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Plasticulture in Horticulture
77 Plays3 months ago
Join us as we delve into the world of plasticulture and its transformative effects on horticulture crop production. Our discussion highlights how the use of plastic mulches, drip irrigation, and fertigation not only optimizes plant growth but also conserves water and controls weeds. We explore the benefits and challenges of this technology, and share practical tips for growers looking to implement plasticulture in their farming practices. Tune in to discover how this modern agricultural technique is shaping the future of horticulture.
Season Extension Tools & Techniques
Plasticulture for Commercial Vegetables
Use of Plastic Mulch and Row Covers in Vegetable Production
Introduction to Plasticulture and Drip Irrigation (Video)
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: [email protected]
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Hort Culture Podcast
00:00:18
Brett
Greetings, greetings.
00:00:20
atack2010
Hello once again.
00:00:20
Brett
Uh, Ray was saying that I was, I should do a radio intro.
00:00:21
Jessica
Hey.
00:00:25
Brett
So coming to you live from Lexington, Kentucky, this is Brett Wolf with the hort culture podcast joined by Ray Tackett and Jessica Besson.
Seasonal Changes and Their Impact
00:00:35
Brett
What have you opened up to?
00:00:35
atack2010
Perfect. Nailed it.
00:00:36
Brett
What have you opened up to?
00:00:38
atack2010
Summer winding, I guess winding, we're starting to get weather that's making me think, I don't know when my brain flips, but I feel like I'm in a wise summer wind down mode. I don't know how, maybe it's when the kids start to go back to school for you guys.
00:00:51
atack2010
I don't know.
00:00:52
Jessica
I'm in between a county fair and state fair.
00:00:52
atack2010
but what Yeah.
00:00:55
Jessica
So right like the whole month of July has been like, go, go, go, go, go county fair. And then it's like a weird week or so.
00:01:02
atack2010
Mm-hmm.
00:01:03
Jessica
And then we go to state fair and then the light is at the end of the tunnel right there.
00:01:06
atack2010
Yes, after state fire I feel better, yes.
00:01:07
Brett
Hmm.
00:01:07
Jessica
I get through the state fair days and then it's it magically just opens up again.
00:01:11
Brett
Hmm.
00:01:14
atack2010
Starts to ease
Brett's Travels and Bonsai Preparations
00:01:15
atack2010
up just a little bit. How about you, Brett?
00:01:16
Jessica
Yeah.
00:01:17
Brett
Well, I was traveling ah a decent amount here and there through July and and parts ah of August, ah trying to get our team in order and organized ahead of another round of the extension season coming up.
00:01:21
atack2010
Mm-hmm.
00:01:34
Brett
Usually, summer's a chance usually summer's a chance to plan and think about programming for the fall and and coming winter. It's been a little busier with work stuff than usual, um but September just around the corner is a big time for bonsai work, so I you know work on my little work on my little trees, so that's coming up pretty soon.
00:01:54
atack2010
oh
00:01:54
Jessica
Wow.
00:01:55
atack2010
Is it?
00:01:56
Jessica
Cool.
Jessica's Insights from Children's Books
00:01:58
atack2010
what What's the season there on the bonsai?
00:01:58
Brett
um
00:02:00
atack2010
What is that? and What's going on?
00:02:01
Brett
Well, so it's that like kind of that last period before the descent down into hardening off, I mean, sorry, the descent down into like, ah you know, preparation for winter where there's a lot of mobility of nutrients and water and other stuff. And so you can make changes, bend the branches, trim stuff, and it'll heal faster during that time of year than if you did it in the middle of the summer or if you did it too late.
00:02:27
Brett
um So it's just sort of a key intervention moment.
00:02:28
atack2010
Gotcha a ah Not at all
00:02:29
Jessica
Wow.
00:02:31
Brett
There's a couple of different ones, but so that's around the corner. um Yeah. Have you all been, have you all been reading anything or are you looking forward to reading anything once the light at the end of the tunnel arrives?
00:02:41
Jessica
I have a almost two-year-old and a almost four-year-old, so no.
00:02:47
Brett
no we're eating No, okay. even not not even but Not even bedtime stories?
00:02:48
Jessica
I do. i i Oh, wait. Well, I mean, we read Little Blue Truck all the time.
00:02:54
Brett
Hmm.
00:02:54
Jessica
really lama lama red pajama I can like go on and on.
00:02:55
atack2010
Let me tell you, kids books kids the kids books are so good.
00:02:58
Jessica
zollie parton Dolly Parton books are amazing.
00:02:59
Brett
I say.
00:03:02
atack2010
Kids books have all the wisdom people that you need in life if you read them carefully and simply for what they are. I think children's books, when I want to feel better about things, of course I go to kids books.
00:03:13
atack2010
I still miss reading like kids
Olympic Excitement and UK Athletes
00:03:16
atack2010
books to read. My own son is 10 years old going on 11 in September. But I kind of missed that phase where I would read the books. It was very relaxing for me and him both and we would both fall asleep about the same time.
00:03:27
Jessica
They are.
00:03:28
atack2010
So yeah, I do re miss that.
00:03:28
Jessica
There are some good kids' looks out there.
00:03:30
atack2010
Yeah, there are some good ones. I mean, there are some really good ones out there. I just started um Peter Straub's ghost story. It's starting very slow, but it's starting to pick up.
00:03:41
atack2010
I mean, the first three or 400 pages are kind of slow, but yeah, it's, it's one of those seasonal things. Once a season starts to feel like it's turning, I start to read more of my ghosty mysterious stuff.
00:03:50
Brett
I was going to say, yeah, you're going very thematic. I felt like we're going to, we're going to find you, we're going to find you like, uh, overheated in a sweater in late August, being like, I thought it was sweater weather, drinking on hot a hot, pumpkin spice latte.
00:03:54
atack2010
Yeah, it's a theme. It is a thing.
00:04:00
Jessica
helping it and
00:04:00
atack2010
yeah You hey, I am that guy I am that guy we took Yes, I'll be that first guy and you know, I went to the north for vacation this year thinking oh, it's gonna be cooler Well, I went and there alone be old it was a heat wave for them up there So it was in the 80s when normally it was in the 60s So I'm like that worked out not so good for me.
00:04:15
Jessica
so
00:04:20
atack2010
So I was wanting that pumpkin spice weather Brett exactly.
00:04:21
Jessica
i I will be honest, most of my free time I have just been Olympics, right?
00:04:24
Brett
Oh,
00:04:29
atack2010
I Yeah, how do we not talk about this?
00:04:29
Jessica
That's what I've been like.
00:04:31
Brett
you're competing or or watching?
00:04:32
Jessica
Well,
Plasticulture: An Olympic Analogy
00:04:33
Jessica
Well, I joke and say that's like my goal in life. So now I'm like trying to find what could I could compete in at this point. And I'm like, maybe archery. I don't know.
00:04:41
atack2010
Curling maybe for me, I don't know.
00:04:41
Brett
Yeah.
00:04:41
Jessica
Um, yeah, curling in the winter Olympics, but that's, you know, you watch them now and it's like, you get so passionate about like badminton and you get so passionate about like all these other random sports that maybe you've never even heard of before.
00:04:55
Jessica
But even my kids.
00:04:55
atack2010
Shop up for the win.
00:04:57
Jessica
are like getting into it and cheering on and getting really excited about.
00:05:01
atack2010
A lot of energy around the Olympics. I don't know is it just me or this year has been a little bit more hop on the hop train for Olympics.
00:05:02
Jessica
Yeah.
00:05:07
atack2010
I mean it's always a big world event. Yes, but I don't know what it is. It's just everywhere is on social media and on TV. It seems like a see a little bit more. Maybe I've just noticed it for some reason.
00:05:18
atack2010
I don't know.
00:05:18
Brett
Well, I guess the 2020 games were during COVID. So this is the first one's back as far as summer games.
00:05:21
atack2010
Yeah, that's good. that You may. Yeah, that could be it.
00:05:24
Jessica
Yeah.
00:05:25
atack2010
Yeah. Maybe that's it. I hadn't thought about it that way, but that could be why. And you know, we talk about all these world-class athletes and they were competing in single rooms by themselves before. It would depend on what event they were in.
00:05:35
Jessica
Yeah, how?
00:05:36
atack2010
It was just incredible. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, University of Kentucky has been well represented this year here.
00:05:39
Brett
and you
00:05:42
Brett
oh yeah
00:05:42
Jessica
They have on like half of the men's basketball team.
00:05:42
atack2010
Yeah.
00:05:44
atack2010
Yeah.
00:05:46
atack2010
Amazing. Yeah.
00:05:47
Jessica
You're right, and like a fencer and volleyball players and all sorts of track and field.
00:05:48
atack2010
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh yeah, it's ah been very well represented. So I think that's brought a lot of local interest um to the central part of the state for sure.
00:05:58
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:06:01
atack2010
yeah
00:06:01
Brett
Well, one of the things that is kind of interesting, I think it comes out a lot this time of year with the Olympic athletes is like how for a lot of them, their nutrition and exercise and everything is this really very dialed in system.
00:06:15
atack2010
I feel like it's a personal attack on me leading to this. um A dialed-in system.
00:06:20
Brett
And Ray is not, no.
00:06:22
atack2010
Yeah, I know. Yeah.
00:06:23
Brett
This is dialed in system for kind of optimizing human performance. and It reminds me a little bit of a production system that we have access to um that we're going to talk about today for maybe trying to optimize plant performance.
00:06:31
atack2010
the
00:06:38
atack2010
o It is smooth.
00:06:38
Brett
And that is, that's the system of plastic culture that folks is a segue. And ah yeah, and so so the the long story short on this is
00:06:44
Jessica
That's a good one.
00:06:45
atack2010
So smooth, Brett.
00:06:50
Brett
ah We have this system of production called plastic culture in general.
Understanding Plasticulture
00:06:54
Brett
It just means plastic in agriculture and technically it includes any application where plastic is used in agriculture. So it could be.
00:07:02
Brett
a high tunnel, a low tunnel. It could be a plastic mulch bed, which is kind of the main point of focus for what we're talking about today. um It could be, you know, like I mentioned, the low tunnels, the caterpillar tunnels, things like that. There's a lot of different applications. um But the couple of weeks or I don't know, maybe a month ago, I don't know when it was at some point this summer.
00:07:23
atack2010
Thank
00:07:24
Brett
um One of our previous podcast guests, Macy Thompson, and I spoke at a field day um here in central Kentucky about some of the the good, the bad, and the ugly of of plastic culture and some of the decisions about whether you want to use it or not, focusing a little bit on that economics thing.
00:07:42
Brett
and so we yeah I just thought it would be good to share some of what we talked about.
00:07:44
atack2010
you.
00:07:47
Brett
uh with the podcast we have the uh uh good fortune to have someone here on the podcast has recently minted permanent host Jessica Besson who has actually grown uh on plastic and has laid some plastic in in her day and pulled some up and done all kinds of other ah the other uh all the dirty work associated with it
00:08:09
Jessica
all the all the dirty work that goes with it, literally, literally.
00:08:12
atack2010
She's speaking specifically about pulling it up. Yeah. Yeah, she rolls her eyes and says pulling plastic
00:08:16
Brett
and so Jessica, i mean maybe a good place to start would be just give us an overview of like start to finish as far as the steps associated with growing on plastic, what this even looks like. you know I'm imagining the mounded plastic covered beds that you will sometimes see along the side of the road or if you see you know agriculture in California, they use a lot of this kind of stuff. but what what what is the what is the What are the steps around the time of year that you are usually doing that for for growing on plastic?
00:08:48
Jessica
Yeah, so I would say in general, most of the time, people are doing this in April and May, right before big production season starts. It could be earlier, later. um And you're going in ground that has been tilled and worked up a couple of times. And we have a piece of equipment, and it's called it a plastic layer bed shaper, kind of as Brett has mentioned. ah It can come in various different sizes where it will make a raised bed, like a mound. It mounds the soil up.
00:09:16
Jessica
ah to make a bed flat on the top raised up on the sides and This machine is unique because as it makes that bed at the same time we have rolls of plastic that it will unroll over top the bed and Disc that kind of throw soil over the edges of it. So your plastics tucked in at the side ah So it's getting buried on the sides so it won't blow up in the wind because there's nothing worse than plastic, you know coming up and blowing away and At the same time with these machines, now you don't have to have irrigation that goes underneath, but irrigation is always a wonderful thing to have available. t-t tip tea ah excuse me Tea tape,
00:09:55
Jessica
trickle irrigation. It's put the roll on the plastic layer machine and it lays a line of irrigation right underneath that plastic as you go across the field. So you're making the bed. There's a line of irrigation going down.
00:10:12
Jessica
and then you have the plastic laying over it. Now when you do this process you really need about three people to do this job.
Planting Techniques and Weed Control
00:10:19
Jessica
ah Someone at the who's behind the plastic layer who's going to pull the plastic and kind of stand on it and also hold on to that trickle irrigation tape because as soon as that tractor takes off, because you have I should have mentioned you need a tractor for these types of machines, um as soon as that tractor takes off that t-tape is going to pull and You don't want to be the person who doesn't have a good grip on that, and the T-tape just shoot off underneath the plastic and have to find that.
00:10:42
Jessica
Someone needs to stand on one end of it. The tractor driver drives the length of the field. And when they get to the other end, hopefully you have another friend there with you who's going to cut the plastic off, cut the T-tape.
00:10:52
Jessica
And then on both ends of the field, you're going to bury those in just with soil to help hold it down. I think that's, is that a good description of how ah it all works?
00:11:01
Brett
Yeah, yeah. So there's the so you get a tractor, it's pulling this fairly heavy thing with it has these different implements on it that's going to shape the bed, put the plastic down, then cover the edges of the plastic.
00:11:02
atack2010
pretty much yeah
00:11:07
Jessica
Yes. Yes.
00:11:15
Brett
And you have the option of having a ah spool of irrigation that goes underneath it. ah They will go under the plastic right where the roots of the plant will will eventually be.
00:11:19
Jessica
Yes.
00:11:25
Brett
You have anything anything to add to that, right?
00:11:25
Jessica
ye
00:11:25
atack2010
Pretty much, yeah season, you're talking about doing things like ah that that adds a little bit more equipment. You're typically adding some kind of unit to inject a fertilizer through the tape and you're hooking that to ah some sort of water source. That's either a municipal water supply or if you have like a pond or a creek that you're pumping out of, it could be a little bit more elaborate set up with um ah pumps gasoline pumps things like that so it really varies but later in the season you run into a little bit more of of equipment but yeah that's the process in a nutshell plastic bed shaper tractor and you know typically some way to hook the water and water the stuff and usually I guess to run fertilizer through the lines that's another huge benefit yeah yeah
00:12:15
Jessica
Yeah, there's a whole other aspect of the irrigation process hookup-wise, right? Those fertilizer injectors and, um you know, how are you closing off the lines?
00:12:20
atack2010
yeah
00:12:25
Jessica
What kind of emitters are you using? All of that as well can go into it. But for simplicity, just like Brett said about the shape of the bed, yeah, um that's pretty much it.
00:12:31
atack2010
Yeah, the five minute version.
00:12:34
Brett
Yeah. Well, so then one of the reasons why people put down plastic, one of many, is that in that area where it covers, it doesn't allow most weeds at least to grow up through it, right?
00:12:45
atack2010
um Yeah.
00:12:47
Brett
Well, ideally we have a plant that we're trying to grow.
00:12:47
Jessica
Right.
00:12:50
Brett
And so how do we get that plant into, through the plastic, into the plastic? Are we punching holes or are we, what, what could you have the implement or something like that to you use?
00:12:58
Jessica
Yeah. Yeah. So if you, I've seen it in a couple of different ways and I have done it a couple of different ways myself before being able to borrow or get our own machinery to do it. They have a water wheel setters and I'll talk about those a little more in a second. but Otherwise, a lot of people starting off, if they can manage to get plastic laid, will do it by hand.
00:13:21
Jessica
Often taking, say, you need to plant your tomatoes three feet apart, having a stick or something, pre-cut tobacco stick, in our case we would do, and, you know, marking off on that plastic, taking a trowel, stabbing a hole in the plastic, not on your tea tape, not on your irrigation line, and then going
00:13:29
atack2010
Yeah.
00:13:37
atack2010
Yeah. Preferably not cutting T type.
00:13:40
Jessica
you know, following through and putting planting after that and covering, you know, covering your plants with soil. That hurts your back a lot doing it that way. ah But we do have a machine called a water wheel setter where they have two riders on it and kind of not really like a tobacco setter, but in the sense, you know, same if you're hooking up to a tractor, your plants are being held in front of you. um And then they have these large metal wheels on them.
00:14:08
Jessica
that have different, what would you call them, spikes, points on them?
00:14:11
atack2010
different yeah The spacings for the spots that just create a hole in the plastic. i guess And a hole for the plant, a little bit of a starter hole for the plant.
00:14:16
Jessica
Yeah.
00:14:19
atack2010
now
00:14:19
Jessica
Yeah, so but is your there's also a water tank hooked on that, et cetera. So as that wheel spins and the the different spikes on there are spaced at different lengths, depending on what you're planting.
00:14:30
Jessica
And you can also have double ones as well, if you're planting um plants side by side, that you can go, it'll go punch the hole in the plastic, it'll put water. And if you especially have fertilizer already mixed in with that water, um water that fertilizer, and then the riders just push that plant down into the soil and it's like suctions back in and covers the plant with soil that way. And then another tip that I have learned over the years, we talked about, you know, that already that Plastics great for weed control, right?
00:15:01
Jessica
But you still have that hole there where you plant.
00:15:03
atack2010
yeah
00:15:04
Jessica
So you will still have some weeds come up there. Going back after planting, taking some regular potting soil mix, pro soil pro mix, some of soilless media, and filling in those holes.
00:15:16
Jessica
um Not using the soil that's right next to the field because you're just putting more weed seed in that way. And that way you can help control weed growth even in that little area as well.
00:15:23
atack2010
Yeah. I think that's one of the reasons that, uh, always, uh, When working with newer producers that's not as familiar with plastic culture is, you know, they say, oh, if we could do lettuce on this. I'm like, do you really want to poke, you know, ah six holes across that plastic and do those two inches apart? Basically, you're going to have a weed bed there. So the fewer holes you can poke in the plastic.
00:15:47
atack2010
The better, and I guess my point here being, is plastic culture is amazing, but it's not suitable web for every single thing, especially for those high density crops.
00:15:54
Jessica
Right,
00:15:56
atack2010
um you know Jessica mentioned double rows. There's lots of double row crops that you can do very effectively on plastic culture. But there's some crops that just, yeah, peppers.
00:16:03
Jessica
peppers.
00:16:05
atack2010
I've seen beans done that way, corn done that way, depending on the spacing and the offset. But yeah, it's not it's not suitable for every single thing, but it's an amazing process for a lot of things.
00:16:18
atack2010
A lot of different crops.
00:16:19
Brett
So um I guess, you know, one of the questions I have or or questions I'd like to talk about through the course of this, but by the way, if you, if you haven't seen one work before. Just just look up YouTube water wheel setter and you'll see you know kind of how the thing that Jessica just described. so those Those folks in the back have trays full of transplants that they are pulling plants out of and putting in by hand, but they're sitting on these things that are pulled behind a tractor so they're not walking along necessarily and able to kind of do that as they fill in. It's a pretty cool process. and
00:16:53
Brett
Um, it's amazing how like a trained group or an experienced group can set a ton of plants really, really fast. Uh, I remember the first time I ever saw one, I was kind of like, I wonder how, I mean, I could see that it would speed up somewhat, but yeah, it's, it's wild how quickly.
00:17:10
Jessica
It's, we used to take a full day to plant our tomato plants.
00:17:10
atack2010
Yeah.
00:17:15
Jessica
And with that, you'd like two hours to to do 800.
00:17:18
atack2010
Mm hmm.
00:17:18
Brett
Yeah. So you're doing a ah whole day by hand versus wow.
00:17:21
Jessica
Yeah.
00:17:23
Brett
Yeah. And you talk about it and also not fun, full day of bending over and
00:17:28
Jessica
Right. Yeah.
00:17:29
atack2010
Bending over, yeah.
00:17:30
Jessica
Nobody's, nobody's happy by the end of the day. Right.
00:17:33
atack2010
Nobody's in a good mood. Nobody's had a Snickers bar.
Improving Crop Quality with Plasticulture
00:17:36
atack2010
Everybody is not not doing well, yeah.
00:17:37
Jessica
Right. Everyone needs snack and a drink and snacks and a drink.
00:17:39
atack2010
Yes, yeah.
00:17:41
Brett
What I was saying or what i was what I was leading to before I distracted myself was maybe thinking about why someone might do this or why they may may not do this. um And of course, my mind goes to some of the economic considerations with the things that I kind of call the good and the bad of plastic culture. um So what are some of the good things about so I mean, why is it that you all use plastic culture, Jessica? Or, you know, if you were talking to somebody, Ray, what are the things that you would encourage someone to think about?
00:18:10
Brett
while they might want to use it.
00:18:12
atack2010
Sure.
00:18:13
Jessica
Yeah.
00:18:13
atack2010
Go ahead, Jessica.
00:18:13
Jessica
you know Yeah.
00:18:14
atack2010
You want to start out?
00:18:15
Jessica
I would say, you know, we've already mentioned like the weed control, right? It's big, but I think another thing, and especially with this summer, at least in my area and Mercer County and in the area where I'm around, from where I'm from, like in Garrett County, we were in a big drought this summer.
00:18:29
atack2010
Yeah.
00:18:29
Jessica
Um, it, we had a month with no rain. And if there were growers who did have items on plastic with that irrigation, they were still able to produce great crops, right?
00:18:42
Jessica
They were they were still able to produce their crops. They didn't have as many issues with things like blossom and rot and other things that are caused by like moisture flu fluctuation in the soil ah versus other growers I know who their crops were a bust because they did not, they didn't have that irrigation source. um It gives you a jumpstart on the season. It warms that soil up faster so plants take off quicker.
00:19:07
Jessica
especially, um, you know, melons and things really like being grown on plastic from that warmer soil and everything. And it has that good drainage as well. We always talk about how plants don't like wet feet, right?
00:19:16
atack2010
Uh-huh.
00:19:16
Jessica
So if it is a wet year and we're getting a lot of rain, plus we have that irrigation, they're also getting better drainage that year. Um, so those are some of the things I started off with people.
00:19:27
Jessica
It's also, I feel like you're more efficient with your fertilizing.
00:19:32
atack2010
Oh yeah.
00:19:32
Jessica
because you're putting it directly in those lines most of the time with the soluble fertilizer and even pre-plant fertilizers. If you know where you're going to lay that plastic, you can put that fertilizer down in that row and you're not fertilizing all those weeds. right You put your fertilizer down, then you lay plastic right above that. um so There's a couple of benefits that way. and I you know usually start off with growers who Start encouraging them to use that who are ready to make that jump to the next level.
00:20:04
Jessica
If wanting to get more produce, you know, get a bigger market or like really get established like in a farmer's market or any other market as well.
00:20:11
atack2010
I think about and also think about crops like specifically too much caffeine today folks as crops like strawberries where the quality you just can't compare the quality between strawberries grown on bare ground versus plastic culture because there's so much cleaner and such a much higher quality product that's
00:20:32
Brett
You're saying that the ones
Economic Benefits of Plasticulture
00:20:33
Brett
grown on plastic are cleaner and.
00:20:33
atack2010
The one on plastic, there's so much cleaner because a rain splash is not an issue for the most part.
00:20:35
Jessica
And.
00:20:40
atack2010
And there's also benefits of disease control where a lot of ah the diseases that hit us pretty hard in Kentucky are soil born. there they They live in the soil. So the just a higher quality product on plastic, especially those products like strawberries, that it's a game changer.
00:20:58
atack2010
I mean, I don't know about you guys, but if you have a you pick operation and people come out and they pick your strawberries and it's on sandy soil and they bought into it, you can hear them chewing because it is so gritty and it just nearly ruins the product.
00:21:09
atack2010
If you get a rain around a picking date, it's just it's it's really tough on the product.
00:21:14
Jessica
Um.
00:21:15
atack2010
But if that those strawberries were um plastic. That would, for the most part, not be an issue at all. So that that's some other benefits. In addition to all the other benefits Jessica just mentioned is just the quality of the product, in many cases, is higher. I mean, and there's there's there's lots of benefits. And the production, I know Brett, you've probably, and and Jessica too, you've looked at Different crops respond differently to plastic culture when you look at something like well established crops that we have data on like tomatoes and pepper goodness, I don't know. I've personally witnessed 100% increase in yields and sometimes even well well beyond
00:21:55
atack2010
double the yield sometimes three times is the yield for certain crops and especially vine crops it's amazing what you can do with vine crops on plastic versus bare ground so some crops just um the the yield increase is pretty incredible but I warn you I worked with a farmer one time and he was totally unfamiliar he was in the eastern part of the state the eastern foothills of Kentucky um
00:22:02
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:22:19
atack2010
And it was a pretty large tomato grower. And he said, I want to go all plastic this year. And I said, okay. And, you know, I asked a lot of questions about his markets and I looked at him and I said, you're not ready. I said, I said, you're, you better increase your markets because, and we were at the time we were working with a very good specialist, Dr. Terry Jones. And I said, Terry's really good at, you know, we were going to set up a demo site and I said, we're going to take a quarter of acre and we're going to produce as much as you normally do on an acre.
00:22:46
atack2010
And, uh, Otis was his name and he, Otis did not, it's not that he didn't believe us, but I could see the doubt on Otis's face, but, and we did exactly what we said on those tomatoes.
00:22:57
atack2010
And he was not prepared for the influx of production, the increase in production.
00:23:01
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:23:02
atack2010
So that's another amazing thing about plastic culture is a lot of these crops, not all crops, but a lot of the crops you can grow in plastic, you just the increase in production. I mean, it's, it's pretty amazing.
00:23:13
Brett
Yeah, I think, I mean, I think a lot of what, what we're talking about is this, it's this, um, cumulative effect that the plastic has on multiple different aspects of the plant's health and its ability to uptake nutrition, its ability to uptake water that overall makes a healthier, stronger plant in a variety of ways, whether that be again, from that uptake, whether that be from.
00:23:23
atack2010
Mm
00:23:23
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:23:37
Brett
uh, preventing somebody mentioned the soil splash. A lot of our, a lot of our issues. If you, you know, if you think about your garden, garden tomatoes and you watch them over the course of the year, when they start getting disease and they start to die off, they almost always, almost always from the ground up.
00:23:43
atack2010
-hmm
00:23:53
Brett
And that's not just because the bottom leaves are old and the new the ones up top are new. There's also this element of soil splash. where rain comes down, hits the ground, splashes up onto the leaves, the disease spreads, and then it burns it up you know like ah ah toward the top.
00:24:06
atack2010
We're looking at you, early blot. Yeah.
00:24:08
Brett
Yeah.
00:24:08
Jessica
Right.
00:24:09
Brett
So that's an example of where it you know you're you're getting less of that happening. So therefore, it's it's like ah almost like our immune systems. you know if you're If you're constantly feeling sick, you're not gonna be performing at your best.
00:24:22
Brett
Well, the same way if you're if you're ah creating an environment where your plants are able to get this high quality environment ah with all these other things available to them, ah like just in time fertilizer. We mentioned the idea of fertigating, or we didn't say fertigating, but that's what we were talking about. um Briefly, what's the idea there with fertigation?
00:24:48
atack2010
i Put put the fertilizer where it needs to be Instead of and Jessica already mentioned it. There's a big benefit to ah and we and we will lump this under the category of precision agriculture And that thought is putting the inputs into agriculture where they need to be rather than broadcasting wholesale, the fertilizer over the entire field. It's much more efficient. It saves on input costs. And anytime you can do that in any operation, it's a win. You you use, you know, you spend less money, you use less input, you reduce the environmental impact. it's It's all good things as far as fertigation and you're running it through the lines and you're putting it exactly for the most part where it needs to be.
00:25:29
Jessica
And going back to, you know, you're talking about those disease pressures and stuff. I think having some of these crops on plastic, so you have better spacing, right? Spacing hopefully with it. So if you do get something and you do need to treat with a fungicide, it's easier with those rows and stuff for you to get in there and potentially get better coverage of a fungicide. So hopefully that you are having to ah treat less, right? Like you're hopefully you're being able to get good coverage,
00:25:58
Jessica
right then, so then you're not having to go back and try to make as much as many applications as things.
00:26:02
atack2010
Yeah. The thing that struck me years ago, and as somebody said it, and it's always stayed with me and a producer with many years of experience. He said, you know, the thing about horticulture, those of us that are in horticulture and we're doing things like plastic culture, he said, we pray for just the opposite of a traditional ag operation. We would rather deal with a dry year than a wet year with regular rains because a dry year means very, very low disease pressure. And we would rather have that than the rains.
00:26:32
atack2010
And that always kind of hit me because there are a lot of times running the irrigation regardless, especially if it's recently rained, they still have to run the fertigation to get the fertilizer application in there. So they're running it anyways, in some cases, but in a dry year, it helps a lot of horticulture operations to be dry, to limit disease pressure. a So that's a big consideration and that has been a big change over the years.
Plasticulture Challenges
00:26:56
atack2010
in intensive horticulture management is the fact that we lack dry years ah to an extent, because particularly here in Kentucky, yeah, it's disease pressures high.
00:27:01
Brett
Yeah, well, that's why Well historically that's why you know central the central valley of california is the salad bowl of the us is that they don't that doesn't rain and they're able to
00:27:10
atack2010
Mm-hmm.
00:27:13
Brett
have historically been able to move in water from other places and that's becoming more and more difficult. So it's like rain so that our reservoirs are full, but stop raining during the growing season, that's what we want.
00:27:18
atack2010
Yes, yeah.
00:27:22
Jessica
Yeah.
00:27:23
atack2010
Yeah, exactly.
00:27:24
Brett
ah Yeah, and I think just to at tack on on the fertigation thing that you can do fertigation even if you don't do plastic, right?
00:27:24
atack2010
like
00:27:31
Brett
that's not It's not like it's exclusively that, but that in addition to the putting it exactly where you want it is also exactly when you want it.
00:27:32
Jessica
Right.
00:27:40
Brett
um And so the idea of like let's say a tomato plant needs a certain amount a hundred percent of the nutrients that it needs across the course of the season.
00:27:41
atack2010
Sure.
00:27:49
Brett
Well if you just broadcast all of that out at the very beginning of the year that's almost like you know you go on your on your seven day cruise where it's all you can eat but they bring all your food to you at the very first meal.
00:28:02
Brett
some of that's going to go to waste.
00:28:02
Jessica
Mm
00:28:03
Brett
So so ideally you'd like to space it out throughout the course of the season. So you might be able to add fertile add a little bit of fertilizer at the beginning and then space out and add fertilizer through through the irrigation lines, which are right by those roots you know every week or every two weeks or whatever your schedule is throughout the course of the season.
00:28:18
atack2010
Yeah. And I also saw this thought of micro dosing, which, you know, there's been some work done on like orchards and things, but, uh, pulsing fertigation to the point where you're trying to really, really, really fine tune.
00:28:26
Jessica
hmm.
00:28:31
atack2010
those applications, um two specific plants, and that's done for the most part, especially in the larger operations, but that would be near impossible if you, let's say you were just side dressing, you know, as in olden days, you were just side dressing, you know, tomatoes, peppers, whatever, you could not have that control over fertilizer, that that granular control, no pun intended.
00:28:53
Jessica
I had a grower this year who was having some issues in a high tunnel.
00:28:56
atack2010
Hmm.
00:28:57
Jessica
And, you know, looking back, he did, he had soil tests done and he did his pre-plant, you know, fertilizer and all that. And he had his plant, but he ended ended up having like a nutrient deficiency that came up in the middle of the season.
00:29:10
Jessica
And because of that, you know, where he was having that trickle irrigation, he could switch it up. And like you like you said, he wasn't limited just to what that granular was.
00:29:15
atack2010
a
00:29:18
Jessica
He could go and get a specific water soluble thing and get it to those plants to help them. turn around.
00:29:25
atack2010
So lots of but lots of benefits, but it but is it all benefits? I mean, I get that question sometimes too. Sometimes I'm challenged.
00:29:32
Jessica
Yeah.
00:29:33
atack2010
You know, from producers rightfully so, they're like, whoa, you've told me about all the good things. Now I want to hear, as Paul Harvey says, the rest of the story.
00:29:43
Jessica
Oh,
00:29:43
atack2010
Um, and there's gotta, there's gotta be a different side to this coin, you guys. Surely.
00:29:50
Jessica
For, for sure. My biggest thing just to go ahead and set is, and I think everybody's is just the disposal of it.
00:29:52
Brett
Mm hmm.
00:29:56
Jessica
Right.
00:29:57
atack2010
Oh yeah.
00:29:57
Jessica
Recycling. And I don't know, Brett, you might know more if they have come up with any ways to be able to recycle it.
00:30:02
atack2010
Yeah, I'm going to pick Brett's brain, yeah.
00:30:05
Jessica
Cause I know like the biggest thing, you know, is that it's, it's obviously dirty, right? It's obviously a soil all over it. And that was the biggest issue, at least like when I was still an undergrad a million years ago,
00:30:17
Jessica
that they were talking about like well that's our hiccup is that it has all that soil over it so we can't recycle it different ways and um so I don't know if you've heard that they've come up with anything else.
00:30:30
Brett
No. i mean there have There have been people who have tried to do it.
00:30:32
atack2010
I don't.
00:30:33
Brett
There have been businesses that have sprung up to try and do it.
00:30:34
atack2010
Yeah.
00:30:35
Brett
But before we jump into that, i mean how what is the Jessica, I'm going to go back to you as our as our on the ground expert here. What is the process of creating that giant pile of dirty plastic look like?
00:30:48
Jessica
ah
00:30:49
Brett
You've gone in, you've Done the steps, like you said, to plant it. you've I mean, to to lay the plastic, to plant into it. Your plants are there at the end of the season looking sad and and ready to to give up the ghost.
00:31:04
Brett
What does the process look like for getting that...
00:31:06
Jessica
Yeah, so it depends on like what plants you have in there, how easy it's going to be able to come out or not.
00:31:07
Brett
sort Yeah, get rid of that.
00:31:13
Jessica
come out. um So going through and pulling plants out first is usually the first step and those tomato plants can have extensive root systems and be quite large in a mess. So that's your first task is to get all of that stuff out and most likely just go ahead and haul it out of your field because in case you got any disease or anything funky it's just easier at that point to take it out and you know move it someplace else. um I've seen it done a couple of different ways.
00:31:39
Jessica
and They actually have it plastic lifter machines you can purchase that hook up to the back of the tractor and have like two, what what would we call those? They're not disc, but um yeah.
00:31:49
Brett
I like a little undercutting. like It's almost like it almost like ah like a really not robust chisel plow that's not so deep.
00:31:52
atack2010
you
00:31:52
Jessica
yeah
00:31:57
Jessica
Yep. Yep. And go wrong. It goes right over top of the row. You drive over top of the row with your tractor. It cuts right underneath the sides to lift that plastic up and Some of them do have mechanisms that you can tie the tea tape onto and it will roll the tea tape up for you. And then it's just manual labor at that point. It's going back through and pulling all that plastic up to the end of the row. And you're like, oh, that's easy. That doesn't sound bad at all. Well, a lot of times it rips off. A lot of times it does that, ah depending on the weather, how wet the soil is. But you know you don't want it to be too wet because you don't want it to be completely muddy mess in there.
00:32:37
Jessica
But getting every little piece of that plastic out is sometimes very challenging. and I mean, and that's it. And I've seen other that they've taken just like regular subsoilers, like you mentioned, or like potato diggers and have gone next to it. I've seen other people, unfortunately, who have had to do just a shovel walk it along the sides of your rows and like pop up the sides with a shovel to try to get that out.
00:33:03
Jessica
And then go back through over your field a couple of times to try to get all those little pieces of plastic out. I should, you know, train my children to do this and give them a reward at the end.
00:33:13
atack2010
A big reward.
00:33:14
Jessica
Yeah.
00:33:14
atack2010
It's a tough work. It's a tough process.
00:33:17
Brett
It's one of the one of the great mysteries is why do the edges of the plastic want to blow out during the season when it's windy?
00:33:25
Jessica
Right.
00:33:26
Brett
But then when it's time for them to come out, they will. I mean, if you if you at the end of a season, you spent a lot of time outside, it's still warm, usually. and you just keep pulling the plastic and it keeps tearing. It's like, it's a it ah it could be a meditative experience and frustration and patience and all those other fun things. But but yeah, I mean, it really, like you said, it's there is even even if you can use a piece of equipment to kind of loosen things up a little bit, you're still, at least in my experience, you're still going along and bunching this stuff up and holding it, maybe moving it into a bucket and then,
00:34:04
Brett
And you have to, there are some people who reuse a plastic bed for another crop. You know, I've seen people follow, for instance, follow a pepper planting with garlic or something, or they'll leave it in and maybe plant something in the spring. There are opportunities to do that.
00:34:21
Brett
Uh, but at some point you're going to have to get that out of the, out of the field.
00:34:25
Jessica
Yeah.
00:34:25
Brett
And I think, you know, you pointed to that, that disposal issue then where ultimately for the most part, these, this is a bunch of plastic going into a landfill, um, is, is the the downside or the the negative thing.
00:34:40
Brett
And there's, there's both, uh, economic and probably personal ethical considerations. There's as far as our consumers.
Equipment and Labor in Plasticulture
00:34:51
Brett
our our customers may have certain things that they feel about that. the The number of people who have strong feelings about a pulp berry container versus a plastic clamshell at a farmer's market.
00:35:00
Jessica
Right.
00:35:01
Brett
People think the plastic clamshell is the evil petroleum plastic corporate empire, Kroger, brand you know or grocery store brand, Driscoll's, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:35:12
Brett
They have all these associations and the pulp container is yeah Well, that's down home on the farm. But I have experienced myself getting seeing berries in those two different containers and the ones in the clamshells last two to three times as long.
00:35:28
Jessica
Yeah.
00:35:28
Brett
And there's a reason why grocery stores use them. And so it's like this trade-off between the values of the customer, the values of you as a producer, and then also, like you said or like like I said, the the cost of disposal, um because it's you know a lot.
00:35:42
Brett
It's a thin piece of plastic but when you stack it all up it ends up being quite a bit.
00:35:46
atack2010
Lot.
00:35:46
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:35:47
atack2010
Yes. That's the one that's that's the one thing. I mean, it does require, we already mentioned a lot of the initial investment cost. I mean, there's the equipment. Not everybody has a 50 horsepower tractor, 60 or 70 horsepower tractor if it's two wheel drive.
00:36:01
atack2010
Not everybody has the bed shaper, you know, and all the attachments to do that. But I found that the labor that it takes to pull up the plastic once it's down, that can be pretty significant, especially if you have to hire labor. I mean, that's just, yeah it just adds one cost onto to the other. And that's something you kind of have to, I don't know what kind of analysis would that be, Brad, if we were like a, not a breakeven, it would be something in the total cost analysis ah of using plastic. If you were new and considering that, you would have to consider all these things we've talked about today, wouldn't you?
00:36:37
atack2010
the potential for increased production?
00:36:38
Brett
I think so. you know one of the things One of the things we didn't talk about on as much on the positive is that there are certain ways that you might reduce your labor inputs in addition to your other inputs.
00:36:40
atack2010
Well, what is it?
00:36:51
Brett
so like In general, when we're talking about even just as simple as your wallet, right in your wallet, if you have more money going in or less money going out, at the end, you're going to have more money than you did otherwise.
00:37:03
Brett
and so It's the same way with the enterprise. if you have higher potential returns through whether that be a higher value crop, more of it, higher quality, whatever. The other way is let's spend less money to produce this stuff.
00:37:16
Brett
And one of those that you're mentioning here is this idea of labor. And so you have more labor for dealing with the plastic, but you don't have to pay somebody to go out there and cultivate or spray herbicide or whatever.
00:37:26
atack2010
Mmm.
00:37:29
Jessica
Right.
00:37:30
Brett
And so the trade-offs there are going to be unique to an operation. I think that there is ah an aspect of scale that factors in. um you know If you have two beds well ah to get a tractor and get a setup and get the plastic and everything else, or maybe to borrow one or whatever, that might be too much. ah And you you're not saving that much in the long-term, but if you have an acre or two acres or more of that thing of the that suddenly the the plastic labor savings might make more sense. um and so i think yeah To answer your question in a long-winded way, which I'm good at doing, um the the labor is is ah there's a push and a pull on labor needs. and It's also time of year
00:38:17
Brett
for when the labor might be needed more or less. and so if you ah We have often have labor needs during certain time of year for tobacco or for cattle or for whatever. And then other times of year where it would be nice to be able to keep those people on and have have something to do, does do those things line up? you know Is the plastic pulling and cleanup portion of the season
00:38:42
Brett
a different time of year from when you're, I mean, i some of the tobacco stuff I guess is kind of a dated reference at this point ah for a lot of lot of people, but ah when you're stripping or when you're topping or whatever. um So I think, yes, there is there is a significant trade-off and there are some budgets available from different university websites that kind of give some indications of what um what those costs are or could be, but I think, ah yeah, and just the overall higher install
Crops Benefiting from Plasticulture
00:39:13
Brett
costs.
00:39:13
Brett
In case in case anybody wasn't familiar with ah the horsepower tractor reference, some of these implements are really either really heavy or they dig really into the soil really hard.
00:39:22
atack2010
Hmm.
00:39:23
Brett
And so having a beefy tractor that has a little bit of weight and a little bit of power could be necessary. It just depends on the size of the implement that you're using and all that kind of fun stuff. but um Yeah, it's it's just ah it's a system and you're you're thinking about incorporating a system and all the things that go along with that. um So just to to recap here, I think one of the things I would like to maybe run back, we've mentioned several of them across the course of this conversation. What are some of like the quintessential plastic crops?
00:39:56
atack2010
We talked about some mentioned some of them just in passing things like strawberries here in Kentucky.
00:39:58
Jessica
Yeah.
00:40:01
atack2010
Peppers and tomatoes are super common.
00:40:01
Jessica
Tomatoes.
00:40:03
atack2010
What else, Jessica?
00:40:04
Jessica
I was going to say, for sure, tomatoes.
00:40:06
atack2010
Mm hmm.
00:40:07
Jessica
um And I would say melons-wise.
00:40:09
atack2010
Yeah, you melons for sure.
00:40:10
Jessica
I know Ray and I got to see, like, how many acres?
00:40:10
atack2010
um
00:40:14
Jessica
200-plus acres of watermelon on plastic out in Western Kentucky once.
00:40:17
atack2010
Yeah, on plastic.
00:40:20
Brett
Mm-hmm cucumbers all the cucurbits
00:40:20
Jessica
um Yeah, all the cucurbits, right? Right.
00:40:26
atack2010
Yeah, mining crops, yeah.
00:40:26
Jessica
so
00:40:27
atack2010
the the
00:40:27
Jessica
They do really well on plastic. and
00:40:31
atack2010
You'll find, I mean, to a lesser extent, I mean, depending on the state, you'll find like cool season crops, sometimes on plastic. The the ones we just mentioned, they're just the the top ones that scale really well.
00:40:43
atack2010
The only ones that, you know, I don't think of and I think of plastic for the most part would be like a high density crop like lettuce or something like that. that And I've actually seen that planted yeah and I was like, whoa, that's brave.
00:40:50
Jessica
i've seen
00:40:54
Jessica
Yeah.
00:40:54
atack2010
So yeah.
00:40:55
Jessica
And I've seen, um surprisingly, I've seen sweet potatoes planted that way before, which actually makes it kind of easy to harvest the sweet potatoes afterwards.
00:41:00
Brett
Mm hmm.
00:41:06
Jessica
I've seen sweet corn, which people I don't think would think that as well, that you would you could do that. But there are a couple of growers I know, not necessari ah not in my county, but other counties that are doing sweet corn crops on plastic to get them out
00:41:18
atack2010
Yeah.
00:41:21
Jessica
early so they can have that sweet crown really early at farmer's markets.
00:41:21
atack2010
Mm-hmm I've seen some even use transplants instead of seed as far as Do transplanting sweet corn to get a super early jump.
00:41:27
Jessica
Yes, yeah, they turn they're transplanting it.
00:41:33
atack2010
So yeah interesting Yeah, like blocks of plastic
00:41:33
Jessica
Oh, I guess all the flower production too.
00:41:34
Brett
Thank
00:41:35
Jessica
Like, I mean, I know what they're doing with other just like row covers and stuff in the soil, but I've seen, I've seen, yeah, cut flowers also grown.
00:41:39
Brett
you.
00:41:45
Jessica
Alexis was here, she would elaborate more, but I've seen it done that way.
00:41:46
atack2010
Yeah, we're talking about, we we tend to think in terms of three to four foot wide, you know, widths of plastic, you know, on shaped rows. But when you talk about like the floral industry, you start talking about alternative layouts, like the big blocks of plastic with holes and, and even geotextile materials, you even go beyond plastic to some, you know, other materials.
00:42:00
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:42:07
atack2010
So it's pretty interesting. But it's all, as Brett said earlier, I think um it's, if you talk plastic culture, it's just the use of plastic in some kind of production system.
Deciding Factors for Using Plasticulture
00:42:16
Brett
Well, marketing and Fiasco's in Kentucky aside, on with hemp, you saw people who grew hemp in an open field environment and you saw people who grew it in on plastic culture and sometimes on plastic culture inside of a high tunnel.
00:42:29
atack2010
Mhmm.
00:42:34
Jessica
Yeah.
00:42:35
Brett
um and and And in most of those cases, at least ostensibly or the idea was that those were going to go to different types of markets. So like you might do ah ah growing it in the field, these kind of more like a field crop, less intensive, less irrigation, et cetera.
00:42:50
Brett
to produce heavy biomass in order to sell that for for the ah the fiber portion of the hemp thing. Whereas people who are growing it for CBD production might treat it more like a horticultural crop because you're really trying to cultivate the flower itself. you know and the Most of the fruits and things that we talk about start their life as a flower and then turn into something else. so Again, it makes kind of makes sense.
00:43:13
Brett
And they might grow that on might have grown that on plastic so that they could manage the fertile fertility, manage the water and grow a little bit of a, just a different approach. you know You're trying to grow a different thing. um One of the interesting things that I came across as I was thinking back on my experience and also just reading a little bit is that one of the crops, vining crops that could kind of go either way um is pumpkins.
00:43:37
Jessica
Oh yeah.
00:43:37
Brett
So some people grow plum pumpkins on plastics, but a lot of them, especially larger, so you mentioned the big big scale ah melon growers, an opportunity to to visit a large scale um pumpkin growers up in in Indiana.
00:43:42
atack2010
Mm-hmm
00:43:54
Brett
And a lot of their pumpkins, they don't grow on plastic. they do ah a strip they They have a cover crop that they roll down and then they do a strip tilt i mean ah sorry i like yeah yeah strip tillage,
00:44:02
atack2010
Yeah, cramped
00:44:06
Brett
plant those things into that. And part of the reason for that is when you're growing like a jack-o'-lantern pumpkin, The demand for a jack-o'-lantern pumpkin outside of October 20th through October 31st isn't crazy high. It's not like the the blt first BLT of summer or the ah you know Fourth of July watermelon or something. So that earlyness isn't necessarily as much of ah of a player. But then at the field day, they, of course, to to contradict me in my statements,
00:44:38
Brett
three, you know, three or four rows down, they were growing some pumpkins on plastic and I kind of asked, I was able to ask them why they did that.
00:44:39
atack2010
Hm.
00:44:46
Brett
And they were saying that those are these stacker pumpkins that are these smaller scale. They're the ones that you see.
00:44:52
Jessica
I shall be, you know.
00:44:53
Brett
Yeah. They're a specialty pumpkin. You see them in like a long-term, you know, from, from September through October, November, just fall displays outside.
00:45:05
Brett
but And they, they need to look really, really good and be of a really high quality. And they determined that growing those on plastic was worth it. But then luckily several rows down, they had some that were not on plastic, that were just on bare ground um to kind of demonstrate that difference.
00:45:20
Brett
And so that was just an interesting decision that they were actually made on that farm that was really cool to be able to illustrate. But it's even within within crop families or within certain specific crops, there's like this difference or this variability on what
00:45:30
Jessica
Thank
00:45:34
Brett
ah How you want to approach it and whether ultimately whether it's worth it because if you're if you're selling into a commodity pumpkin market like this people up in Indiana were The margins are the the amount of money that you're making per pumpkin is so small that you kind of want to not put out a ton of resources per pumpkin and then have to deal with it, but um
00:45:54
Jessica
you.
Future of Plasticulture and Sustainability
00:45:57
Brett
Yeah, I think making that decision comes down to those crop selection issues. We mentioned the equipment, whether the equipment changes or upgrades or shifts are going to be worth it for you. um Jessica, you were mentioning ah kind of seeing people who and maybe you in your own experience borrowing equipment, whether that be from another grower, whether that be from a shared use equipment thing um and then transitioning to the point where you're like, OK, we think we like this. We're going to get our own. Is that is that kind of that's been your experience a little bit?
00:46:26
Jessica
Yeah, that's been my experience. I know with us personally, we when my husband and I, when we were just dating, decided that we were going to do this, we were lucky enough to know somebody who had a plastic layer and um was willing to let us borrow it the first like few years until we were like, OK, we're actually, I guess, crazy enough. Let's do this plus work full-time jobs. um And you know we eventually made that investment into that plastic layer.
00:46:55
Jessica
So that's why when I started working here as a horticulture agent, I kind of thought that might be a good investment of a piece of equipment for our county office to have that available for people. Now, it doesn't really get used a lot only in those like prime months, but I have seen, I have had two growers and it they only sound like I only have two two that I've seen that have gone from very small traditional you know gardening who have now been able to borrow that and have bumped themselves up so much that they really need to be selling at more than one market or they are selling at more than one market now and they're also doing ah selling at the auctions and other locations and it's all because they they started using that production system right and they were able to just like
00:47:44
Jessica
Ray had shared that story early on, able to really increase their production from it. um So one of them I think is you know getting ready to invest in his own now because you know now we're getting into the issue of, is it available?
00:47:54
Brett
Hmm.
00:47:58
Jessica
Is it not available?
00:47:58
Brett
Right?
00:47:59
Jessica
Did somebody else have it? Did it get returned? Is it working right? um But you can see how that can make a big difference for people's production if they're wanting to make that jump. and I've had several people who borrowed it and like other things we've talked about already are like, wow, that plastic cost a lot. Oh, that T-Tape cost a lot. I really don't do that much. I don't see myself getting bigger. This was you know not for them and the versus others that have just taken it and really been able to expand from it.
00:48:30
Brett
Yeah, I think I always say that we we in extension or we as as with the Center for crop diversification, kill twice as many dreams as we inspire.
00:48:42
Jessica
Ah, we do.
00:48:42
Brett
ah But, you know, if it's a dream that's going to end up hurting you in the long run, then I think it's better to better to know and and that ability to kind of check it out and see, oh, wow, yeah, this is not appropriate for me or this is I think it's cool to um
00:48:47
atack2010
Be a nightmare.
00:48:57
Brett
I think it's awesome you've had two two people who have kind of been like, yeah, this is this works for me. and
00:49:02
Jessica
Yeah.
00:49:03
Brett
I don't know, that's really cool. um but yes So so there you know that that's one of those things that that type of program or that type of availability of equipment can help with the equipment feeling out the equipment changes to see how it goes.
00:49:05
Jessica
Very problem.
00:49:16
Brett
um And then I mentioned with the the example of the the ah pumpkins helps with the idea of like which crops you want to grow, but it also is that question of, is there any value in having this thing brought to market earlier?
00:49:30
Brett
Am I going to get compensated for higher quality? Is it important for me to win customers in a farmer's market environment to have a higher quality product or an earlier product? Or is it just sort of, I'm just going to sell this and, um, yeah, just, it might not be, be worth it.
00:49:45
Brett
And then Jessica's first thing that she mentioned about the ability to dispose of the, of the stuff is it's, I think that's going to be more and more of an issue, um, as time goes on.
00:49:53
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:49:54
atack2010
Yeah, for sure.
00:49:56
Jessica
And I know there are, I mean, I've seen it. There's like the biodegradable stuff that is sold. Um, and I want it to work so bad. Like I want to like to personally and for other growers to be able to invest that and some do, but it just does not hold up.
00:50:08
Brett
Thanks.
00:50:14
Jessica
At least my experience with it, it just does not hold up the same, um, as the traditional plastic does. And you know, my hope is that in the future, There'll be a product that can come out that can withstand because I feel like at that point for the price you're paying and it doesn't um last the season, it's not really worth it for a lot of growers to invest in that at this time. But my hopes are for the future that they'll be able to come out with something a little more durable that is biodegradable.
00:50:41
Brett
Yeah, well, one of the cool things that we try to do in extension um is to do some research on stuff so that people in the world don't have to find out the hard way, whether something does or doesn't work.
00:50:52
Brett
And there's some folks down at the University of Tennessee who have been doing some research on this biodegradable mulch. And I think i think it has come a long way compared to where it was, but I think there's probably still some some issues to be worked out with it.
00:51:00
Jessica
you.
00:51:04
Brett
But they do have that the people folks at the University of Tennessee have a nice ah website with a bunch of different publications that they've worked on to just see. But it's one of those interesting things where the reason that you the the plastic is good is in in plastic culture systems is because it doesn't break down.
00:51:17
atack2010
Mm hmm. Yeah.
00:51:20
Brett
Like it doesn't let things poke through and then, but at the same, at the same time. So you want it, you don't want a product that's not going to last through the season, but you do want one that is going to at some point break down.
00:51:32
Brett
Cause if you left that plastic in the field, it would just the regular plastic in the field. It would just stay there for forever and ever. And, and, you know, maybe be tear.
00:51:38
atack2010
I think that's about having your cake and eating it, too.
00:51:43
Brett
So that's the trick is stick around as long.
00:51:43
atack2010
well
00:51:44
Jessica
Yep.
00:51:45
Brett
It's like ah being a good guest at a party. We want you to stick around as long as we need you here, but not too long. And ah so far, a lot of them are early, early, early exits from the party.
00:51:52
atack2010
Don't linger.
00:51:54
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:51:58
Brett
Well, cool. I mean, I think plastic culture is one of those things that in Kentucky, we we like to claim that, and I guess it's true, that Emory Emmert, this professor who is at UK, is the or one of the fathers of of plastic culture in the United States. You know how those narratives go. There's always different claims to the crown um but and and different people who have experimented with stuff. But ah it's it has been something that I think has been part of extension outreach around specialty crop products, horticultural products for a while. I think you know there's there are really valid criticism environmental criticisms of plastic culture systems. so And I
00:52:42
Brett
I'm sympathetic to those. And so it's this complicated line that we walk of trying to explain good and bad and work it out for ourselves. But yeah, you all have any?
00:52:50
atack2010
Just give us an answer, Brad, yes or no.
00:52:52
Jessica
Yeah.
00:52:53
atack2010
I want a clear-cut answer, just a quick 30s no.
00:52:54
Brett
Yeah. the The committee has decided.
00:52:57
atack2010
No, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:52:58
Brett
Yeah.
00:52:59
atack2010
Yeah. So ah you always, I think anytime you're doing, making changes to an operation, whether it's, you know, a lot of operations already have plastic culture, but if you're trying to make that decision, look at the total picture, you know, look at the labor that you have on hand, look at your management ability ah to manage these things um and see if it's right for you. um And if all else fails, you know, maybe one of the first stops you should make is at your local county extension office for further guidance or help.
00:53:29
Brett
Yeah, well, thank you all for joining us once again.
Podcast Wrap-Up and Contact Info
00:53:33
Brett
the If you can find us on Instagram, our handle there is hort-culture-podcast.
00:53:40
Brett
ah You can also contact us through email, reach out to us. There's a, Ray, I'll put the the link to the email and the show notes. um so But this has been, I don't know how many episodes we're on now.
00:53:55
Brett
um It's gotta be 100 or close.
00:53:57
atack2010
Yeah, it's around then, 70, 80, or I've lost track. I need to look sometime.
00:54:01
Jessica
Wow.
00:54:01
Brett
So, um, but we're still having fun, but if you have, if you have a topics that you'd like for us to cover, feel free to share those, either comment DMS on Instagram, email us, however you want to get ahold of us.
00:54:02
atack2010
We do it by seasons, but a bunch, yeah.
00:54:15
Brett
Um, but as we grow this podcast, we hope that you'll grow with us. Thanks. And we'll see you next time.