000? Well, $2,000 is a lot of money if somebody is going to give you that, that it doesn't have to come out of your own pocket. So little bits of money here and there can make a huge difference, especially here in Eastern Kentucky, traditionally a poor region.
Educational Shifts in Appalachia
00:45:25
Speaker
Poverty is the nature of Appalachia, unfortunately, for most people.
00:45:30
Speaker
And, you know, a lot of people would have a small tobacco allotment and that tobacco allotment is what paid for the school books, the new clothes, the Christmas presents and everything else. As tobacco faded out here in Eastern Kentucky, as the mining jobs were lost, people are looking to diversify in things. We are having people moving in the
00:45:53
Speaker
Census results, it just came out, did show a loss of about 400 people estimate in Breathitt County alone. But we are having a few people moving in from other states. They're fleeing the high taxes in other states and moving to Kentucky. So we've got a lot of education opportunities with these folks moving in. Because they're coming in, they don't know anything about the climate, the markets, or anything that's going on here. So we've got a lot of opportunities over here. I could keep
00:46:22
Speaker
extremely busy for whatever's left of my career and not exhaust all the possibilities. Try and focus as much as I can. I do have a few things that I really like to do and always want to keep doing. One project, a perennial crop that I would like to do a little bit more and would like to have some success in is rhubarb production. Years ago, everybody had a rhubarb patch.
00:46:48
Speaker
but as our climate zone has shifted half of USDA's zone heart USDA heartiness zone further north. Kentucky was right at that southern edge where rhubarb would grow well and we're no longer in that zone anymore our summers are too hot they're too damp we get a lot of crown rots and things so I've been trying to develop
00:47:09
Speaker
a root bar production system treating it as an annual, just can't really get it where it's cost effective or anything at this point. I mean, there's a lot of things that we could do as a hobby, but I don't want to do something just as a hobby. I want something that's going to be beneficial to the clientele here in the state of Kentucky and things.
00:47:30
Speaker
clientele are paying taxes to support the university through their extension districts, through the taxes and everything else. We need to make as much of an impact for them as we can rather than just satisfy things that we find interesting. I mean, if you're growing strawberries, you need to figure out how to grow the rhubarb to scale to match the strawberries. I like my rhubarb straight sometimes. Oh, man. So the rhubarb starts in the spring, just a good spring tonic.
00:48:00
Speaker
Never did eat it. My father would eat it like that, but I always had to have it in a pie with some strawberries. Well, I think, I mean, that is a really great, I think, place to leave the conversation, but hopefully you all can hear just the vast amount of information and knowledge and wisdom and expertise that Sean has and hopefully our
00:48:25
Speaker
hype at the beginning I think was exceeded in the actual delivery
Dr. Wright's Extension Work and Public Service
00:48:29
Speaker
here. But I just want to say that the way that you approach extension and being part of a university that is aimed at the public good and supporting clientele is really inspiring to me at a time where the university sometimes can lose its way as far as being what a land grant is, what we're supposed to be doing.
00:48:47
Speaker
And I just really appreciate what you shared. Alexis is our traditional closer, but I wanted to make sure that I got that out before I muted myself. Well, thank you. It was my pleasure. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much.
00:49:00
Speaker
One thing I wanted to reiterate that I think you mentioned and that we try and touch up in the county as well is, you know, get involved. So if you're new, go to your account, you know, if you're in Kentucky, you have a county extension office, there's 120. Actually, there's I think 121 now Kenton County has two offices.
00:49:19
Speaker
So go there, tell them what you need. Even if you don't know what you need, just kind of asking questions helps us build our programs to help you. And then if you are a grower who's maybe looking to scale up from home to market or market to larger wholesale, join those associations and make your voice heard so that we can do and we can say, hey,
00:49:42
Speaker
there are fruit growers are asking for this and that helps guide you know research projects where money gets applied and so that is important and I know it as as a grower sometimes it can be easy to forget about that be really focused on what you're doing but if there's a need out there I'm sure you're not the only one having it so go ahead and try and join or express those you know however
00:50:05
Speaker
However you can, I think it matters. And for Ray and I on the county level, we love your input, so feel free to give that. And then I also wanted, we'll put a link in the show notes to some of the great publications that are available on Center for Crop Diversification, which Sean has been a major part of, but there's
00:50:27
Speaker
Some on here that I didn't even know. There's saffron, coriander, ginger, turmeric. We talked about hops a little bit. There's all kinds of weird things. And yeah, they're Kentucky focused. So if you're not in Kentucky, you could still check these out and maybe get some tips. And you all always put information for other publications from North Carolina and stuff on there as well. So we'll put a link in the show notes where to find those and check them out. But thank you so much.
00:50:55
Speaker
Dr. Wright for joining us today, and I'm excited about gooseberries. I've never had a gooseberry, so I'm excited about it. I'm coming down to eat gooseberries. Like a duckberry, but a little larger and more fawnery. Yeah. More cranky, a cranky berry. It honks when you bite it. Yeah. That's it. Awesome. All right. Well, we hope that as we grow this podcast, you will grow with us and that you will join us next time. Have a great one.