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Participants on Kentucky Farm Tour Inspect Alternative Crops

Posted on: Monday, 15 August 2005, 15:00 CDT

Aug. 12--Products grown on three Utica-area farms are helping farmers diversify in general or supplement income formerly bolstered by tobacco, Clint Hardy said Thursday.

Blueberries, grapes, commercially grown vegetables and "agri-tainment" items such as pumpkins, corn mazes, gourds and mums are some of the alternative crops of choice, he said.

"They have the potential to provide as much income as tobacco," said Hardy, Daviess County's extension agent for agriculture and natural resources, at the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce Farm Tour.

Trouble is, some crops, especially the vegetables, are fragile and have a limited window for harvesting and short shelf life, he said.

That's why Kevin Trunnell deemed part of his efforts "risky" to 170 tour members visiting his large family farm along U.S. 431 just north of Utica.

"The thing about tobacco was it was always dependable" and usually meant a profit, said Trunnell, who is growing 24 acres of tobacco.

He also is growing sweet corn, green beans, okra, squash, tomatoes, peppers and other produce on which "you can't depend on anything," he said. The yield depends on the weather and the market, he added.

Trunnell started commercial produce crops in 1990 with one acre of sweet corn that he sold from his truck bed.

"The idea was to have a little extra income in the summer," Trunnell said. His family sells their goods to local grocery stores and at a stand across the road from their house, and have created a corn maze this year.

Nancy and Royce McCormick were looking to replace a decade or so of burley tobacco farming in 2001 as the number of pounds they could grow eroded under the quota system, Nancy McCormick said.

They started Blueberries of Daviess County LLC on two acres, added another acre in the sophomore harvest season that ended in July and now produce 10 varieties on about 3,000 plants.

About half of the plants are producing, and full production won't be reached for two or three more years, Nancy McCormick said.

The plants have to be fertilized once a month for five months and must be irrigated, pruned and mulched, she said.

Nets are suspended around the plants to keep birds from helping with the harvest, Royce McCormick said as guests munched berries while fanning in the sweltering heat.

"They said it would be easy," he said of other growers. He added with a laugh, "I think they lied to me."

"We thought we'd try it because nobody else had any," said Royce McCormick, whose land is among only a handful of acres of commercially grown blueberries in the state.

"We hadn't had any problem getting rid of them," he said. They sell "and they call back wanting more."

Bruce Kunze also learned crop production, such as grape farming, is hard work.

"I wanted something for a retirement hobby," said Kunze, a county commissioner who retired last year from Daviess County Public Schools.

"I found out real quick agriculture, it's a job," he said of growing three varieties of grapes on slightly more than an acre on Ben Ford Road since 2001.

The main product in last year's five-ton yield is Chambourcin, a French-American hybrid wine grape.

He also grows Reliance, a pink table grape that can be used to make wine, and Cynthiana Norton, a red wine grape.

Kunze sells most of his crop under contract to Chrisman Mill Vineyards near Nicholasville.

He makes some wine himself, but his hobby "is a business now," he said.

Those efforts and the diversity of crops helped nearly double the turnout from last year's tour, said one chamber officer.

"I think people are interested in alternative crops and what farmers are doing," said Jody Wassmer, chamber executive vice president.

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Source: Messenger-Inquirer

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