Blighted: A Tomato Story from Utica, NY

by Melissa Byrne

category: Biodiversity

Published August 17, 2009 @ 12:37PM PT

Two weekends ago, my good friend Annie told me she had some bad news for me. As we were celebrating our friends Reshma's wedding, I was a little taken a back. Bad news? What. Then, she proceeded to tell me that Nancy Grove, her sister in-law and my friend, lost her entire tomato crop to Late Blight. If we weren't at a wedding, I'd probably have started to loudly curse the food system that has enabled the Late Blight (aka Irish Potato Famine) to spread across the North East. But, I bit my tongue for once.

For me, Nancy's loss is personal. In June, I spent hours pounding these super heavy, taller than me, metal posts into the ground for the trellacing of her 600 tomato plants. It is amazing how spending a few hours of manual labor with 600 tomato plants builds a solid relationship. Needless to say, I was devestated to learn that all my hard work, and more so, all Nancy's hard work was for naught.

I know we've talked about Late Blight on here, you have read it in newspapers, or seen it on tv. But, I thought, given's Nancy's loss, I could use this opportunity to show you what it really means when a small scale, organic farmer loses her entire crop of tomatoes.

First things first

Meet Nancy. Nancy is one of the new generation farmers taking the nation by storm. Raised by an engineer turned bagel baking family in rural upstate NY, Nancy started her career canvassing for the Clean Air Council in Philadelphia before ditching the city for working with the earth. Nancy spent time working on the Heiffer International farm outside of Worcester, MA, before being an apprentice on Caretaker Farm near Williamstown, MA.

After her apprentice year, Nancy returned to the outskirts of Utica, NY- home of the famous Bagel Grove Bagels- to begin her own organic farm. Harpening back to the ideals that influence her work as a farmer, she aptly named her project, Old Path Farm. Starting in the first season, 2005-2006, Nancy was able to sign up CSA (community supported agriculture) members, sell at local farmers markets, and supply the Bagel Grove with seasonally available produce.

Now, Old Path Farm is in their fifth season growing 3 acres of eighty varieties of veggies. Nancy has a loyal membership base of 75 CSA members who buy in for $400/season ( June to October),and she sells at a few farmers markets in the Mohawk Valley.

"The diversity of the farm is my favorite part," explains Nancy, "I'd be bored if we only grew one thing. Lettuce is big all summer. Carrots and beets are standard, as in Swiss Chard. Right now, the fall crops are starting to full out"

Blighted

Late in July, Nancy began to suspect the worse for her tomato plants. And, within a week, the climax of her farming season- nineteen varieties of tomatoes- went from going strong to rotting on the vine. But, before I tell you about the blighted plants and what she had to do, I want to walk you through all the hard work it takes to get the tomatoes from seed to your homemade salsa or gazpacho.

For some of Nancy's tomatoes, the work began last year with saving seeds from her successful crop. For the rest of the tomato plants, Nancy had to spend time and money ( both short supply for small scale organic farmers) to order seeds from a company.

Nancy explained, "We grow early hybrids and heirlooms...black trim, green zebra, and brandywine, among others. We spend about three hours with three hours planting all the seeds in the first of April." The major cost up front, besides the seeds, is the potting soil and the cost to heat the green house. For the next month, Nancy or another member of the farm, waters the tomatoes twice a day.

"A few weeks later," Nancy describes, "we have to transfer the seedlings into bigger pots in the greenhouse. That takes about ten hours." The seedlings stay in the bigger pots for another month and half, with twice a day waterings and energy being used to heat the green house."

While the tomato seedlings are growing in the green house, Nancy and her team wait for spring ground to thaw. Once the ground is workable, the Old Path Farm team begins the arduous task of preparing the tomato beds for the season. Imagine a track of land, and you need to turn this track of land into the perfect environment for six hundred of your favorite tomato seedlings so they can grow into adult tomato plants producing lots of fruit ( err, vegetables). For this process, the crew has to create rows which involves turning the soil, hoeing, and mulching. The mulch is pricey, but worth it since Nancy can count on 30% of her farmers market profits to come from the tomatoes.

Once the seedlings have become hardy, it takes fifteen hours of labor to transfer the seedings to rows out on the farm. This process is time consuming because the plants needs to be spaces correctly, groups by variety, and care needs to be taken to protect the root structure. Once the plants are in the ground, the team continues to weed, water, and watch the plants. During this process, the plants are suckered continuous- which is a way to keep the plants from growing all over the place.

A few weeks after transplanting, the work to trellace the growing plants begins. About 70 metal and wooden six feet high stakes are pounded into the ground after every fourth tomato plant. This takes one person about five hours and is wearing on the back. Once the stakes are up, every week or so, another loop of twine is strung between the stakes, allowing the tomatoes to be fully supported as grow towards the sky.

In a normal year, Nancy and her crew would continue to trellace, weed, and water, and the get ready for weekly harvests. But, this isn't an normal year thanks to big box stores selling late blight infected plants and a rainy season to create perfect conditions for the late blight. Instead of celebrating the hard work, in late July, Nancy realized her 600 plants were carrying this dangeous pathogen and she had to figure out what to do.

"We had no idea what to look for," explained Nancy upon seeing the stems and leaves with the blog. "I had heard about late blight but I had no idea how damaging it could be... some farms have alot more invested in tomatoes," said Nancy, who ended up taking a "crash course, of sorts," on late blight. Pete, another member of the farm, attended the Northeast Organic Farming Conference in Massachusetts in early August, where he went to a workshop on late blight but "no one knew what was best." Nancy told of one farmer she knew who "was going to burn his tomatoes and potatoes."

As her tomatoes from went from scrumptious to fungus, Nancy decided that she need to dedicated a whole work day to undoing a season of work, documented in the following photographs. Luckily, they were able to borrow a dump truck to make the work slightly easier. In short, Nancy and her crew had to pull up each of the six hundred tomato plants by the roots, which first involved undoing the trellaces and pulling up the stakes. The metal stakes are spending the next twelve months baking in the sun to kill the late blight on them, while they are deciding if the wooden stakes need to be burnt. While they were pulling up the stakes and the plants, they had to be extra careful about the tomatoes. Each tomato carried they late blight in the form of spores, so even one being left behind could start its own out break and each tomato carries seeds which gladly will become volunteer plants, meaning that they reseed very readily. So, they spent a lot of time picking up each tomato and separating the plants for compost, and the tomatoes for being thrown away.

On a far, far, far corner of the farm, beneath a gray tarp, a season of work is heating up in compost. For the next few years, the organic matter of the plants decomposing will fight off all the remaining spores of the late blight, and eventually Nancy plans to have scientists from Cornell test the materials. Meanwhile, it is hoped that the pulling of the tomato plants will help preserve the land in the main part of the farm. But, " a huge concern is next year- this year is bad enough. How do we prevent this from over wintering", wonders Nancy.

Nancy's says that her CSA members have been supportive and understanding of the late blight. She's been adding in extra vegetables to compensate from the of tomatoes, usually thought of as the climax of the farming season. She's gotten about ten condolence letters form her members all with the same message "We love your veggies. We'll be here next year." But, this has caused a domino effect at the farmers market. Since she is adding extra greens and other veggies the weekly boxes, she has less to bring to market. She expects to lose at least 30% of her farmers markets profits this season.

All in all, Nancy has not been able to put a dollar on the losses sustained to Old Path Farm his year. From the time invested to the new boxes, stakes, and materials she has to purchase, it is going to cut into her bottom line. Yet, she is luckier than other farmers. She had the time to take a full day to address the problem, and because she grows a large variety of vegetables, she is able to keep on going this year.

Nancy hopes that next year, people buy their tomato seedlings direct from a farmer ( Some even have seedling CSA's) and avoid stores like Home Depot or Wal-Mart. She explains "( the box stores" are a source of homeland insecurity and that its a food system set up for catastrophe. If this were as important as Britney Spears, then people would care about food systems. I've learned how insecure our food system is, and we cannot shelter ourselves from society or our greater eco system. There are no real boundaries that protect us."

Nancy's one hope is that "this is a kick in the butt for organic farmers to get healthier soils so they blight won't knock us down."

Those of us who love farm fresh organic veggies need to realize we have a role to play here. We need to spend our dollars at local farms and realize our actions have consequences. One quick trip to a box store could end up with a farmer like Nancy having to pull up her whole season of work in one day. We need to be our farmers keepers.

(Thanks to Ed Grove for the photos. Thanks to Nancy Grove for the interview and letting my hangout on Old Path Farm. I'll come back next year for staking!)