ountry C cres A
A Supplement to the Star Shopper
Friday, May 4, 2018 • Edition 6
Focusing on Today’s Rural Environment
on air
Growing plants Ortenblad produces lettuce with aeroponics By LAURA HINTZEN Staff Writer NEW LONDON Kevin Ortenblad, 62, is up at 4 in the morning in a building on his property that he calls, “more of a science project.” Lettuce Abound is a family run farm located in New London with a purpose of growing the freshest quality produce available without herbicides, pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). “I grow lettuce without using soil,” he said. “It’s called aeroponics.” Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in an air or mist environment without the use of soil. It often gets confused with hydroponics, which often uses soil which is infused with nutrients. Ortenblad grew up in Willmar where he farmed for
Melody and Erick, the couple retired from farming. They moved to Colorado where they ran their own bed and breakfast retreat center. “We ran that for 10 years and thought we wanted to do that in Nashville, so we moved there. A year later we decided that wasn’t what we wanted,” he said. “We came back here and I’m too young to retire so I had to find something to do.” Last September, the couple was paging through the newspaper and saw a blurb about PHOTO BY LAURA HINTZEN Dana Anderson, presKevin Ortenblad stands surrounded ident of Living Green by lettuce in his aeroponics facillity Farms, inquiring if April 20 in New London. the city of New London-Spicer would put a farm up for the city. 34 years. For 29 of those years, he and his wife, Julie, Living Green Farms is a vertical, indoor grower of high were organic farmers and also shipped soybeans to Ja- quality fresh lettuce, herbs and microgreens. The Ortenblad’s were quick to respond, having little pan for 27 years. “It was new and nobody else did it. We had a niche to no hesitation at the opportunity that was presented to market,” he said. After raising their children, Kara, Kressa, Mandy, ORTENBLAD continued on page 3
A GRAND SLAM By DIANE LEUKAM Staff Writer
PHOTOS BY DIANE LEUKAM
Mitchell Worms holds fan mounts from several sub-species of wild turkeys he has harvested, April 25 at his home near Glenwood. From left, the fans are from Merriam’s, Eastern and Rio Grande turkeys.
GLENWOOD – In real estate, they say location is everything and that rang true for Mitchell Worms of Glenwood. The 10-acre property where he lives was only on the market for four hours before he signed a purchase agreement. An avid wild turkey hunter, he knew it would be a natural habitat for the birds he loves to hunt. “We were very fortunate to get it,” Worms said. He lives there with Anna, his wife of four years. The two were married in September 2014. Worms began hunting at age 12, and started hunting turkeys when he was 16. Worms is in his fourth year as a committee member of the Gobblers of Glacial Ridge, with the National Wild Turkey Federation. In an effort to get more people interested in the sport, he is working on starting a mentor hunt, where he takes youth and one or both of their parents out hunting. “If you can get them out, even just to see what it’s like out there, it’s good,” Worms said. “It’s fun when the dad is with, too, seeing the ex-
Worms works toward fourth wild turkey species
citement on their faces when they get one.” Worms is also working on a Grand Slam. Of turkeys, that is. There are four sub-species of wild turkeys in the United States, and he has harvested three of them. From the Black Hills of South Dakota, he harvested a Merriam’s Wild Turkey, which has a range throughout the Rocky Mountains, South Dakota and Montana, as well as in high-country areas of the Southwest. The Merriam’s is characterized by two distinct rows of coloration on the toms’ fan. An inner white row of coloration on the rump feathers is complemented by a slightly wider row on the outside fringes. The light colors can range from a buff color to white. Males can weigh anywhere from 18-30 pounds. A trip to Kansas produced a Rio Grande jake (one-year-old male) turkey, as well as trying circumstances. The week before he was set to leave for Kansas, Worms tore ligaments in his knee while playing volleyball. “I’d like to go back to Kansas and get another Rio because I just got a jake,” he said. “I would have liked to get a tom but I can’t complain when I was on crutches and had limited mobility.”
WORMS continued on page 6