Photos by Tom Rivers
Bradley Martin and a team of six draft horses harrow a field on Knowlesville Road this afternoon. Martin works for a Mennonite-owned dairy farm, part of a growing cluster for Amish- and Mennonite-owned businesses in the Ridgeway and Yates communities. Martin also walked the field, removing big rocks by hand.
Photos by Tom Rivers
Ken Nice, co-owner of Nice Farms in Knowlesville, walks through a fruit orchard this afternoon along Knowlesville Road. He is checking how the bees are pollinating the fruit crop. The pink blossoms will bear white nectarines while the white blossoms will be plums. Nice expects a much better year after a freeze in April 2012 wiped out a lot of the local fruit crop last year. Nice said the blossoming trees are a visual and olfactory feast. “It’s like a perfume factory,” he said.
Photo by Tom Rivers – Officers for the Albion FFA pose by a sign in front of the high school. The group includes, from left: Logan London, Mariah Pepe, Elizabeth Bentley, Riley Kelly, Alison O’Hearn (vice president), Jenny McKenna (president), Abigail Maines, Sara Millspaugh and Kellie O’Hearn.
ALBION – About a year ago Allison O’Hearn was on the phone with eight different hotels in Batavia, checking their availability for 1,100 students and their chaperones for this May 2-4.
It was the first of many phone calls and letters for the vice president of the Albion FFA. O’Hearn and Jenny McKenna, the FFA president, have been lining up judges, sponsors, entertainment and volunteers for the FFA state convention this Thursday through Saturday.
The Albion FFA students will be working on the convention right up until students arrive from throughout the state on Thursday afternoon. Today, the Albion students were filling goodie bags with coupons to local businesses, pens and pamphlets about Albion.
O’Hearn also just finalized plans to have modern farm machinery displayed with some antique tractors.
“We’re going right down to the last minute to make this the best state convention and one that they’ll remember,” O’Hearn said at school today.
FFA advisor Adam Krenning also has been a key leader is assembling more than 150 judges from the community for 26 different competitions ranging from speaking to technical and leadership skills. He has led three orientations for the judges.
Krenning also negotiated with managers for the entertainers, including country music singer JJ Lawhorn who will perform in an outdoor tent behind the school, and Ben Glenn, a chalk artist who was featured when the state convention was in Albion in 2007.
The 1,100 FFA students are coming from 71 different chapters, including students from New York City, the North Country, Hudson Valley, Southern Tier and other parts of the state.
McKenna said she is looking forward to a ceremony on Friday night when first-year FFA students will be presented their blue corduroy jackets. That ceremony will shift to the varsity football field, where fireworks will follow.
McKenna also wanted to show off the Albion community and local agriculture. Students can choose to attend tours of the Neal family dairy farm in Albion, Lamb Farms in Oakfield, Western New York Energy’s ethanol plant in Medina, Intergrow in Gaines, Oxbo in Byron, Post Farms in Elba and the Milton CAT plant in Batavia. Students can also look over the Albion FFA chapter’s new 5-acre “land lab” that was established about a year ago.
Students, when they have some down time from competitions and other events, will be urged to discover the historical assets in Albion as well as the businesses.
“This is one of our focuses to say this is our community and this is what we’re proud of,” McKenna said.
GAINES – A fruit-packing company owned by local farmers is planning a $3 million expansion with a new controlled-atmosphere storage building.
Lake Ridge Fruit could break ground on the 25,200-square-foot building next week, said John Russell, general manager and partner for the company at 14234 Ridge Rd. The addition will boost Lake Ridge’s storage capacity by 200,000 bushels a year.
“This is driven by the need to stay ahead of the curve and be at the leading edge of the industry,” Russell said today.
Many of Lake Ridge’s member growers have recently planted more acres of popular apple varieties, such as Honeycrisp and SweeTango. The new CA storage will help keep those apples fresh after harvest. Russell also said Lake Ridge has been renting some storage from other companies and won’t need to do that after the expansion.
The addition is expected to be ready for this fall’s apple harvest. Lake Ridge will add one position as part of the project. The addition will retain 60 other full-time positions.
“It’s an employment keeper,” Russell said about the addition. “It will allow us to keep jobs.”
Lake Ridge did a $3 million project in 2010 that added storage space and a new packing line. Russell said the company, which formed in 1982, is determined to stay at the forefront of the industry.
The Orleans Economic Development Agency today approved a tax incentive plan that will save the company $202,406 over 10 years. Lake Ridge will receive a 50 percent property tax abatement on the new addition for the first year, and then will pay 5 percent more until the building is at full taxable value. That will save the company $83,164 in property taxes in the next decade.
Lake Ridge is agreeing to pay $196,570 in “payment in lieu of taxes” for the new building over the next 10 years to the town, county and Albion Central School.
The company also has been approved for a sales tax exemption on $1,207,010 in equipment costs, which will save Lake Ridge $96,561. The company also was approved for a $22,681 “Buy Orleans” incentive.
As part of the PILOT and tax incentive deal, Lake Ridge also agreed to pay the EDA $56,380 for administration services or 2 percent of the overall costs.
“This is another great agricultural project for our county,” Jim Whipple, Orleans EDA chief executive officer, told the EDA board of directors.
ALBION – The school district sees 63 prime agricultural acres next to the school campus as more than an opportunity to grow food.
The district wants a local farm to lease the land, and work with students in the FFA on choosing what to grow. Students can also work with the farm in determining the costs for growing, harvesting and marketing what will likely be a grain crop.
One other thing: the farmer needs to donate the net proceeds to the FFA or towards a scholarship for a student pursuing a career in agriculture.
“We have a very generous ag community,” said Shawn Liddle, the district’s assistant superintendent for business. “I think we’ll definitely have some takers on this.”
The district purchased 68 acres from Peter Dragan, a local corn and soybean farmer, about a decade ago but allowed him to lease the land. That agreement would end after Mr. Dragan’s death.
Dragan died last Aug. 7 at age 96. The farm has completed the last cycle of a Dragan crop.
That has prompted school officials to consider other possibilities for the land. The Board of Education on Monday decided to seek proposals from the farming community to work the land while including FFA students. A farm would need to pay a $70 per-acre lease or $4,410 annually for 63 acres.
The district has set aside five other of Dragan’s former acres as an FFA “land lab.”
The district is looking for a farm with more than experience in agriculture. The school wants a farm that has a history of working with students and in education.
Two board members, Kevin Doherty and Brenda McQuillan, expressed concern that the district will have to be subjective in picking a farm if more than one want the opportunity.
The district originally pursued the land, seeing it as an asset if the campus would ever expand southward.
Doherty suggested the district may consider putting the Dragan land up for sale. However, he agreed with other board members that the proposal to connect with a local farm would be a benefit to FFA students. He just worries it will be difficult to justify picking one farm over another.
The district will first seek proposals from farmers to see if any farm wants the opportunity.
While a farm wouldn’t reap profits from the crop, a farm could use the project as a tax write-off, and could factor in equipment use as in expense in working the land. District Superintendent Michael Bonnewell also said a farm may get a better bulk deal for fertilizer and seed for its entire operation when the 63 school acres are included.
Board President Margy Brown said she is eager to hear from the farming community about the initiative.
“It provides a unique opportunity for this district that is strong in agriculture,” Brown said. “It’s an unbelievable opportunity for our ag students.”
Photo by Tom Rivers – Flyway Farms in Medina taps about 900 trees on West Shelby Road
MEDINA – Terry Laubisch knows most local folks didn’t enjoy the freeze-thaw days in March. But for maple producers, those conditions are ideal for sap to flow.
Laubisch and other maple producers expect to cap off the season in the coming days.
He has enjoyed two sap runs so far, a two-week stretch from Feb. 27 to March 11, and then another week-long run from March 24-31.
“It’s been a good season,” Laubisch said. “Now we’re looking for the bonus.”
He thinks the 900 trees he taps on West Shelby Road will give more sap in the coming days. He’s already surpassed last year when the weather hit 80 degrees in mid-March, ending the season.
This season hasn’t been perfect. Many days never broke freezing, so the sap didn’t flow.
“Sap is like water,” Laubsich said. “It can’t move if it’s frozen.”
New York is the country’s second-leading maple producer behind only Vermont. Last year, in a down season, New York maple producers counted 360,000 gallons of syrup, down from 564,000 gallons in 2011. Western New York is home to many of the producers.
Lyle Merle taps 16,000 trees in Attica in one of the bigger operations. He said he will gladly take the cold March over the warmth a year ago.
“When the weather is cold and frozen you still have hope for more sap,” Merle said.
Last year his maple farm produced 5,800 gallons of syrup. He was at 6,500 gallons on Wednesday.
“I’m aiming for 7,000,” he said. “I think we still have a couple to three days left in the season.”
Press Release: Soil and Water Conservation District
Nine Orleans County farms, a dairy and eight cash crop operations, have been approved for $290,402 in state funding for conservation work in the Oak Orchard Watershed.
The grant will cover 75 percent of the costs to buy seeds and plant cover crops over three years. The cover crops will reduce erosion and soil loss on valuable crop land, said Dan Schuth, manager of the Orleans County Soil and Water Conservation District, which applied for the grant on behalf of the farmers.
The cover crop takes up nutrients in a plant, preventing them from becoming diluted in water and washed away. When the cover crop is killed at planting time for the cash crop, the nutrients are returned back into the soil, he said.
After the three-year grant period, farmers will be expected to be familiar with planting cover crops and will carry on the process unassisted, Schuth said.
The grant comes from the state Department of Ag and Markets’ “Ag Nonpoint Source Abatement and Control Program.” Soil and Water is working on a similar grant application for farmers in the Sandy Creek Watershed.
“Farmers are great stewards of our land and depend upon it for their livelihood,” Schuth said. “They understand the need for soil conservation and clean water on a very personal level. Grants such as this help keep farms profitable, while furthering our interest in a better environment for future generations.”
