Benchmarks 2016: Agriculture (Section C)

Section C

Agriculture The Greeneville Sun

Benchmarks — March 19, 2016

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THE GREENEVILLE SUN BENCHMARKS EDITION Saturday, March 19, 2016

As Farm Numbers Decline, More Youth Take First-Time Interest

BY RONNIE SARTAIN SPECIAL TO THE SUN

“I believe in the future of agriculture …” and “I believe in 4-H club work for the opportunity it will give me to become a useful citizen …”.

So goes the first line of the Future Farmers of America Creed and the 4H Creed, respectively.

Visiting with both FFA students and 4-H students in Greene County, one can sense their belief in agriculture and their desire to increase their knowledge of agriculture to become better students and citizens.

Many of these students, in fact most, do not come from an immediate family involved in production agriculture. But thanks to Miriam Frazier, University of Tennessee Ag Extension 4-H Agent, along with a host of volunteers and the FFA advisors in the four county high schools, interest in many areas of agriculture is alive and well.

The FFA advisors are Brett Butler and Rebekah Feathers at ChuckeyDoak; Jeremiah Harrison and Robert Meadows at South Greene; Chase Murray and Adam Short at West Greene; and Caroline Tucker-Shelton at North Greene.

Approximately 1,000 students in Greene County from fourth grade through high school are participating, at some level, in 4-H club projects.

One such student is Hannah Reeves, a sophomore at Greeneville High School. Reeves, through her 4-H Club projects, is using her love for animals and her interest in veterinary science to increase her knowledge of animal agriculture.

She has been part of a project group working with Dr. Doug Woolsey at Greene County Veterinary Medical Center.

There she helped dissect a cow heart, learned the bone structure in cattle

PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE SUN

From left, North Greene FFA students Dylan Crawford, Caralynn Necessary and Angel Crawford transplant daisies from seedling trays to larger pots. The daisies will complete their growth in the greenhouse at North Greene and be ready to sell in spring. and horses, and helped with diagnostics in urine and blood testing in cattle.

Reeves also worked with Dr. Lee Duckworth at Duckworth Animal Hospital and observed surgeries, helped birth a calf, helped dehorn calves and observed embryo transfer work in cattle.

She also observed and helped in surgeries and treatment of small animals, including bear dogs. These activities

have fueled her interest to increase her education after high school to pursue a degree in veterinary science.

Another 4-H student combining her love for farm animals and having a family with deep roots in Greene County agriculture is Riley Ottinger, a sixth-grader at Nolichucky School. She is the daughter of Jake and Jennifer Ottinger and the granddaughter of Johnny and Dorothy Ottinger.

Although her parents work off the farm, they still farm part-time.

And with grandparents Johnny and Dorothy farming full time in dairy and grain, Ottinger is one student with a strong family background in production agriculture.

PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE SUN

Ottinger has received awards including the Reserve Champion in showing goats at the goat show at the Expo Center in White Pine and at the Greene County Fair.

Her sister, Reese, a third-grader at Nolichucky, and Jackson,

a first-grader at Nolichucky, help with showing the prize-winning goats and caring for the goat herd on the Ottinger farm.

Both Reese and Jackson are quick to share their plans to become 4H members when they reach the fourth grade as well.

Grandparents Johnny and Dorothy Ottinger display their pride at the agriculture interest of all the children. They are also proud of Riley for helping with their church garden to provide food to the needy in their community, fulfilling the 4-H creed.

More than 600 high school students in Greene County are enrolled in agriculture classes at the four county high schools.

Most are also Future Farmers of America members.

Classes include greenhouse management, agri-science, agriculture mechanics, plant and soil science classes, large and small animal classes, agriculture leadership, and activities that promote working together in teams.

All of the four agriculture departments offer classes in horticulture and greenhouse management and each has a greenhouse. Students get hands-on experience growing both flower and vegetable plants.

The students have been busy transplanting both f lower and vegetable seedlings getting ready for the spring growing and selling season.

The students, in addition to learning how plants grow, acquire some business knowledge as they sell the plants to the public, which in turn PLEASE SEE FARM | 3

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From left, Makala Johnson, Abbigail Stubbs and Matt Smith display some of the Reese Ottinger, Jackson Ottinger and Riley Ottinger show some of the newborn plants growing in the South Greene FFA Chapter greenhouse. goats from their herd at their farm in southern Greene County.

On The Cover Student Jimmy Belt checks a ewe and newborn lamb in the livestock barn at the Chuckey-Doak High School FFA chapter. For a full story on how Greene Coun-

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THE GREENEVILLE SUN BENCHMARKS EDITION

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Five Frequently Asked Questions About Beef Cattle Situation

BY MILTON W. ORR SPECIAL TO THE GREENEVILLE SUN

Greene County depends heavily on the sale of beef cattle to enhance the local economy. Both producers and consumers of beef are currently asking about the current local and national beef cattle situation.

We have a huge investment in beef cattle farming.

Our county is ranked No. 1 out of the 95 counties in Tennessee in beef cattle production, grass forage production and alfalfa production.

It is natural that we would get lots of questions daily about the current status of beef cattle production in Greene County.

In this piece, I will answer the five questions we get most often.

1. Why have beef prices dropped so dramatically over the past several months?

In July of 2015, 700pound calves were selling for an average of $1,500 per head going into the feedlot.

After being fed in the feedlot for about 150 days to a weight of 1,250-1,300 pounds at a total cost of about $550, they were marketed in December for an average of $1,500.

This loss of $550 per head for the feeder is made up by purchasing the next several groups of calves cheaply enough to make them profitable, plus recouping some measure of these losses.

The one bright spot for producers is that the market is still expected to rally, as always, with the onset of grass in the spring, though the record highs of 2015 are probably going to remain in the history books as alltime records.

2.What’s the last news on the use of antibiotics?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies are addressing the concerns

Farm Starts on Page 2 helps support the FFA chapters.

The FFA chapters can be contacted to see when plants will be available for sale.

With the majority of FFA students no longer having an immediate farm background, horticulture and greenhouse management are just one way to connect the students to agriculture.

Caroline Tucker Shelton, advisor at North Greene says “more than 50 percent of her students are without an agriculture background and the agriculture classes help widen their scope and enhance their knowledge of agriculture.

South Greene student Abigal Stubbs said, “I

PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE SUN

Greene County UT Extension Director Milton Orr, left, discusses beef cattle management and winter grazing with Eddie Yokley on Yokley’s farm in southern Greene County. related to the relationship between animal antibiotic and the health of humans. Steps are being implemented to safeguard both animal and human health.

Many rumors abound as to oncoming loss of antibiotic use for animal agriculture. These are just rumors.

However, the method of using and obtaining certain types of antibiotics will soon change. As a first step in a multistep program, feed-grade antibiotics (such as chlortetracycline and others) will become regulated as of December 2016.

The purchase of these feed-grade products without prescription has been possible in the past. The new regulations will require a prescription obtained through a veterinarian.

Your veterinarian will have to be familiar

enough with the situation to prescribe a treatment that includes these products. The level, length of treatment, and product will be specified in the prescription obtained.

Access to feed with these treatments will be custom prepared by licensed retailers.

At this time there is no restriction on injectable antibiotics available without prescription.

Ionophores, such as Rumensin and Bovatec, currently do not fall under this ruling.

3. I heard that producers have to have special ear tags to sell cattle now. Is this true?

Due to new regulations on the federal front, cattle that are going to cross state lines must now be positively identified.

Complete regulation details as to what age and class of cattle must

be identified are available on the Tennessee Department of Agriculture website under the State Veterinarian page.

The basic intent of the law is to permanently identify qualifying animals in accordance with Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) rules to increase the marketability and value of these animals.

Tags are available at no cost by contacting the state veterinarian’s office by phone or email. These tags may be Radio Frequency tags (RFID) or simply metal tags similar to brucellosis or the old feeder calf sale tags.

4. I heard the Tennessee Ag Enhancement Program (TEAP) will help me buy replacement heifers. Is this true?

In 2015, the TAEP program expanded the genetics section of its cost

didn’t think I would get involved in agriculture classes but I’m glad I did.

I have a new appreciation of where our food comes from. Even though I may choose a career other than agriculture, I have increased my knowledge of growing plants and have a deeper appreciation for agriculture”.

Abigail echoes the thoughts of many agriculture students. Some may choose careers outside of agriculture, some in production agriculture, and some in agri-business.

For now, working in FFA with plants, sheep, goats, rabbits, chickens or cattle and experiencing new leadership roles and working together as teams, they demonstrate that they believe in the future of agriculture.

The writer is a financial service officer for Farm Credit Mid-America.

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share program to include females as well as bulls and semen.

In order for heifers to qualify for cost share, they must be individually and permanently identified, no more than 28 months old at time of purchase, be sired by a TAEP-eligible registered bull, be bred to a TAEP-eligible calving ease category bull and pass a scoring system on disposition, reproductive tract test and pelvic measurement.

Heifers must also have a preventive health program as described in the TAEP Guidelines.

Check out the “Application A booklet” on the TAEP website for complete details.

Producers wanting to expand their herd with known genetics have an opportunity to receive assistance through this program.

Likewise, producers with extra heifers of known genetics have an opportunity to add value by marketing replacement heifers and bulls that meet the requirements of TAEP. 5. What is on the horizon for the beef cattle industry?

While no one has a crystal view of what the future may hold, there a number of indicators that have been around for some time that will give us an idea of where we are headed.

First, buyers are becoming more concerned about the quality and source of the calves they are buying.

With premiums of $150 and more on carcasses that meet certain “branded” quality-based markets, and import markets that are requiring source verification, calves that are of known genetics and source-verified are in high demand.

This does not mean that other cattle will not be purchased. However, they will be discounted to compensate for the lack of history or added value as compared to similar calves with information.

Just as you probably would not make a $700$1,100 purchase of a product without adequate knowledge, calf buyers will not.

Acquire known genetics when selecting sires and make that information available to buyers to let folks know who produced those high quality animals!

I hope these questions and answers have provided an update for where we are at, where we are going, and what is of concern currently. If you have questions about the beef industry in Greene County, feel free to contact me at 423-798-1710 or morr3@utk.edu.

The writer is the director of The University of Tennessee Extension, Greene County.

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THE GREENEVILLE SUN BENCHMARKS EDITION Saturday, March 19, 2016

Dairy Farmers Have To Capitalize On Changing Technology

BY GEORGE MAYS SPECIAL TO THE SUN

The dairy industry has undergone many changes throughout the years as challenges and opportunities have presented themselves.

Technology now plays a large role in the efficient production of a safe and wholesome food product.

Da i r y i ng c reat es a ripple effect on the agricultural economy and the economic wellbeing of rural America.

When a dairy farmer sells milk for $1, it generates economic activity of $ 3, and every $1 million of milk sales generates 17 jobs.

But there have been major challenges for dairy producers. Economics of production and meeting the demands of an everchanging market continue to provide challenges.

Dairy producers who continue to be successful must invest in technology and keep a close watch on all aspects of their operations.

Good recordkeeping helps them know as much as possible about their business.

Almost all dairies are family-owned. As active members of their communities, farm families take pride in feeding the nation while maintaining the area’s natural resources and giving back to their communities.

Following a national trend of fewer but larger farms, Greene County currently has fewer than 50 farms that market milk.

Much of the milk produced here is being marketed out of state.

Some of the producers who have milked cows are now raising replacement dairy heifers. Some are marketing their hay and forage through beef cattle and other livestock. Some are selling hay.

T hese op erat ion s require less labor year round than milking cows.

ONE FAMILY’S CHANGING EXAMPLE Ba rba ra Wo olsey Southerland, a member of the Greene County Partnership Agribusiness Committee and the Farm Bureau Women, grew up on Woolsey Overlook Farm. Dairying was a way of life on this Pioneer Farm (1779), located on Lick Creek in Northern Greene County, as Southerland was growing up.

The main farming

for processing.

In 1962, they were joined by Ralph Woolsey and added tankers to their fleet for transporting grade A milk to nearby Kingsport for processing.

Milk from the area is now hauled by tanker to Winston Salem, N.C. for processing.

Woolsey and Carter Inc., now owned by Jimmy Carter, Kema Woolsey, Dr. Doug Woolsey, Roger Woolsey, and Barbara Southerland, currently transport 18 tankers of milk each week — 400 miles each trip.

Barbara Southerland retired as a teacher from Baileyton Elementary School and her husband, R.T., retired from Parker Hannifin in 2005.

They made improvements to the farm by installing an underground water system and adding cross fences and lanes so grazing could be regulated and cattle could be moved easily.

They are still connected to dairy cattle by raising Holstein steers each year.

They recently purchased 72 steers to PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE SUN Computer technology is becoming more commonplace at East Tennessee dairies. Systems like this constantly graze their pastures this spring and summonitore milk flow and quality. mer.

This past winter they didn’t feed hay until the first snowfall. Stockpiled fescue pasture provided adequate feed for their animals most of the winter. The grazing greatly reduced their hay harvesting and feeding expenses.

The biggest cha nge to farming that Barbara Southerland has w it nessed ha s been the disappearance of the family farm, she says.

In her younger days, every neighbor had a few cows, raised tobacco and had plenty of farm chores for their children. They worked together as a family.

The work responsibility increased with the child’s age. The physical work was much harder; most of the farm work was done by people rather than machines.

Hay was baled in small bales and stacked in the barn. Stackers came later to reduce some of the labor.

But now, almost every framer rolls the hay in round bales and PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE SUN transports it with a Dairy producer Bobby Campbell, of the Clear Springs community, checks the available feed for his Holstein tractor.

cows. Nutrition and cow comfort are critical points to ensure healthy, comfortable cows and efficient production. operation c ent ered Beef cattle were also around the grade A raised, along with dairy — milking and tobacco.

When the dairy herd producing feed for the was sold, broiler chickens Holsteins.

were added. The Woolsey family sold grade A milk over four decades.

In the 1940s, Southerland’s father, J.B. Wool-

sey, and uncle, J.V. Carter, transported manufactured grade milk from area farms in 10-gallon metal cans to Greeneville

The writer, a Greene County resident, is erofessor emeritus in communications/information technology, University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture.

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Saturday, March 19, 2016

THE GREENEVILLE SUN BENCHMARKS EDITION

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Advice To Farmers: Make Sure To Store Hay Properly

BY MILTON W. ORR

animals equal access to convert forages into protein, but it requires daily feeding.

Feeding in hay rings will allow for several days of feed to be put out at one time, being more convenient for part-time producers but increasing the amount of hay pulled from rings and trampled.

This type of feed often results in more damage to pastures and increases the danger of smaller calves being injured as they bed close to the rings.

When rings are used, the use of a “cone feeder” which uses a cone placed on top of a hay ring allows dropped hay to fall within the ring, reducing trampling.

SPECIAL TO THE SUN

Greene County retains notoriety for having the largest acreage of grass and legume hay in the state of Tennessee.

This vast amount of harvested forage is necessary for feeding the largest number of cattle and calves in the state, along with numerous other animals that consume forages.

But harvesting such a large amount of forage is expensive.

PRODUCTION COSTS With the recent drops in fuel costs, and some relaxation in fertilizer prices, research shows a production cost of about $30 for a 4-by-5 round bale of hay, yielding about two tons of dry matter per acre.

When yields trend downward, production costs per bale will actually rise.

The costs associated with covering a set amount of land area remain the same, even though fewer bales are harvested.

In other words, producers have a large investment in their crop and should take whatever measures necessary to protect as much of it as well as possible.

HARVEST AT THE PROPER TIME Most folks think of hay loss starting and ending with storage, and that does represent the bulk of the loss.

However, cutting hay that is too mature and past the optimal stage of maturity results in a loss not only of pounds, but also losses approaching 20-25 percent in the usefulness of the harvested forage.

In terms of harvesting, it is important to remember that everything producers do during the harvest period results in a loss of tonnage and quality.

REDUCE HARVESTING LOSSES Cutting heights should never be below 3 inches, and machines such as tedders and rakes should be used sparingly to prevent losses of leaves due to excessive disturbance of the hay once it starts to cure.

The process of baling also causes some necessary loss. With some level of loss inevitable in the harvest process, it is imperative to mitigate losses during storage and feeding.

With barn fires increasing at an alarming rate, it is important to distinguish between the need to store hay quickly to minimize loss and storing hay before the “field heat” dissipates or storing hay that is harvested too wet or green.

SUN FILE PHOTO BY O.J. EARLY

Dane Holland mows hay on his Mosheim farm in May. PREVENT BARN FIRES Never store hay until the internal temperature of the bales is no more than 130 degrees Farenheit and declining.

It must be monitored for a period of time to know if it is indeed declining.

It is important to understand that hay may undergo more than one heating cycle. It is important to wait at least two weeks after baling to store, regardless of the temperature.

Barn fires can occur up to several months after storage and can also occur in outside stacks covered with a tarp just as in a barn.

STORING TO PREVENT LOSSES Hay is a valuable investment for producers.

It is usually stored for six or more months, making it all the more important to protect.

Hay storage can be accomplished a number of different ways. Producers should always utilize as many possibilities as available to minimize the storage loss.

Hay can be stored outside, either on the ground or off the soil surface on tires, pallets or large rock. Hay may also be stored on or off ground in a pyramid shape and covered with plastic or a tarp.

Likewise hay can be stored in a barn. While some producers opt to build structures just for hay storage, existing structures can often be modified to store hay under roof.

Hay stored inside and off the ground will experience 1-3 percent moisture loss. But hay that sustains damage to the

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outer layer or bottom of the bale results in actual loss or refusal by livestock. This can be a substantial loss of valuable forage.

WEATHER DAMAGE IS EXPENSIVE According to recent research, a 5-foot diameter bale with an average damage of 2 inches around the outside has suffered a 12-percent loss, while 6 inches of damage results in a 42percent loss.

When a 4-by-5 roll is stored outside from May until January and then fed, it is common to see damage and refusal of 6 inches on the top and sides and as much as 12 inches on the bottom.

This is a loss of more than 50 percent of the harvested forage.

When considering a herd of 35 mature cows — the average herd size for the county — 350 rolls is a common estimate of the hay needed for winter feedings.

With 50 percent damage and a value of $30 per bale, the total loss could be as much as $5,250 annually for the average herd size in Greene County.

It may not be in the form of a bill to be paid, but it is a real cost.

remodeling existing structures to house this same amount of hay. Most likely it would pay out in one or two years.

Producers may also want to consider other hay storage structure, such as tension fabric barns, hay tarps and others.

The amount of time to pay out for these structures would be shorter.

FEEDING HAY After storage, one of the largest potential losses occurs during the feeding phase. There is a fine

line between mitigating feeding losses and convenience for producers.

While it is certainly more convenient for producers to feed once or twice weekly, feeding losses do increase due to trampling of hay and bedding practices of livestock on leftover hay.

While one should never force animals to eat hay that is unlikely to provide nutrients, it is important to receive the full benefit of each roll or bale.

Unrolling hay on a slope to allow all animals to eat at once certainly allows

EXTEND THE GRAZING SEASON Where possible, producers should stockpile pastures to have forage that can be grazed further into the feeding period.

It’s best to let animals graze when weather conditions are bad and the ground is soft. This can minimize the damage caused by transporting hay to and from the feeding areas.

This allows hay to be fed when the soil is drier, resulting in less damage and mud around hay rings and from the tractor movement.

For more information about managing hay storage, harvesting, and feeding losses contact your the Greene County Extension office.

The writer is the director of The University of Tennessee Extension, Greene County.

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THE GREENEVILLE SUN BENCHMARKS EDITION Saturday, March 19, 2016

Truffles Have Taken Tom Michaels On A Wild Ride After Blight Decimated His Famed Chuckey Truffle Operation, Michaels Is Now Helping Innovate A Whole New Model

BY JOHN M. JONES JR. SPECIAL TO THE GREENEVILLE SUN

CHUCKEY — Tom Michaels of Chuckey was rocketed into instant fame in the culinary world in early 2007 when it became known that he had achieved something on his small farm here that no American truffles-grower had ever been able to do — produce Perigord Black Truffles as fine as those raised in France.

Several years of dramatic business success followed the 2007 breakthrough, but devastating blight and some harsh winters have all but ended that exciting period of his life.

In another surprising twist to the story, however, the much-soonerthan-anticipated conclusion to Michaels’ exciting first chapter as a grower of Perigord Black Truff les has unexpectedly opened the door to what he believes may become a game-changing advance in the commercial production of truffles.

A FAST TRACK It has been a fast track in the last nine years, with some sharp up-anddown turns.

Back in December 2006, no important chef or food writer in America had ever heard the name of Tom Michaels, Ph.D., then 59, a plantpathology scientist with a laid-back manner and a warm, quick smile. He was living quietly with his family on a small farm in eastern Greene County.

By mid-March 2007, however, his name and telephone number had been added to the Rolodexes of first-rank chefs and leading food writers all across America — and many of those chefs were urgently calling him hoping to buy a type of rare mushroom he had been able to grow at Chuckey.

The trigger for those phone calls was topquality Perigord Black Truff les, sometimes referred to in food circles as “Black Diamonds,” a gourmet delicacy native to France, famous around the world, and in such intense demand that they regularly sell for about $800 a pound — $50 an ounce.

Because of their rarity and cost, Perigord Black Truffles are not well known to most people, and are not sold in even the best grocery stores.

But they are highly prized by the world’s top chefs not only for their f lavor but also, and especially, for their rich, pungent, and very distinctive aroma — sometimes fruity, sometimes musky, often spoken of as “earthy.”

Michaels explained to then-Greeneville Sun staff writer Bill Jones in early March 2007 that truffles can be thought of as “sort of mushrooms that grow underground.”

The reporter also noted in his article that the Plantin America website describes truffles (technically, “Tuber melanosporum”) as “underground mushrooms that grow in symbiosis with certain trees, especially oaks.”

In plainer language, Michaels explained, truffles are fungi whose spores germinate and begin “colonizing” the tree roots in the same basic way that a breadmold spore affects bread, producing a cottony substance called a mycelium, or mold, that is microscopically linked to the cells of the tree roots.

After a number of years, in a way that is little understood but

PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE GREENEVILLE SUN

This recent photo shows a long row of what were formerly hazelnut “truffle trees” planted by Chuckey farmer Tom Michaels, owner of Tennessee Truffle. Michaels cut the trees down because they had been killed over the last few years by the dreaded Eastern Filbert Blight, and, after several very productive years, were no longer producing Perigord Black Truffles. Almost all of the approximately 2,200 hazelnut “host trees” for his truffles have been wiped out by the blight, leaving him with only “a handful” of trees not infected. He began removing the dead hazelnut trees last fall and plans to sell the property where most of the truffle orchards were located.

SUN FILE PHOTO BY PHIL GENTRY

The photo, made in early March 2007, shows a part of one of Tom Michaels’ truffle orchards as it was when some of his “truffle trees” began to produce mature Perigord Black Truffles that winter. Almost all of his approximately 2,200 “host trees” were hazelnuts, and were planted about six years before the first mature truffles were seen. His farm is located in the Chuckey area.

GREENEVILLE SUN FILE PHOTO BY PHIL GENTRY

launched several years of spectacular success for Michaels as a Black Perigord Truffles grower and marketer.

Executive Chef John Fleer of The Inn at Blackberry Farm, at Walland, Tenn., which some call the finest resort in the country, was one of the first chefs to discover — and buy — Michaels’ truffles. That purchase took place in January 2007, a few weeks before the article appeared in the Times.

O’Neill happened to be at Blackberry Farm winding up a project on the very day when the soft-spoken scientist / farmer from Greene County showed up with a cooler of fresh truffles to make his first call on Fleer.

Both Fleer and O’Neill were stunned — and delighted — by the quality of the truffles, which Fleer bought on the spot and placed prominently on Blackberry Farm’s menu the next day.

And O’Neill, only hours away from her scheduled departure time to return to New York, sensed that an important story was waiting to be told, and telephoned Michaels at his farm.

Later, she arranged to interview him there.

In this 2007 Greeneville Sun file photo, Chuckey truffle-farmer Tom Michaels holds a plate of Perigord Black Truffles he had grown. Michaels was the first person ever to produce this highly-prized variety of truffle in the United States at a level of quality to rival Perigord Black Truffles grown in France, and in sufficient volume to make them commercially viable.

A Feb. 28, 2007, article about him in the New York ‘THIS IS IT’ On her interview visit Times Sunday Magazine made him nationally famous in food circles, and especially among the country’s to Chuckey, she also picked out and bought first-rank chefs. er Molly O’Neill was the reporter who broke the story announcing that an East Tennessee plant-scientist/farmer had been able to grow Black Perigord Truffles to rival those imported from France.

That was Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2007, and her article in the Times’ Magazine “Dining & Wine” section made big news in O’NEILL BROKE STORY IN the world of elite U.S. resN.Y. TIMES New York Times Sun- taurants and their chefs.

The story instantly day Magazine food writsimilar to pollination, unknown stimuli trigger the initial formation of a truffle from the mycelium. The tiny truffle grows to maturity over approximately the next nine months.

At that point, the truffle is ready to be harvested — and ready to eat.

five ounces of his truffles and brought them back to New York.

There, she personally took sample truffles to several top chefs including Daniel Boulud, a famed French chef and the chef-owner of more than 10 restaurants in Manhattan and other cities in the U.S. and abroad.

“This is it — the first time in America,” Boulud told O’Neill, she wrote in her February 2007 article. “This Tennessee

truffle is the real thing.”

Fleer is no longer at Blackberry Farm, but the noted chef and Michaels remain friends.

In the meantime, Michaels has also become both a friend and a supplier of truffles to numerous other top-level chefs in cities ranging from Knoxville, Nashville and Asheville to Charleston, S.C., Atlanta, Chicago and New York.

THREE DISCOVERIES The Greeneville Sun was one of the news organizations that published interviews with Michaels in the weeks and months following O’Neill’s bombshell story in late February 2007. But the Sun had not published additional stories on him and his company since that year.

So, recently, I met with Michaels, a longtime friend, at the newspaper office to get an update on his still-young career as a nationally celebrated producer of Black Truff les.

To my surprise — shock, actually — I learned three things I had no idea I would hear: • first, that the dreaded Easter n F i lb er t Blight and some hard winter freezes had hit M ic h ael s’ h a z el nut orcha rds ver y ha rd in the last few years, killed most of his trees, and convinced him to shut down his truff les business entirely and sell most of his farm property; • second, that the collapse of his formerly-thr iv ing Black Truff les business had u nexpectedly opened a new and potentially much more important opportunity for him in the field of truffle-production; and • third, that there are several other Greene County families who are at some stage in trufflecultivation here!

MUSHROOMS AND ‘PURE SERENDIPITY’ It seems “right” somehow that Michaels would become what the New York Times’ O’Neill described in 2007 as “the first truffle farmer to produce commercial quantities of truffles of a quality that commands top dollar.”

Brought up on a Button Mushroom farm in Illinois where his family raised the familiar small mushrooms commonly sold in American grocery stores, Michaels has been fascinated by mushrooms throughout his life.

While his two brothers left the family farm as soon as they were old enough to do so, Michaels says he loved the farm and was reluctant to leave it. In fact, he jokes, “the family lore is that the stork didn’t bring me — they found me in a compost pile!”

He also believes he has benefited greatly in his career from what he calls “pure serendipity.”

At the University of California at Berkeley, he earned his undergraduate degree in physical science (physics and chemistry, he explains), then a Master of Science degree in plant pathology at the University of Nevada/ Reno in the 1970s.

His next academic/ professional goal was a Ph.D. in plant pathology, and in a few years he moved west to Oregon State University, known internationally for its excellence in the field of plant pathology and, specifically, truffles.

But Michaels had not actually planned to focus on truffles-related research at OSU. “I got accepted at Oregon State to study a disease of the Button Mushroom, but I didn’t have any funding [to support the research].

“And lo and behold, some bankers wanted to start some truffles in the U.S., and they did their homework and found out that Oregon State had the scientists and expertise to work on that project.

“I was a broke graduate student walking the hallways looking for funding, and there was the assistantship to grow truffles, and there I was, wanting to get my degree.” So he adjusted his plans.

‘TRUFFLE TREES’ AT OSU Instead of studying a Button Mushroom disease as he had planned, he focused in his doctoral dissertation on the extreme difficulty of raising truffles under controlled cultivation conditions — in other words, in a nursery or other laboratory-type setting that would enable researchers to study the truffles and experiment with different nutrients, try to produce higher yields, look for ways to make the host trees disease-resistant, etc.

During his Ph.D. research in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he says, he actually developed the first “truffle trees” in the United States by successfully inoculating the roots of some trees with truffle spores in the university greenhouses.

“At least we got the [truffle fungus] to grow on the roots of trees.

That wasn’t revolutionary. That was basically ... doing under our conditions what had just been developed in France ...”

His truffles research would serve him well later when he moved to East Tennessee, but in the early1980s that move was years away and far out of sight.

“I needed a real job, so after the Ph.D. I went back to my first [research] love, which was the Button Mushroom, and worked in research and development with Dole Foods and Monterey Mushrooms.”

Later, he and his family moved back to Oregon, where he established a small mushroom farm.

PLEASE SEE TRUFFLES | 7

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THE GREENEVILLE SUN BENCHMARKS EDITION

Truffles Starts on Page 6 ‘TRUFFLE FARMER BY NECESSITY’ He came to East Tennessee from Oregon in late 1992 not for the purpose of raising truffles but for family-related reasons.

He explained that Dr. Robin Michaels, a physician to whom he was married, was named medical director of Greene Valley Developmental Center, and it was such an outstanding job opportunity for her that the couple decided to move here, along with their two young children.

His wife’s Greene Valley responsibility was very demanding, so he became very involved in his children’s care — a role he loved and deeply enjoyed.

In thinking about ways to use his spare time and develop additional family revenue, though, he began to focus on truffles, realizing that the climate and soil found here were similar to the climate and soil in the Perigord region of France where most firstquality Perigord BlackTruff les have always been grown.

During this time, his interest in truffles was reinforced by a visit to the Hillsborough, N.C., greenhouse of Franklin Garland: a trufflegrower himself and a

PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE GREENEVILLE SUN

After Chuckey truffle-farmer Tom Michaels, shown at left above, began selling his Black Perigord Truffles in early 2007, he found that the nation’s first-rank chefs were seeking him out to buy some the truffles, which were widely considered to be as fine as those grown in France. Many of these chefs became not only good customers but close friends, among them Chef Joseph Lenn, shown at right above, formerly executive chef of The Inn at Blackberry Farm. This 2011 photo was made in Chef Lenn’s kitchen at Blackberry Farm. Michaels says Lenn plans soon to open his own restaurant in Knoxville. nurseryman who would go on in future years to sell thousands of truffleinoculated tree seedlings to other growers.

After further local research, Michaels decided, with his wife’s encouragement and support, to apply at their small Chuckey farm his extensive knowledge of

mushrooms in general and truffles in particular.

Specifically, he decided to try to grow Perigord Black Truffles — something that no one in the United States had previously been able to do with the quality and volume needed for commercial success.

He likes to joke of himself that “I am the only person that I know who has grown truffles out of necessity — everyone grows them out of the romance of it!”

THE WAITING BEGINS Between 1999 and 2004 he planted some 2,500 trees — about 85 percent

hazelnut trees bought from sources in Oregon, and about 15 percent oak trees from truffleproducing orchards in southern France.

He planted them in four orchards amounting to 18 total acres of land, almost all of it in eastern Greene County.

In each case, the trees had been raised from seeds in the local greenhouses of Afton resident Danny Peters, and their roots had been carefully inoculated with truffle spores, following the same procedure that Michaels had used during his Ph.D. research decades earlier.

With the “host trees” planted, he began the patient, necessary process of keeping his truff le orchards cleaned, pruned and fertilized in a way he thought might be helpful, while he simply waited out the sixto-seven years needed to see if the spores inoculated into the hazelnut tree roots would actually produce truffles.

He knew that the maturation process would take three-to-four years years longer for the spores inoculated into the roots of the relatively few oak trees he had planted along with the hazelnuts.

TRUFFLE-GROWING KNOWLEDGE ‘PRIMITIVE’ Perhaps especially for a trained plant scientist, the limitations under which truffles are traditionally cultivated are

extremely frustrating and what Michaels considers “primitive.”

“We don’t even know the macro levels of growing nutrients — that’s your potassium and nitrogen,” he said in the recent Sun interview.

“We don’t know what the best fertilizer levels are to optimize the yields. ...

So it’s not for the fainthearted.

“For people that want to grow truffles, it’s not the soil, it’s not the climate, it’s not starting with a good tree — you can buy those trees from any responsible nurseryman.

“It’s your ability to deal with free-floating anxiety. I say that halfhumorously, but really, you are waiting for years, and you don’t have an agricultural base from which to make really solid decisions ...

“We don’t even really know how we should irrigate, how we should prune, how we should weed. Do we control the weeds or let them go?

“There is a lot of speculation about how to work the soil — whether to disk it or whether to rip it or whether to leave it alone.”

He added that he believes the current scientific and agricultural status of truffle-production is actually at the stage where Button Mushroom-growing was 200 years ago.

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THE GREENEVILLE SUN BENCHMARKS EDITION Saturday, March 19, 2016

PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE GREENEVILLE SUN

In this photo, Patrick Fiorentino conducts a PCR (polymerase chain reaction), a molecular biology method used to identify the presence of truffle in the samples he is testing. The photo was made in the facility near Winston-Salem, N.C., where Fiorentino and truffle farmer Tom Michaels will be jointly carrying out research into truffle production.

PHOTO COURTESY PATRICK FIORENTINO

This photo illustrates the underground process by which a truffle eventually grows from the roots of a “host” tree inoculated with truffle spores. In the picture, an inoculated hazelnut root segment (50 times actual size), has been “colonized” with the Perigord Black Truffle. What looks like a stick is part of the tree root, and the long, roundish objects are “feeder roots.” The picture shows that they have been successfully infected with the truffle fungus, forming a mycorrhiza (literally “fungus-root”). The cottony filaments are the truffle mycelium (“mold”), which grows into the surrounding soil and absorbs mineral nutrients and water the tree needs. In an example of true symbiosis — where both organisms benefit — the host tree provides carbohydrates and other nutrients for the growth of the truffle.

Truffles Starts on Page 7 he said: “When you go out to hunt some truffles today, if you get a basket full of truffles after an afternoon hunt, you have had a good day.

“Two hundred years ago, if you went out into the pasture to hunt some Button Mushrooms, if you got a basket of them, you had a good day.”

‘EUREKA!’ MOMENT Six slow years passed at Michaels’ orchards, and then, very unexpectedly, on Jan. 3, 2007, he spotted a truffle actually pushing up through the ground in one of his hazelnut orchards.

It was a “‘Eureka!’ moment” for him, he remembers.

He quickly discovered other truffles in the same orchard — enough to convince him to see if he could market them to some restaurants in the area.

Michaels told a Sun interviewer in March 2007 that “I expected some of the trees to begin producing [truffles] next year. I was caught flat-footed in January, when I suddenly found that some of my trees were producing ahead of schedule.”

He said in the interview with the Sun last week that “I literally stumbled across my first truffle when I was blowing leaves cleaning up the orchard, because some of [the truffles] will literally ‘blister’ and ‘pooch up’ out of the soil.

“So all of a sudden I’ve got the truffles on a tremendous Eureka moment.

But now what do I do?” he recalls wondering.

TRUFFLES FOR ORANGERY, BLACKBERRY FARM He soon found interested buyers.

According to Vicki Blizzard, of Knoxville, a close friend and marketing adviser, the first truffles Michaels sold were bought Jan. 8, 2007, by Chris Stallard, then executive chef at The Orangery, a much-awarded Knoxville restaurant which emphasizes French cuisine.

Two days later, on Jan. 10, came the sale to Executive Chef Fleer at The Inn at Blackberry Farm, followed in late February by O’Neill’s article announcing that a European-quality Perigord Black Truffle had been grown in the United States, by a previouslyunknown farmer at Chuckey, Tenn.

O’Neill noted in her story that “The truffles from Chuckey are not the first American-grown Perigord truff les.

They are, however, the first Americangrown Black Truffles to excite some of the country’s top chefs, like Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller, John Fleer and Jonathan Waxman.”

WHIRLWIND OF BUYER INTEREST The next few years became something of a whirlwind for Michaels as he continued to harvest top-quality truffles that continued to be in extremely high demand in upscale American restaurants.

O’Neill herself and Mike “Rathead” Riley, a Bristol, Va., insurance and financial services adviser who was a board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, personally contacted numerous prominent U.S. chefs to urge them to order Michaels’ Black Truffles, and a number of them did.

His customers over those years included, for instance, besides Stallard and Fleer, Executive Chefs Sean Brock of Charleston, S.C. (Husk, McCrady’s Restaurant), and Nashville (Husk); Linton Hopkins of Atlanta (Restaurant Eugene); Joseph Lenn (formerly of Blackberry Farm, soon to open Holdways restaurant, in Knoxville); David Chang, of New York City (Momofuku); and Peter Yuen of Chicago, a Master Pastry Chef (Euro-Asian Bakery).

Chang and Yuen, Michaels recalled, even took his Greene County-grown truffles to separate competitive culinary events in Paris, where, the chefs

told him afterwards, the truffles were highly regarded.

In Yuen’s case, he placed second in his category, and credited Michaels’ truffles as a key factor in the honor.

By 2010, Michaels’ success even made it feasible for him to buy “Brenda,” a fully-trained Lagotto, a type of dog bred specifically to sniff out truffles under the ground by their pungent aroma, which the dogs can detect even through several inches of earth.

Michaels commented last week that he had not needed to make a sales call in the last six years, so strong had been the demand from various chefs PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE GREENEVILLE SUN networking with one another, learning In this photo, oak seedlings inoculated with Perigord Black Truffle spores grow in about his truffles and their quality, a high-filtration, carbon-dioxide-enriched controlled environment growing room, and contacting him in Chuckey. also equipped with an overhead misting system. The room is located in the facilSIGNS OF TROUBLE In 2010 and 2011, however, storm warnings began to show up for Tennessee Truffle, with the first early signs of the dreaded Eastern Filbert Blight.

(Filbert is another name for hazelnut.) “[E]verything was going swimmingly,” Michaels recalled last week. “We started producing in 2007.

“It’s hard to say when [the first signs appeared] because the blight is a little hard to catch visually. But around 2010-11 I had seen the blight.”

Eastern Filbert Blight attacks wild hazelnut trees and serves as a continuing source of contamination for hazelnut trees brought in from other regions.

The blight works in much the same way that chestnut blight virtually wiped out chestnut trees in the Appalachian region in the 1900s.

Michaels said in the recent interview that he knew a lot about Eastern Filbert Blight in 1998 when he was deciding whether to try to grow truffles here, and, if so, what variety of tree to use as “host” for the truffles he hoped to produce.

He explained that, after conducting local surveys, he found no wild hazelnut trees that were close enough to his orchards for the infection to be transmitted to the trees he was planting.

He reasoned, then, that there was a very good chance that any new hazelnut trees he planted as hosts for truffles would escape infection by the blight.

Another factor arguing for hazelnut trees rather than oaks, he said, was that the time between planting and truffle production is usually about six or seven years for hazelnut trees, but three to four years longer for oaks.

In addition, he said, oaks themselves can be susceptible to Powdery Mildew as a consequence of the humid climate here. Hazelnut trees, he added, are not. “[The decision to plant mainly hazelnuts] was a rational choice. I went into this with my eyes open .... Call it rolling the dice.

“That was my gamble, that I would be able to get into production, and who knows how long it would be if the blight would show up.”

THE GAMBLE FAILS In the end, the gamble did not work out.

Slowly but relentlessly over the last few years, the Eastern Filbert Blight began killing Michaels’ hazelnut trees, as well as many other hazelnut truffle orchards in Tennessee and North Carolina.

By 2012-13 the impact on his orchards was severe, especially since 85 percent of his trees were hazelnuts and only about 15 percent were oaks.

Only “a handful” of the approximately 2,200 hazelnuts in his orchards have not been infected by the blight and are still producing truffles, Michaels said recently.

The relatively few oaks he inoculated and planted are also unaffected and are beginning to produce truffles.

He began removing the dead hazelnut trees last fall, and he plans eventually to burn over the sites where the trees were taken out, in order to get the land prepared for other agricultural uses.

ity near Winston-Salem, N.C., where Tom Michaels and Patrick Fiorentino will be conducting innovative truffle-production research.

PRODUCTION DROPS DRAMATICALLY Understandably, his ability to meet the truffle needs of his many customers has been dramatically reduced.

During the approximately threemonth 2016 season that began in January, he says, there have been about two dozen customers, but “they weren’t getting truffles every week.”

Michaels, now 68, said that his production dropped this year to about 10 percent of its peak level, reached in the winter of 2008-09 — about 20 pounds this year versus about 200 pounds in 2008-09.

At this point, he said last week, “I am basically disengaging myself from the truffles business.”

He has moved past the grief he felt at the collapse of his truffles orchards from the blight, he said, and is working on completing the process of removing the dead and diseased trees and cleaning up the property to be sold — perhaps to another truffle-grower.

“There is nothing wrong with it as a truffle-growing site ... I mean, the soil has produced truffles. It is primed and limed and ready to go.”

He also noted that blight-resistant varieties of hazelnut trees — “cultivars,” in technical terms — are now available that were not available in the late 1990s and early 2000s. “[But] the person that wants to grow truffles would have to start re-planting the trees from scratch.

“At my age and since I’ve had this run, I don’t want to do that again.

But the land is available, and it has been proven as truffle-producing land if someone wants to take that eight-to10-year lead time.”

He said this week that he plans to keep Tennessee Truffle officially open as a company for the present, even though he is selling only a few truffles now. He noted that he still does some consulting work under the name Tennessee Truffle.

NEW, SIGNIFICANT VENTURE In the wake of the destruction of Tennessee Truffle by the blight, however, he has turned almost all of his attention to a new, unexpected trufflesrelated venture he believes may prove to be much more significant than anything he has done before.

He and Patrick Fiorentino, a resident of Florida who also owns property in North Carolina, and who Michaels says is another former truffles-grower whose orchards were also hit by Eastern Filbert Blight, are forming a partnership to tackle a challenge that researchers in the U.S. and abroad have always found impossible to crack.

Their goal: producing top-quality truffles at commercial volumes under controllable conditions — in other words, in some form of greenhousetype environment where factors such as blight and harsh weather will be irrelevant.

The setting they have in mind will thus be drastically different from the existing — and longstanding — model involving outdoor orchards, with truffles maturing underground for long periods of years, where they are beyond

human control, and usually hard to detect even when mature except by specially-bred dogs.

The new partnership, Michaels explained, is designed to combine his own extensive background in plant science, and specifically in truffles, with his partner’s extensive technical background and resources.

Their new venture, he summed up, is an attempt to bring the cultivation and production of truffles “into the modern age.”

Eventually, he added, he hopes the new effort will greatly increase the volume of fine truffles, thus lowering their current high cost and making them available to customers in at least some grocery stores.

MANAGING THE GENETICS Michaels said that his new venture with Patrick Fiorentino developed over a period of about nine months after Michaels and the former business executive and truffle-grower talked during the summer of 2015.

That talk, both men said, resulted from a suggestion to them last spring

by Steve Frucht, another truffle-grower who was a mutual friend.

In an email to the Sun on Tuesday following a telephone conversation, Fiorentino explained that “I have been working on truffle production in controlled conditions for several years, with some success and many failures.

“The entire story [concerning this process] was not apparent to me (us) until we started putting our heads together.”

(Editor’s Note: Patrick Fiorentino, former executive vice president of Sales at Tiger Direct, was not charged in the multi-year federal securities fraud and tax fraud case in which his two brothers, Gilbert and Carl, pleaded guilty in December 2014. Gilbert and Carl Fiorentino, who had been senior executives of Tiger Direct, were sentenced to prison terms in March 2015.)

“I don’t want to sit on the couch and watch TV all day,” Michaels said in his recent interview with the Sun. “... I want to stay very active ... and he [Patrick Fiorentino] is about the same way.

“He is about eight or 10 years younger [than I], and this is his thing. He wants to get these truffles in a rational way.

“There is enough circumstantial evidence out there that say that we can jump to the next level. There is a way to ramp up production.

“We are going to give it about five years of development work.” Within that period, Michaels said, they hope to have produced truffles using their different approach.

He added: “An example is that Patrick has a controlled environment that is typical of a ‘clean room’ at a silicon chip-producing plant [with] filtered air, and we know all the carbon dioxide levels, humidity levels, and we can drip in any kind of nutrient formulations we want, PLEASE SEE TRUFFLES |11

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Tobacco Harvesting Doesn’t Look The Way It Used To

BY ROB ELLIS SPECIAL TO THE SUN

Producing a pound of burley tobacco for market has always been a laborintensive process, but tobacco producers are innovating methods to make it more cost-efficient.

From seed to finished product, raising a crop of tobacco takes many hours of committed effort.

An important way for producers to increase their bottom line is to control their costs. With labor being the overall highest cost, it’s the best target in which to find more efficiencies.

More than 50 percent of the labor to get tobacco to market comes after the tobacco has been harvested and housed in the barn.

Reducing labor cost during the market prep phase of production has been an emphasized area of research for several years.

One specific area of market prep

that has changed considerably over the years is how producers handle tobacco leaves once they have been removed from the stalk.

Traditionally, leaves have been handtied into individual “hands” that consisted of approximately 15 leaves.

These hands of tobacco then had to be stored until ready to be taken to market, at which time they were packed onto a basket holding up to 700 pounds worth of hands.

Academicians and industry leaders both began working to find more costeffective methods of handling the loose leaf once removed from the stalk.

Research studies investigated ways to handle the leaves in a “bulk” method without hand–tying the leaves.

One method briefly considered was using burlap sheet to hold the loose leaves.

About 200 pounds of loose leaves would be placed on a large square burlap sheet and when full, the four

corners would be tied in a knot, producing a burlap “container” to hold the tobacco.

The next step involved building press boxes to contain the leaves in order to form bales of leaves. The leaves would be placed in to the baling boxes with the stems facing outward.

This produced a bale of tobacco weighing about 100 pounds.

The ability to handle bales that weighed 100 pounds — instead of individual hands — greatly reduced the amount of time needed to prepare the leaf for market.

This method eventually caught on and became the standard way to prepare the leaf for market.

The next study involved moving from a 100-pound bale with the leaves oriented in a certain direction to a bale that would weigh 700 pounds with the leaves in no particular orientation.

This method further reduces costs because of the ability to handle more

pounds in one package.

There are some drawbacks to this method, though. The balers needed for larger packages are relatively expensive compared to the balers for the small bales.

One man can pick up and move a small bale of tobacco, but you have to use a tractor with a loader or some type of tow motor to move the large bales.

The large bales tend to be more accepted by larger producers, as the increased cost of equipment is spread over a larger number of acres of tobacco.

Currently burley is prepared and received at market in both small and large bale packages.

This move through the years to bulk handling of the leaves has been beneficial to the producer as well as to the industry as a whole.

The writer is the director of the University of Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center.

‘Lifestyle’ Farming In Greene County Has Many Faces

BY MELODY ROSE

hogs to chickens and even goats are becoming popular again.

The heritage name is used because these are the traditional livestock breeds raised by area forefathers.

They are animals that were bred over time to develop traits that made them suited to specific local environments.

Bales Farms in the Mosheim community has successfully raised both chickens and hogs as heritage breeds.

Because these breeds have been developed and selected over time, they tend to have better disease resistance, are well-adapted to their environments, and thrive in pasture-based settings.

UT EXTENSION

Lifestyle farming is a growing trend throughout the nation.

Lifestyle farming, or hobby farming, is the practice of returning to the land as a basic means to gain more control over the food we eat.

There has been an overwhelming increase in lifestyle farming for the last several years. More and more people are returning to the land as a means to grow their own food and sustain their livelihoods, as well as their cultural heritage.

Greene Countians may have encountered a glimpse of unusual looking animals grazing in pastures or COMMUNITY-SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE Fruit and vegetable crops continue to noticed a strange looking plant growrepresent a growing sector in Greene ing in fields.

County, but maybe not the way one would suspect.

ALPACAS AND LLAMAS Fairly new to the scene, but growing Several people in the area are trying their hand at raising alpac- immensely in popularity are CSAs, as and /or llamas. Silver Thunder otherwise known as Community-SupAlpacas in the Camp Creek com- ported Agriculture.

Melissa Rebholz, a trained chef munity, Talking Trees Farm in the South Green area, Black Hills who operates River House Farm, has Farms in the Mosheim area, Two a well-established CSA. She hosts Roots Alpacas in the St. James farm-to-table dinners throughout community and Appalachian Jour- the summer. All of the food for her ney Farm in nearby Limestone have creations is grown on her farm or delved into the art of raising fiber nearby local farms.

CSAs, in essence, provide consumfrom alpacas.

Walnut Ridge Farms in the Chuck- ers the opportunity to become part ey area offers day camps for chil- of the farm while simultaneously dren interested in learning more supporting local agriculture.

In conjunction with CSAs, farmers about llamas. markets abound in Greene County.

Brand new to the scene in 2016 HEMP AND ‘HERITAGE’ ANIMALS Hemp production is fairly new to will be the Depot Street Market, the county since last year was the opening for their first season in first year growing the plant was May. Not only will fresh local produce be available for purchase, but legalized in Tennessee.

It does show promise as an alter- meats and specialty foods will be native crop for Greene County pro- available as well. ducers in the coming years.

However, there is a lot more FRUITS ABOUND Apple orchards continue to domresearch to be done for the growing, marketing and maintenance of inate in East Tennessee as the demand for local fruit rapidly this crop.

There has also been an increase rises.

Phillip Ottinger, owner of Buffalo in what some call “heritage” animal breeds being grown for retail Trial Orchard in the Cedar Creek sale. Everything from beef cattle to community, is steadily increasing

The heritage name is used because these are the traditional livestock breeds raised by area forefathers. They are animals that were bred over time to develop traits that made them suited to specific local environments. his production each year by planting more varieties of apples, mouthwatering peaches, and pears made available for local purchase.

Grapes are yet another viable crop in Greene County. Erich Winter, a local grower in the St. James community, has diversif ied from tobacco into grapes in the last few years and is producing high-quality grapes. The grapes are utilized in local wine bottled at Cades Cove Cellars in Townsend, an East Tennessee winery.

Winter’s neighbors, Brad and Ruth Ann Goss, are also growing a variety of wine grapes.

Pumpkins have become a mainstay in the county, often seen as a decoration for both Halloween and Thanksgiving. But some folks have found an alternative for the mighty orange orb — beer.

Pumpkins grown in Greene County have been used for the production of beer in neighboring counties breweries.

Along with the agritourism sector of pumpkins, a few growers throughout Greene County are actively involved in facilitating variety trials, which assists local breeders in determining the best varieties of pumpkins for growing and selling in various market channels across the state.

Jonathan and Heather Williams, in Afton, have included this phase

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of farming into their operation this year in hopes of discovering and offering unique pumpkins to sell in local outlets throughout the county during the fall season.

LOTS OF TRANSPLANTS AVAILABLE Those looking to plow up a little piece of their lawns or invest in a few raised beds, should know Greene County has many producers growing local transplants to suit them.

Southerland Farms in Greeneville, Myers Greenhouses in Bulls Gap, and Summerfield Farm in Afton all raise healthy vegetable and f lower transplants for resale.

Several greenhouses throughout the county now offer organic or naturally grown vegetable and herb transplants as an extension of their farm enterprise to meet the growing trend.

Heather Youngblood, of Summerfield Farm, has risen to the challenge by incorporating a natural approach to growing the vegetable, herb and f lower transplants she sells directly from her greenhouse in Afton.

She also sells transplants at local festivals, farmers markets and events throughout East Tennessee during the spring months.

Duane Gibson, owner/operator of Gibson Blueberry Farm located on Kelley Gap Road, is also employing the use of natural practices on his farm. He offers a pick-yourown operation, along with alreadypicked berries available for purchase.

There is always an abundance of fine, fresh local produce available throughout Greene County, and many folks are gardening on their own in order to preserve their bounty for all seasons.

A wealth of knowledge and experience is waiting to be gained from individuals who are living off the land, and many consumers are now taking advantage of the abundance and high-quality items produced on local farms.

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www.greenevillesun.com

Saturday, March 19, 2016

THE GREENEVILLE SUN BENCHMARKS EDITION

11

Six Decades of Change In Greene County Agriculture

BY JAKE HAUN SPECIAL TO THE SUN

The average Greene County farm today looks much different than it did more than 60 years ago. As technology, the markets and practices have changed, so have the kinds of farming operations over the last six decades.

Here’s a look back at how those changes developed.

1950-1960 This was a time when most everyone in this area lived on a farm. Farms were basically small acreage, and provided the family with almost everything they needed.

Sugar and flour were the main staples that farm families bought from the country store.

Farm families raised chickens for eggs and meat, hogs for meat.

A few dairy cows were milked by hand for the family and to sell seasonally to a milk company. Most every farm had a small tobacco patch and sold the tobacco leaves to buy clothing and shoes for the family.

Tractors were replacing horses for farm chores. Hay was now being baled with a pull-type baler that was equipped with a Wisconsin cooled gasoline motor.

Very few tractors had three-pointhitches. Most were equipped with only a straight draw bar for easy transport of most equipment.

Also, every farm family that owned

Truffles Starts on Page 8 and we can run the tests — which is my expertise: how to design good field tests with good ... statistics.

“I love statistics. Properly done, they are a key to advancement in agricultural research, and I know how to do that. That is what my career was before moving to Tennessee.”

Michaels also explained that “[O]n this scale we are getting our arms around the genetics of it. ...

“For example, we can decide what stage of ripeness [of a truffle] you want to harvest.

“If it is the lighter side of ripeness, you get the lighter aroma — because we are going to know where the truffles are.

We are not going to wait for a dog when the truffles start sending up a plume of aroma to find it for us.”

a pickup truck had cattle racks on larger, and tobacco marketing changed that truck to haul cattle and hogs to from hand tying the leaves and packing them on baskets to baling the leaves in market. small wooden balers.

As the end of the decade approached, 1961-1970 Dairy and tobacco became king in hog production declined drastically. In Greene County. Pet and Kraft Milk the mid-1970s, more than 120 feeder pig companies and the Austin Tobacco com- producers were in Greene County. pany were in peak production.

Farm sizes changed from the small 1981-1990 Dairy farms in Greene County family farm to the larger family farms.

Instead of growing a little of everything, decreased drastically during the 1980s, farmers starting specializing in one or primarily due to government buyouts.

It was reported by some sources in the two farming enterprises.

Larger dairies began springing up all late ‘60s and early ‘70s that there were across the county. Electric milkers were a more than 1,000 dairy farms operating in welcomed addition — no more hand milk- Greene County.

Beef cattle became the enterprise on ing of cows.

Most dairy farms produced corn and most farms.

Also, a large movement from full-time wheat silage to feed their dairy cows, and both upright and bunker storage silos farming to part-time farming began to grow. appeared throughout the rural area.

Chicken broiler houses began to dot the Tobacco fields became larger, and more producers depended on tobacco for their landscape. main farm income.

Farm equipment got larger and more 1991-2000 Full-time farming continued to decline mobile due to all new tractors having three-point-hitch hook-up capacity and in Greene County.

The remaining tobacco operations were some had live PTO power. getting larger and larger, and talk of a government buy-out of tobacco pound quotas 1971-1980 The numbers of both dairy and tobacco was being heard more frequently.

The number of dairies continued to farms began to decrease.

Farm families began to seek employ- decrease, and by the year 2000 almost all, if not all, of the manufactured milk dairies ment away from the family farm.

Goose neck trailers replaced trucks were gone. This was primarily due to no with cattle racks for hauling cattle to local milk company buying manufactured milk. Only the Grade A dairies remained. market.

There had been a revolution in the growThe remaining tobacco farms became

ing of tobacco plants. There were no longer any tobacco plants grown in conventional plant beds. They were now grown in outdoor float beds or in greenhouses.

from wearing the ‘science hat’ to the ‘farmer hat,’ and now I’m going back to doing it from the technical end. ... “[T]he thing is,” he continued, “you sit on that tractor, and you have a lot of time to think as you are going down the rows, and you are looking at those trees wondering what the truffle does, and how to do it, and how to manage it.

“I mentioned that it is art, and a lot of by-gosh-and-by-golly guessing, and now I get to take all those little thoughts and organize them and do some controlled work.”

my truffles out of my orchard every year. ...

“I want to make a mark ... I still want to be focused on where my heart is, making a mark.”

He acknowledges that, at this point, “The plans are all blue skies and green lights,” but he also expects that the road to his new goal is likely to include some missteps and failures.

That possibility doesn’t appear to worry him — in fact, he almost welcomes it, he indicated in the recent interview.

“There is,” he said, “a great book by Stuart Firestein, a neurobiologist ... about what failure is in science and how it moves science forward ...

“We know there is going to be failure along the way. That’s necessary to bring about a success ... To try to phrase it, you learn by your failures.

“If this was easy, it would have been done before.”

WILL CONTINUE LIVING HERE He said the partnership “is functionally in place” and should be firmly set in about two weeks.

Their test site is near WinstonSalem, N.C., but Michaels said he plans to continue living at his home in Chuckey.

“I love my spot right here. I’m set here. I’m set in my ways, and have a beautiful place ... The people ... It’s my world right here.

“But by the nature of the [new] project, you can do so much long distance now with communication. “...[F]or our spring preparation, where we are getting the seeds, [getting] the trees started, and actually installing the ... treatments and trials, I’ll be there. But [for] the ... day-to-day watering and management of the greenhouse, I don’t have to be there.

“So basically — finally — I’m not just the farmer. I’m getting back to wearing my ‘science hat.’

“Over the years I sort of morphed

FAILURE AND SUCCESS The potentially groundbreaking aspect of the new truffles venture appeals to Michaels at a deep level.

“Talk about one door opening and one door closing ...,” he mused toward the end of the recent interview.

“I wouldn’t be doing this pioneering project to grow truffles in a totally new way if I was happily harvesting

2001-2010 The government tobacco allotment buyout became official on Oct. 22, 2004. This drastically reduced the number of area producers who continued to grow tobacco.

The marketing of burley tobacco changed from primarily an auction market to a receiving station system.

The producer’s crop was graded as it was weighed in, and the producer was paid a certain price based on the grade established by the receiving station.

The number of area dairy farms continued to decline due to increased input costs, and lower milk prices.

Poultry broiler houses continued to increase. Broiler production was the bright spot in Greene County agriculture at that time.

Farm enterprises across the county began to diversify. Many small farms were raising sheep and goats. Also, several small farms produced only organic products.

In addition, some farmers were growing ostriches and llamas.

However, beef cattle continued to be the dominant farm enterprise as rural Greene County became the home of predominantly part-time farmers.

The writer is the retired Greene County executive director of the USDA Farm Service Agency.

The writer is the former editor of The Greeneville Sun.

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12

www.greenevillesun.com

THE GREENEVILLE SUN BENCHMARKS EDITION Saturday, March 19, 2016

New Facilities Will Aid Rural Resources’ Mission

BY RURAL RESOURCES STAFF

entered the program in January.

“Some of the teens from last year want to expand and start selling,” she said. “We are exploring that option.”

Strickland supports teens who are interested in this field but who have monetary and transportation challenges.

“These teens are able to support and grow food for their families,” she said. “We are also hopefully encouraging them to make healthier nutrition choices, too. We give them the tools, and they put in all the work.”

SPECIAL TO THE SUN

There’s a growing concern about who will be cultivating food in the future.

In 2015, Rural Resources checked in with about 35 local growers through a face-to-face survey. One of the major and consistent concerns voiced was, “Who will take my place and raise food when I can’t anymore? ” Considering the 2012 ag r icultu re census information shows the average age of Greene County farmers is 59, it’s critical for agriculture as an industry overall to attract and involve a younger generation.

Rural Resources’ goal is to connect farms food and families. Key to this is combating food insecurity among at-risk teens in Greene County by teaching them how to grow, cook, prepare and preserve their own food. The teens also have the opportunity in small groups to craft a business plan and implement the business.

The teens and the whole organization are looking forward to the new Farm & Food Learning Center which will provide a commercial style teaching kitchen and meeting space to further their businesses.

NEW FACILITIES In April of 2015 the groundbreaking ceremony was held for the center. Speakers included USDA Undersecretary Lisa Mensah and Appalachian Regional Commission Chief of Staff Guy Land, both visiting from Washington, D.C. They were joined by East Tennessee Foundation President Mike McClamrock, Greene County Mayor David Crum, Rural Resources Founder Karen Childress, and other Rural Resources supporters in breaking ground.

After the ceremony, Mensah spent time with the teens.

“To have such a highprofile individual speak personally with the teens was one of the most exciting aspects of the visit,” Rural Resources Executive Director Sally Causey said. “Ms. Mensah was very interested in interacting with them and motivating them to continue on in agriculture.”

Also in April, the Rural Resources’ farm was purchased from the Rural Resources’ founders and subsequently put into a conservation easement.

“The conservation easement means the farm will never be subjected to the potential for development,” Causey said. “This land will forever be farmland or it will return to its natural state. That’s comforting to me. We hope it sets an example for others to do the same with their farmland.”

The Conservation Easement is being held by the Foothills Land Conservancy in Maryville, Tenn.

“Everything we do is about facilitating the education of sustainable agricultural practices,” Causey said. “All of these efforts have been accomplished with the future of farming in Greene County in mind.”

A new pavilion has been erected to serve as an outdoor classroom for school field trips and Farm Day Camp, as well as other educational endeavors.

“We can’t stop imagining all the possibilities and opportunities for learning inside the Farm & Food Learning Center and outside in the new pavilion,” Causey said.

“The Greeneville Noon and Morning Rotary Clubs, the community, and former Farm Day Campers all came together to make this possible.”

FUTURE FARMERS Farm & Food Teen Training Program Coor-

PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE SUN

Construction work takes place on a new pavilion on the Rural Resources farm. The pavilion was erected to serve as an outdoor classroom for school field trips and Farm Day Camp, as well as other educational endeavors. dinator Debbie Strickland has spent 2015 focusing on giving the teens the tools they need to become more self-sufficient.

“What we are trying to do is educate these teens to at least grow their own food,” Strickland said. “Wouldn’t it be amazing to see some of these teens be our future farmers? ” The program spans four years with an option for a fifth-year internship. Currently, Strickland has been nurturing

the teens’ interests. The latest is rabbits for meat production.

“This past year we took it to the next step,” Strickland said. “We started selling rabbits this year.”

The Boone Street Market in Jonesborough has been stocking the rabbits, and Strickland is looking for other possible vendor locations.

“This is always going to be a project led by the teens,” she said. “It’s given them so many

skills.”

Strickland believes Greene County needs more agricultural businesses, and her program’s goal is to inspire the next generation to make that happen.

Last year, Strickland said there were a total of 20 gardens placed at teens’ homes through the program’s partnership with Grow Appalachia.

Fifteen more gardens will be added this year for all the teens who

BUSINESS TRAINING Another way the teen program has supported Greene County youth is by teaching them how to brand and promote their initiatives.

“The kids are developing their own meat labels with their own logos,” Strickland said. “ T hrough sta r ting this project, teens are learning how to handle funds, how to prepare a business plan and how to brand and promote themselves.”

“These teens just need a little encouragement,” Strickland said. “All of the initiatives that we take on are with the goal of growing future farmers in mind.”

Other programs facilitated by Rural Resources include the Mobile

Farmers’ Market, the Four Seasons’ Grazing Club, Farm Day Camp, and working with the Greene County Health Council, school systems, doctors, and others to promote local and healthy food options.

Rural Resources also coordinates local food events and meals on the farm and in the community.

The programs of Rural Resources are made possible with generous support from community members, volunteers, businesses and community partnerships including Greene County Extension, Greene County and Greeneville City sSchool systems, the Greene County Health Department, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and many others.

Those supplying funds include the U.S. Department of Agriculture Community Food Project, USDA Rural Development, Appalachia CA RES AmeriCorps members, Tennessee Department of Agriculture, Grow Appalachia, East Tennessee Foundation, Fox Foundation, Tennessee Arts Commission, Peyback Foundation, Presbyterian Church USA and the Holston Presbytery.

For more information, visit ruralresources.net or call 636-8171.