2019 NOVIC Tomato Field Trial

What a beautiful and productive day for the tomatoes, as well as the whole SURF project community as a whole.

I got an opportunity to meet with a majority of the other SURF fellows and faculty, while being introduced to the various projects that are being carried out this summer. I look forward to following the work of the other students and perhaps getting a chance to collaborate with them in the near future. At the meeting we agreed to try and meet once or twice a month to ask questions, receive answers, and stay in touch. I think it would be quite valuable to make and keep connections between the fellow students and faculty we will meet this summer.

At the tomato plot, I spent a good long time with each of the plants, observing them for signs of environmental or pest stresses. I observed that approx. 8 of 10 plants show signs of minor Flea Beetle damage, but the damage is isolated to the older leaves of the plants. My thought on this is that when the plants went into the ground and experienced a bit transplant shock, they were made vulnerable to some pest pressure. Now that the plants have settled in and are growing new leaves, the new growth is healthy enough to protect themselves from the Flea Beetle.

You may now notice that in the drop down menu, under the image gallery, there is a new set of menus titled: Varietal Progression. Here I plan to post a weekly photo of a representative plant of each variety; my hopes are that this will help show the life cycle of a plant from each variety, and give some aid to envisioning the growth habits of the plants.

My summer term for The Practice of Organic Farming starts tomorrow, so it’s needless to say that, if you need to find me, I will most likely be at the Evergreen Farm. Come say hi.

Yet another week has gone by and with it has come warm weather and optimal growing conditions for the tomatoes. The two representative plots look happy and healthy and I have observed a fair amount of new growth; all very exciting occurrences.

With the new growth calls the time for the tomato trellising for the added support. I have chosen the Florida Weave trellis, spending time yesterday to weave some jute twine through our T-posts and tomato plants. As the tomatoes continue to grow vertically, the Florida weave is designed to support the plants between two lines of twine that have been weaved from T-post to T-post. A new, horizontal weave can be spaced approx. a foot apart from the others. This allows for support of the plant from the stem’s base to the scion. I will capture a good photo of the design to help give a better description of the Florida Weave.

Continued observation follows as we continue growing.

Have a great week and keep an eye on the image gallery.

It has been a week since the tomatoes have gone in the ground where they all appear happy and healthy. With this we have entered another stage of waiting for growth in the tomatoes to progress the duties of the NOVIC protocol. Now that thing spring quarter at Evergreen has come to an end, and I am free from school work for 2ish weeks. I will be checking in on the status of the tomatoes every couple of days to ensure that no surprise may arise. (Perhaps I will go do some backpacking as well)

I spent a few hours on the farm today pounding T-posts and some bamboo poles to begin the framing of a trellis for the tomatoes. I then transplanted some tomato plants of each variety into 4 inch pots from the remaining tomato plants that didn’t end up in the field; these will be back ups to be used if anything should happen to a field tomato plant.

I will continue to update the blog every Monday but don’t expect there to be much to share for the next week or two.

Continue sending your thoughts of growth!

After some back and forth on what the exact dimensions of the planting bed would be, we have decided to stick with what we had been planning on for the last few weeks: two planting beds in a 68′ x 5′ plot.

Today was very productive; I started by finishing the application of amendments to the soil, adding sulfate of potash for potassium and sulfur, and Solubor for boron. I then laid the Solar Mulch and added a wood chip path in between the two rows and finished the day by planting the first rep of tomatoes. We officially have tomatoes in the ground! I will transplant the second rep tomorrow after class.

A picture will be posted of the map showing the location of the 12 varieties in the 2 field representations, this will be referenced in the future. The  finalized experiment design has 4 plants of each variety in a single representation, the location of each variety being chosen at random. The second rep will also contain 4 plants of each variety, placed in a different configuration than the first rep. This will allow for an un-biased and randomized set-up for data collection and data analysis in the future.

Next week I will begin construction of a trellis over the tomatoes, and now that the tomatoes are outdoors I will be paying closer attention to growth habits and pest influence that may begin to present themselves.

Happy growing.

The weather for the last week was indecisive and quick to transition from 80 and sunny to 60 and rainy, giving the spring crops a little of the best from both worlds, I suppose. That being said, we have been receiving nothing but great spring conditions and I am eager to get the tomatoes into the ground.

The first item on my agenda for the week was to address the nutrient deficiency that the tomatoes were showing with-in their individual trays. To address this issue I added a water-soluble, organic fish meal fertilizer that I watered into the plants. This application will be more that sufficient to carry the plants over to field transplanting.

I was able to make some tangible progress on the planting bed this week as well. I added the feather meal field amendment (12-0-0) to both beds at 7 lbs. a bed and incorporated that into the top 4-6 inches of the soil. After the amendments were added, I constructed and positioned the header for the drip irrigation and laid the drip tape for both planting beds; 2 drip lines for either planting bed will ensure even and consistent watering to all the tomato plants.

The last portion of bed prep that I need to get done before the tomatoes can be transplanted is the laying of solar mulch over both beds, which I plan to have this finished by the end of this week. In the mean time I will continue working on the experiment design and more specifically the mapping of which tomato varieties will be planted where.