The Sustainable Agriculture Conference and Organic Growers School was held March 14 and 15, with preconference workshops on March 13 on running a farm business and on growing mushrooms. A clear theme that ran throughout the conference presentations was food security. Over and over again, speakers talked about how Alaska is at the end of a long food importation chain—but need not be. Alaskans could do for themselves, they said, and throughout the conference showed just how that was being done.
The keynote speaker was Glenn Coville of Wild Branch Valley Farm in Craftsbury, Vermont. Coville described how he grows oyster mushrooms and other fungi for the commercial market, taking the audience through the construction of his growing rooms and racks, the composition of the growing medium for the mushroom spawn (wood chips vs. grain such as oats, barley, or spelt), his lab room, common problems, marketing, use of the old mulch, mycofiltration, and mycoremediation.
The spawn lab is where he prepares batches of mycelium, inoculating the spawn medium (grain, straw, or wood chips) with mushroom spores or a tissue culture (the method he uses) that, given a clean moist environment, will grow into mushroom mycelium that will sprout in the grow rooms into fruiting bodies (mushrooms). It is important that this lab area be clean and sterile so that bacteria or competitor fungi don't take over the medium prepared for one's commercial crop. Coville showed the items needed and the process required for successful spawn preparation: a pressure cooker or retort, a timer, a laminar flow bench to filter the air for your clean room, a bag sealer, scalpel sterilizer and alcohol, gar medium, a small refrigerator for culture storage, petri dishes to keep your cultures viable. Coville described soaking grain, inoculating it, and putting it into bags or jars to start the growth of the mycelium.
The grow rooms are bedded with clean, shredded straw (not hay). The straw is chopped, wetted, let sit to germinate any mold spores, then put into a tank, heated, fluffed up to cool it down, and the spawn added in. (Mycomasters.com uses hydrogen peroxide to moisten the medium because it inhibits spore germination from competitors but not mycelium growth, he noted.) Wood chips also work well, but tend to get too wet in Vermont. Mushrooms can be grown outdoors, depending on the climate. Garden oyster mushrooms will grow well outdoors on wood chips. He puts the growing medium thus created into recycled, clean grain bags or plastic bags (transparent ones are nice, he said, because you can see what's happening through them). He pokes holes in the bag which release carbon dioxide, and the mushrooms grow out through those holes on racks in his grow rooms.
Things to control are: flies and maggots; mold and other competitor fungi; humidity; carbon dioxide; and light. Air filtration for the grow rooms helps reduce infestations. If the grow rooms are kept at high humidity the mushrooms will be heavier but the quality will be lower, he cautioned; a dry mushroom means a better quality mushroom. Cleanliness is very important to chefs. About 80% humidity works well. Mushrooms need indirect light, he said, but not a lot. The more light, the darker the color of the mushroom. Used mushroom mulch is good in the garden.
Mushrooms are used for mycofiltration, in which a web of mycelium is established through which runoff travels. The mushroom mycelium paralyzes and digests bacteria in the runoff. Similarly, mycoremediation is a method used for degrading environmental contaminants. The enzymes that mushrooms and other fungi produce to break down lignin and cellulose also break down organophosphates, nerve gases, and other deadly poisons.
Coville recommended as a resource for would-be mushroom growers the site Fungi Perfecti: this is a comprehensive website and company founded by Paul Stamets and family.
The next speaker was Bryce Wrigley, of the Alaska Flour Company. Wrigley described his family's decision to start a flour mill. They already grew grain, going from a minimum-till system to a no-till system this last year (the kids moved away so he and his wife no longer had the whole family to bring in the harvest). They knew they could grow what people needed (Alaskans use 135 lbs of grain per year, he estimated), and although Alaska's food insecurity was daunting, with 95% of our food imported, it also represented an opportunity. The family analyzed the market for specialty flours, visiting other flour mills, in Idaho, such as Pendleton Mills and Lehi Mills, both of which processed far more than the Wrigleys could. They decided to contact an equipment broker, which helped considerably: "the best contact we made," Wrigley said.
They constructed a 20' x 30' grain-cleaning building, bought packaging (flour bags), and purchased a truck and hauled up the equipment from Idaho after having it shipped there (it was cheaper than shipping it all the way up). The equipment included an accumulator, bag sealer, bagger that could fill by volume or weight, their stone mill, and a sifter. They had to get building insurance, truck insurance, content insurance, product liability insurance, and get a commercial policy. Their electrical useage was also an important consideration.
Their marketing included a Facebook page, which, Wrigley pointed out, made people feel a part of the process, something they wanted to encourage. He described how it took a while to come up with a suitable logo. "Simplicity is cheaper," he said: fewer colors and a less intricate design meant less cost on labels, which can add up when you have to buy 15,000 bags at a time.
Alaska needs to create a food system, Wrigley emphasized, but this requires several things: resources, market opportunity, and a favorable business climate. We have, he said, regulation overload. Our regulations and policies need to be overhauled and re-examined, evaluated on whether they stand in the way of creating a functional, healthy food system or support that aim. Enduring quality is an important feature, too: people will try it if it says Alaska on it, but the quality must be sufficient to keep them buying it. Alaska can be competitive on artisan flours, but unlikely to have the best deal on all flours because of volume pricing.
The Alaska Flour Company grows and mills Sunshine hulless barley, a variety developed at the Fairbanks Experiment Farm, selling sifted barley flour in 5 and 10 lb resealable poly bags and 25 and 40 lb paper bags. They intend to plant 200 acres of barley and 200 acres of Ingal wheat (also developed in Alaska) in 2012 (up from 2010's initial 20 acres of barley), and hope to take in grain to mill from other farmers. Wrigley had several different treats made from his flour for conference attendess, with small bags of flour and "Cream of Barley" cereal for sale. (This writer can attest to the tastiness of the poppyseed cake and the cream of barley!)
Several presentations on recordkeeping, farm management, and grants for farmers followed.
Then John Dart of the Manley Hot Springs Produce Company described the history of his farm. The original farm was started in 1902 and was the first patented farm in the Interior, growing vegetables since 1907. Because Manley Hot Springs is so remote, the bathhouse business isn't really viable. Charles Dart, John's uncle, was a botanist, and brought grapevines to the springs. In 1987 fuel was cheap, and the farm produced tomatoes, peppers, melons, and cucumbers, growing 16,000 lbs of greenhouse tomatoes that were sold to Paul Gavora's supermarket in Fairbanks. Now fuel is expensive, so hothouse growing year-round isn't practical any more.
John Dart's farm is to the east of the Karshner Creek valley, terraced on a southeast-facing slope. Dr. Diana Solie helped him do exploratory slim hole drilling to check the depth to bedrock and the soil temperature. The soil temperature is warmer there due to the hot springs. They hit hot water. John worked with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to determine the proper width of the terraces. Because the water is high in chlorine, it promotes corrosion in steel or iron, so John uses plastic, concrete or an alloy pipe. He has a 70-foot water-pumping windmill tower. The farm uses bottom heat with a continuous perimeter and high tunnels, moving heat where it is needed with buried pipe. He expects to grow sweet corn and harvest asparagus this year.
After a panel discussion on getting started in agriculture and a presentation on injury prevention through proper bending (deep bending from the lower hip, straight back), more presentations were made: Steve Brown spoke on turfgrass airstrips and Ross Coen talked about the Alaska Growers School program.
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