ARS tour group visits UAF and Alaska farms

By Chelsea San Roman and Caley Gasch

On June 19-22 a group of scientists from Agricultural Research Service labs in Mandan and Fargo, North Dakota, and Pullman, Washington, visited Alaska.

First stop on the tour was the Matanuska Experiment Farm and Extension center. Here our staff and faculty showed off research plots made possible by their collaboration with the university, specifically in the areas of grain production, cover crops, and soil health.

Bob VanVeldhuizen speaks to group about grain research.

The next tour was at VanderWeele farm to see Alaska agriculture’s biggest food production farm. The group was able to see storage facilities, planting equipment, vegetable fields and the strawberry greenhouse.

Top, Ben VanderWeele talks about starts that will be planted soon. Jodie Anderson samples Seascape strawberries.

Later we visited The Musk Ox Farm to see agritourism in action. Here we learned what it takes to raise muskox and how to harvest their qiviut.

Dave Huggins from Pullman holds a muskox skull.

Last stop of the day was Sun Circle farm, Ann-Corrine Kell showed us that agriculture doesn’t need to be hundreds of acres to be successful. She grows organic veggies and flowers.

Milan Shipka, Sarah Beebout, and Jakir Hasan speak
to Ann-Corrine Kell about organic practices.

 

Wednesday morning we loaded up in our cars and headed to Fairbanks, we were able to tour the Arctic Health greenhouse on campus as well as the Fairbanks Experiment Farm where we could see the research plots and how they differed from their replicates in Palmer. We also toured the Georgeson Botanical Gardens with Katie DiCristina, where we learned about the peony industry in Alaska’s humble beginnings.

Tour group at the Georgeson Botanical Gardens.

Thursday morning the whole group of ARS tourers, plus staff and faculty from Palmer and Fairbanks loaded into a coach bus and headed to Delta Junction. Here we were joined by Phil Kaspari, Delta’s Extension agent and our most knowledgeable tour guide (plus yak farmer!). Phil gave us the whole story of the Delta Junction Barley Project, the challenges and successes, as well as the hopes for future growth. You can really tell that Phil loves Delta and is a pillar in the community.

Milan Shipka and Phil Kaspari give us the lay of the land.

Next we visited the Wrigley family’s farm and Alaska Flour Company. We were able to tour the facilities where Bryce Wrigley takes Sunshine barley and produces flour, couscous, cookie mix, and pancake mix. Bryce is working with the university to make agriculture sustainable and healthy for the soil and planet. He uses no till drills to plant, and cover crops to bring back nutrients to the soil. The Wrigley family kindly fed us all a lunch featuring some of their products.

Bryce Wrigley and Caley Gasch talk about their research collaboration.

After a filling lunch, we went to Shultz farm to see large-scale grass seed production in Alaska. They shared their story of coming to Alaska and starting from scratch in Delta Junction.

The Schultz brothers present the group with a problem.

Next we visited Alaska Range Dairy. Here we learned about the daily care and keeping of dairy cows. Scott Plagerman is interested in research into forage crops that provide nutritional balance for the cows and that can also grow well in Alaska. Scott uses technology to monitor his cows’ health and habits (Fitbit for cows). He also uses a different pasteurization process that makes drinking the milk a bit easier on everyone’s stomach (the chocolate milk is amazing) We were able to see the milking machines in action as well as spend a bit of time with the adorable calves.

Brent Hulke meets Ruthie the calf.

Last for the day and the trip was a visit to Mugrage Farm. They are the largest cattle farm in Alaska providing local beef to grocery stores and markets around the state. We were provided a meal of the biggest beef brisket in the state.

A meal at the Mugrages.

Jodie Anderson engaging in shenanigans.

A prickly little problem at GBG

Last winter, Lacey Higham, operations lead at Georgeson Botanical Garden, discovered that the garden on the west side of the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus had a prickly little vandal living on the premises.

A porcupine had made its home in a culvert and spent weeks “living its best life” feasting on trees in the garden, according to Katie DiCristina, GBG manager.

Alaska porcupines usually spend their winters eating the inner bark and needles of white spruce trees. DiCristina said the animal had completely girdled some of the trees in the garden, which prevents the trees from moving nutrients from the roots to the area above where the bark was removed, effectively killing the trees.

This spring, four trees in the garden had to be cut down, two that were porcupine-damaged this year and two that were porcupine-damaged in the winter of 2021-22, she said.

A third, a Scotch pine at the entrance, lost almost all of its bark and is nearly dead.

Several other trees in the garden have gnaw marks on their trunks and branches where the porcupine sampled them and then moved on. Fortunately, the porcupine itself seems to have moved on.

DiCristina said the Scotch pine at the entrance doesn’t pose a hazard at this time, so she is leaving it as an educational tool.

"The garden is a stage where many ecological systems are at play," she said. "Although sometimes challenging, we strive to celebrate nature and use these events as learning opportunities for both us and our visitors."