mkbomford's blog
Biofuel sustainability standards
Submitted by mkbomford on Thu, 2008-09-25 11:11.Yesterday I had a look at the emerging standards for sustainable biofuel production. I was pulling together information for eXtension.org, an interesting attempt to create a credentialed wiki that draws on the knowledge of land grant university extension personnel. Biofuel sustainability standards are evolving so quickly that the material I contributed to eXtension.org yesterday will likely be long out of date by the time it is published. I thought that readers of this blog might be interested to know a little about ongoing efforts to create national and international standards to certify biofuels as "sustainable." It's an ambitious undertaking.
International Standards
The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, based in Switzerland, has released a draft set of principles and criteria for sustainable biofuels production, as a first step in developing an international standard to be administered by the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling Alliance (ISEAL). The roundtable is the first large-scale effort to create a global standard for biofuels, although similar efforts for specific fuel feedstocks - including palm oil, soybeans, and sugar cane - are under way.
| Principal | Practice |
|---|---|
| Legality | Follow all applicable laws of the country and international treaties |
| Consultation | Design and operate projects under appropriate, comprehensive, transparent, consultative, and participatory processes that involve all relevant stakeholders |
| Greenhouse Gas Reduction | Mitigate climate change by significantly reducing GHG emissions as compared to fossil fuels |
| Human Rights | Do not violate human rights or labor rights, and ensure decent work and the well-being of workers |
| Development | Contribute to the social and economic development of local, rural and indigenous peoples and communities |
| Food Security | Do not impair food security |
| Ecosystem Conservation | Avoid negative impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems, and areas of High Conservation Value |
| Soil Conservation | Improve soil health and minimize degradation |
| Water Conservation | Optimize surface and groundwater resource use, including minimizing contamination or depletion of these resources, and respecting existing formal and customary water rights |
| Air Conservation | Minimize pollution from production and processing throughout the supply chain |
| Efficiency | Use cost-effective production technology and improve efficiency and social and environmental performance through the use of emerging technology |
| Land Rights | Do not violate land rights |
Teams from Brazil and Germany developing biofuel quality standards for the International Standards Organization (ISO) expanded their mandate to include sustainability criteria in July 2008.
National Standards
The Leonardo Academy released a Draft American National Standard for Trial Use for Sustainable Agriculture in April 2007. The standard includes a section that specifically addresses biofuel sustainability, and would require biofuel processors to calculate the net fossil fuel gain of their products. The standard is modeled on the USDA's National Organic Program standard, and would require third-party certification to sell biofuels labeled 'Certified Sustainably Grown.' The standard is currently going through the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) process, under which it has been contested by the USDA, and defended by the Leonardo Academy.
| Key Element | Practice |
|---|---|
| Sustainable Crop Production | Build and maintain a healthy agroecosystem, based on healthy soil structure and functioning; preferentially employ biological, mechanical, and cultural methods to control pest and disease vectors; minimize agrochemical inputs, favoring the use of reduced risk or US National Organic Program (NOP) permitted agrochemical options; and phase-out those agrochemical inputs that pose significant acute and chronic risks to human health or ecotoxic risks to the environment. |
| Ecosystem Management and Protection | Protect the surrounding ecology including but not limited to waterways, riparian and wetlands habitats, high ecological value habitats and species, and other biologically and culturally significant areas. |
| Resource Conservation and Energy Efficiency | Increase water efficiency, energy efficiency and resource efficiency in all stages of growing, packaging, transporting and handling of crops. Account for greenhouse gas emissions throughout the product life cycle (from seed to store) from all direct and indirect sources, and establish specific greenhouse gas reduction goals. |
| Integrated Waste Management | Compost, recycle, and dispose of agricultural, non-agricultural, and hazardous wastes properly. |
| Fair Labor Practices | Ensure a safe and equitable workplace for agricultural workers, addressing such issues as equitable hiring and employment practices, safe workplace conditions, workers' right to organize, worker housing, child labor, access to health, education, and transportation services. |
| Community Benefits | Support local communities through preferential purchasing, hiring, and improvements or development, as well as addressing impacts caused by agricultural operations. |
| Product Quality | Ensure product quality throughout the chain-of-custody and establish quality assurance and traceability requirements designed to ensure that sustainably grown products are properly handled and can be traced back to their source. |
| Product Safety and Purity | Conform to minimum acceptable food safety practices and food purity requirements for edible crops. |
Michael Bomford provides research and extension services related to organic agriculture and small-scale renewable energy production through Kentucky State University's Land Grant Program.
High winds and high tunnels
Submitted by mkbomford on Mon, 2008-09-22 09:24.
The remnants of Hurricane Ike lashed through our farm last weekend and tore the plastic off our high tunnel (right). I was surprised by the ferocity of the wind, given that the center of the storm didn't even hit Kentucky. Much of our region was without power for most of the week, and many schools are just re-opening today, eight days after the storm.
The high winds didn't do much damage to our Energy Farm study plots. The field corn and soybeans have been drying in the field (letting the sun do the work saves a lot of the energy that would be used by drying bins). The plants stayed standing, but the beans lost their leaves, which will actually make our harvest easier. The sweet sorghum stood up to the wind too. Sweet potatoes, with their soil-hugging vines and most of their biomass below ground, are pretty much wind-proof.
In 2006 I had sweet sorghum growing right next to the high tunnel when heavy winds came through at about the same time of year. The high tunnel survived but the sorghum came down (left). What was the difference? I can only speculate:
In 2006 the winds came with rain, which softened the soil and left the tall plants more vulnerable to lodging. This year the winds came after a month of drought, and didn't bring a drop of rain. The soil is hard, and the plants stood firm. Another possible difference is that the tunnel was protected by the sorghum in 2006; the crops growing next to the tunnel this year were much shorter. Finally, the tunnel walls were rolled down when the winds hit in 2006, but were rolled up for ventilation when the winds hit last week. That allowed the wind to get under the tunnel and start to work away at the sides.
The use of high tunnels has important energy implications. Using only passive solar heat, a high tunnel uses much less energy than a heated greenhouse (My figure below, with more here... Thanks to Dr. Yoshihiko Wada for his data on greenhouse energy consumption).
Both high tunnels and heated greenhouses can allow year-round vegetable production in many regions, which reduces the need for winter trucking of produce. The difference is that only cool-season crops (e.g. lettuce, carrots, beets) will grow in the high tunnel through the depth of a Kentucky winter, but a heated greenhouse can keep warm season crops (e.g. tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers) going all year long. Although it's nice to have locally-grown tomatoes in February, it would actually take far less energy to grow field tomatoes in Mexico and truck them to Kentucky than to heat the Kentucky greenhouse that would allow winter production of warm season crops. The high tunnel can give us fresh kale and carrots in February, and tomatoes as early as May. Outside the tunnel the kale dies in December and tomatoes don't bear fruit until the beginning of July.
We use two layers of plastic on our high tunnel. Between them is an insulating air pocket, maintained by a 60 W blower fan that runs continuously. As the figure above shows, the blower fan adds a lot to the energy needed to maintain the high tunnel. Many others use a single layer of plastic, which doesn't retain heat as well, but eliminates the need for a blower fan.
Like high tunnels, greenhouses are vulnerable to wind. When I worked in large glass greenhouses in British Columbia managers would keep a nervous eye on the data coming continuously from wind speed sensors (anemometers) on the roof. They knew they had to get their workers out in a hurry during heavy winds because the glass panes would start to shatter, with potentially fatal results.
I can't imagine that heated greenhouses will have much place in an energy constrained future. Those who promote vertical farming in urban areas apparantly disagree. That could be fodder for another blog post.
Michael Bomford provides research and extension services related to organic agriculture and small-scale renewable energy production through Kentucky State University's Land Grant Program. He thanks Tony Silvernail, Brian Geier and John Rodgers for their help with maintaining the organic land at the KSU Research Farm.
Preliminary Data: KSU Energy Farm in August
Submitted by mkbomford on Fri, 2008-08-29 14:39.
Our harvest has begun. This week we collected 1,259 lbs (571 kg) of edamame soybean plants, weighed down with 655 lbs (297 kg) of beans. Soybeans are usually allowed to mature and dry on the plant, then harvested as the dry bean used to make tofu, soy sauce, waxes, artificial plastics, soyfoods, animal feed, and biodiesel. Edamame soybeans are harvested green, like green beans, to be eaten as vegetables.
We harvested our biointensive and market garden plots by hand, and cut the small farm plots with a sickle-bar mower attached to a walk-behind tractor. The picture below shows Tony Silvernail cutting beans in a small farm plot. Sweet potatoes are in the foreground, with corn and sorghum in the background.
We separated the beans from the plants using a simple slotted board design from the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center. It sped the bean picking process considerably.
We recently had to irrigate for the first time, because we've gone about three weeks without rain, but maintaining the study has taken less time and energy in August than in previous months. Here are the updated charts, showing labor in minutes per square meter and energy in megajoules per square meter since May:
Now that we have collected our first yield data, it is possible to calculate the land, labor, and energy use efficiency for edamame soybeans grown at each of our farm scales. Yields are usually presented as the amount harvested per unit area (e.g. tons/acre, kg/ha). The blue bars on the chart below show the weight of edamame soybeans harvested from each square meter of land, giving a measure of land use efficiency at each of the three farm scales. The maroon bars show yield per megajoule of energy invested, and the yellow bars show yield per minute of labor invested. These measures of energy and labor use efficiency are less typical ways of measuring yield.
The edamame soybean yield suggests that each of the farm scales has a different strength: The biointensive scale was the most energy efficient; the market garden scale made the most efficient us of land; and the small farm scale made the most efficient use of labor.
Michael Bomford provides research and extension services related to organic agriculture and small-scale renewable energy production through Kentucky State University's Land Grant Program. He thanks Tony Silvernail, Brian Geier and John Rodgers for their help with maintaining the organic land at the KSU Research Farm.
Fox News: Louisville's Progressive Media Outlet
Submitted by mkbomford on Fri, 2008-08-01 12:24.I don't usually choose to watch Fox News. I frequently cringe when it is inflicted upon me in airports or doctors' waiting rooms. So when a Fox reporter called to say she wanted to interview me about organic agriculture I was a little nervous. Was I being set up for public ridicule of hippie food, yuppy food, or worse?
To my surprise and relief, it turned out to be a straight-up, feel-good piece about the benefits of organic agriculture.
OK, so they included a lot of supermarket shots of industrial organic produce, trucked from afar, which probably isn't the most sustainable. And the closing comments (the way to tell it's really organic is by the number on the bar code) would probably leave the likes of Eliot Coleman or Joel Salatin doubled over in pain or mirth.
There's some learning left to do, but they were taking this stuff seriously. This week they also ran segments on growing your own food, shopping at farmers markets, and getting energy from wind, hydro, and used vegetable oil. They suggested their viewers stop mowing their lawns, and touted the benefits of green building and straw bale construction. They pushed reducing, reusing and recycling. Remember, this isn't Mother Earth News, it's Fox.
Isn't it amazing what $4 gas will do?
Preliminary data: Energy and labor use in KSU energy farm study through July
Submitted by mkbomford on Thu, 2008-07-31 14:47.Scientific inquiry would be pointless if it didn't occassionally turn up unexpected results. I had certain expectations when I designed the farm scale study we are currently conducting at Kentucky State University:
- Our 'biointensive' plots -- managed entirely with hand tools -- would be labor intensive but energy efficient;
- Our 'small farm' plots -- managed with a combination of tractors and other machinery commonly used on conventional farms in North America -- would be energy intensive but labor efficient;
- Our 'market garden' plots -- managed with a combination of hand tools and small, fuel-driven machines -- would combine the best of both worlds, being more energy efficient than the 'small farm' system, and more labor efficient than the 'biointensive' system.
That's not how things turned out this July.
Before I introduce the latest data, let me report some general observations.
The farm looks beautiful right now. I have posted field maps before, but you might get a better idea of what the site looks like from the picture above, which my research assistant, Brian Geier, took this afternoon. Look down past the grazing goats, past the aquaculture pond, and you can see almost the entire three acres dedicated to our energy farm study. Beyond it are verdant hillsides, typical of Kentucky's Bluegrass region.
Down in the plots you get a better idea of the different farm scales. This is my undergraduate student research assistant, John Rodgers, working in one of the 'Biointensive' plots. A 'Small Farm' plot is off to the left, and a 'Market Garden' plot is in the distance.
Here's a similar view from inside a 'market garden' plot. From left to right, the crops in both of the photos above happen to be sweet sorghum, soybean, sweet potato, and corn (this is just a coincidence; crop position was randomized). Notice how much bigger the sweet sorghum is in the 'market garden,' relative to the 'biointensive' plot. We had better establishment of crops planted with the Earthway seeder than those that were hand-seeded. That was a surprise; we thought we were babying the hand-seeded plants. Next year we might try transplanting corn and sorghum into the 'biointensive' plots to give them a head start.
Here is the sweet potato planting in a 'small farm' plot. Sweet sorghum in on the left, with corn on the right. Both the sweet sorghum and corn are much further advanced in the 'small farm' plots than in the other plots because they did not have to be re-seeded. The initial pass with the moldboard plow in the 'small farm' plots required a tremendous amount of energy, and may not have been good for the soil structure, but it did a great job of burying weed seeds that were near the soil surface. Weeds choked out the young corn and sorghum seedlings from the first planting in the 'biointensive' and 'market garden' plots, but not in the 'small farm' plots.
The graphs above show the most recent data on cumulative labor and energy use at each of the farm scales from May through the end of July. I have divided each bar into three segments: Black shows labor and energy invested in preparing the soil for planting, purple shows labor and energy invested in planting, and yellow shows labor and energy invested in managing the plots after planting. Only the yellow (management) segments have changed since I posted preliminary data at the end of June.
Those yellow segments surprised me. Contrary to my expectation, the 'market garden' plots have required almost as much management time per square meter as the 'biointensive' plots, and much more energy per square meter than the 'small farm' plots. From a post-planting management perspective, the 'market garden' scale looks like it combines the worst of both worlds instead of the best.
Remember that these are preliminary data, and the story may well change as we continue this study through the rest of this season and into the coming years. That's what makes it interesting.
Michael Bomford provides research and extension services related to organic agriculture and small-scale renewable energy production through Kentucky State University's Land Grant Program.
He thanks Tony Silvernail, Brian Geier and John Rodgers
for their help with maintaining the organic land at the KSU Research Farm. Special thanks go to Joelle Johnson, who completes her 6-week internship, much of it spent at the business end of a hoe, tomorrow. All photos in this post were taken by Brian Geier and John Rodgers today, July 31, 2008.
Super Duper Beetle Scooper and other pest management tactics
Submitted by mkbomford on Thu, 2008-07-24 07:35.Following Josh's recent post about pest management in the Sebastopol energy gardens I thought I would share some of the strategies and tactics we use for pest management on the Kentucky State University organic land.
In the fall of 2006 we had a terrible aphid infestation in our high tunnel (right). It was the end of our first production season in the tunnel, and I was embarrassed by how bad it looked. We tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the aphids in check with occasional applications of Safer Insecticidal Soap (pdf of label), which kills soft-bodied insects through desication by dissolving their waxy cuticle. It wasn't enough.
A range of beneficial insects eventually found our aphids, and brought them under control naturally. We have wasps that lay their eggs inside aphids, leaving their larvae to consume the 'aphid mummies' from the inside out. We have flies that lay their eggs near aphid clusters, leaving voracious, aphid-eating maggots. We have charismatic lady beetles and lacewings. We try to keep these beneficial insects around by providing nectar sources and varied habitat. We haven't had an aphid problem since.
When I worked as a pest management consultant in large greenhouses in southern British Columbia, I would recommend weekly releases of these beneficial species, plus other predators and parasitoids to keep whiteflies, spider mites, thrips, and other insect pests in check. Bringing in beneficial insects by mail order wouldn't be economical for our little high tunnel, but we don't need to introduce them if we can simply encourage the locals to establish themselves.
Tomato hornworms (left) cause occasional problems, but we have a strong population of wasps that parasitize the caterpillars. I rarely see a hornworm that isn't covered with wasps' caccoons, which ensure its impending demise.
If caterpillars get ahead of our beneficials we occasionally apply a bacterium called 'Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki' or 'Btk.' It causes a disease that only kills leaf-feeding caterpillars. Btk is probably the most commonly-used biological insecticide on organic farms.
This week we applied a mix of Btk and vegetable oil to the browning silks of our sweet corn in an attempt to prevent corn earworm problems. On-farm research conducted in Iowa has shown this labor-intensive practice (each ear is treated individually) can be effective when corn earworm pressure is high. This is the first year we've tried it, so we won't know whether it worked for a while.
Leaf-feeding beetles give us some headaches. The worst among these are flea beetles on our brassicas and eggplants; Colorado potato beetles on our potatoes and tomatoes; and cucumber beetles on our cucumbers and squash.
Row covers (below) work well to exclude these beetles, and to protect crops
from early spring frosts, but they have to come off before flowering to
allow pollination of the fruiting crops.
Hand-picking is possible for small areas infested with Colorado potato beetle, which is a relatively large, slow-moving insect. It's almost impossible for smaller, faster beetles like flea beetles and cucumber beetles.
A market gardener a few miles from here has invented a device he calls a 'Super Duper Beetle Scooper' (right) to make make hand-picking beetles and other insects easier. I visited his farm last week, and collected some video footage of the inventor, Ken Waters, using his tool.
[video]
Ken makes his scoopers out of used 2-liter pop bottles and jars. The best way to figure out how to make one yourself is probably to buy a sample from Ken on ebay for $10.
Row covers and beetle scoopers are both forms of 'physical control'; fences are another. I have had success using fences to exclude slugs, root weevils, and cabbage flies. Fences are also our first line of defence against deer, which can cause more damage more quickly than any of the insect pests on our farm.
Deer love our sweet potato tops and our edamame soybeans. Last year we erected wire mesh fences (left) to protect our small sweet potato plots from deer. This year we have solar-powered strands of electric wire (below) around our energy farms plots to discourage deer.
Eating sweet potato leaves
Submitted by mkbomford on Thu, 2008-07-17 14:27.Few people in North America think of sweet potato leaves as a food crop.
My friend and colleague, Dr. Changzheng Wang, grew up in a peasant farm family in rural China, where sweet potato leaves were a regular part of the menu.
On the third Thursday of every month Kentucky State University hosts a full day of hands-on workshops on sustainable agriculture. Dr. Wang took advantage of today's 'Third Thursday Thing' to demonstrate the harvest and preparation of sweet potato greens. He collected the tender young leaves from the rapidly-growing sweet potato vines in our Energy Farm study, and stir fried them with a little soy sauce and ground beef. Delicious!
[video]
While we were snacking on the sweet potato tops, the plants are busy converting energy from sunlight into carbohydrate-rich tubers below the ground. We'll harvest those in September, and they'll store through the winter. They make an excellent food source, and anything extra can be made into ethanol.
Michael Bomford provides research and extension services related to organic agriculture and small-scale renewable energy production through Kentucky State University's Land Grant Program. He thanks John Rodgers for collecting video footage of his presentation this afternoon.
Useful documents on sustainability of energy production from farms
Submitted by mkbomford on Wed, 2008-07-16 10:17.I am impressed by a recently-released document called Clean Energy Farming: Cutting Costs, Improving Efficiencies, Harnessing Renewables (pdf). It recommends a holistic approach to small farmers that emphasizes energy conservation and the use of renewables such as sun and wind. Among other things, it highlights an innovative system that uses solar energy for on-farm fermentation and distillation of waste fruit. This publication, from the USDA-funded Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, is very much in the spirit of The Small Farm Energy Primer (pdf) released by Nebraska's Center for Rural Affairs back in 1980. Both documents look to successful small farmers for real-life, small-scale solutions to energy constraints. It's just a pity that it took 28 years, and a brand-new energy crisis, to get from one to the other.
In a less optimistic vein, The Community Food Security Coalition released a report late last year called Fueling Disaster: A Community Food Security Perspective on Agrofuels (pdf). It emphasizes the threat posed by industrial-scale biofuel production to food security, farm workers’ rights, community economic development, and the environment. A recent article by the Exectutive Director of Food First makes many similar points. Called Biofuels: The Five Myths of the Agro-fuels Transition, it casts light on the economic and environmental devastation associated with industrial biofuel production, and asserts that much-touted cellulosic ethanol technologies will not solve these problems.
All of these documents recognize that small farms and small-scale technologies can be more sustainable than large farms and industrial-scale technologies. The articles from the Community Food Security Coalition and Food First both call fuel produced from biomass on an industrial scale "agrofuel". They distinguish between this and "biofuel", which can include fuel grown and harvested sustainably on a small scale for the benefit of local communities. Agrofuels aren't just environmentally and socially unsustainable: According to a program aired yesterday on NPR's All Things Considered, making ethanol from corn isn't even profitable. Every increase in gas prices has been met by an even bigger increase in the price of corn. At a time of record fuel prices ethanol refineries are going broke.
Why are small farms better? Last month's article Small is Bountiful, by George Monbiot, suggested it is because small farmers invest more labor in their land, making it more productive. Benefits that accrue to small farmers tend to be more equitably distributed than profits taken by industrial farms.
Michael Bomford provides research and extension services related to organic agriculture and small-scale renewable energy production through Kentucky State University's Land Grant Program.
KSU Project Update and Photos
Submitted by mkbomford on Tue, 2008-07-08 12:33.The organic section of the Kentucky State University Research Farm is beautiful at this time of year. Here are some photos taken yesterday, July 7th.
The brilliant yellow flowers are a variety of Indian mustard (Brassica juncea) called 'Pacific Gold.' It can be used as a condiment or a source of biofuel, but we are growing it as a soil-building cover crop and a natural fungicide. We're conducting experiments to see if it can combat soil-borne fungal diseases.
Inside the high tunnel, tomatoes, basil, coriander, cucumbers and other warm season crops are growing like mad. We're well into our tomato harvest now.
This is an updated planting diagram showing the four replicates of the farm scale study that we are conducting in collaboration with the Energy Farms Network. The color coding shows the randomization of crops within each plot. We are growing food and fuel varieties of each crop except sweet potato.
This picture is taken from the east corner of Rep 2, looking west. A 'biointensive' plot is in the foreground. Only human power is used for production in these comparatively small plots. A 'market garden' plot is in the background on the right. These medium-sized plots are managed with a mix of human power and walk-behind tractors. A 'small farm' plot is in the background on the left. These plots are mostly managed with implements attached to 4-wheeled tractors, with help from walk-behind tractors and human power when needed.
This picture is taken from the south corner of Rep 3, looking north. A 'market garden' plot is in the foreground.
The corn and sweet sorghum crops are most advanced in the 'small farm' plots because a combination of poor germination and severe weed pressure in the other treatments forced us to replant these crops. The primary cultivation technique used in the 'small farm' treatments appears to have reduced our weed pressure, relative to the other treatments, by burying many of the small-seeded weeds, like redroot pigweed. The major weed problem in the 'small farm' treatments has been johnsongrass, which can emerge from pieces of root deep beneath the soil surface.
Michael Bomford provides research and extension services related to organic agriculture and small-scale renewable energy production through Kentucky State University's Land Grant Program. He thanks Tony Silvernail, Joelle Johnson, Brian Geier and John Rodgers for their help with maintaining the organic land at the KSU Research Farm in recent weeks.
Preliminary Data: Energy and labor use for planting and weed management (June)
Submitted by mkbomford on Wed, 2008-06-25 13:47.The Kentucky State University farm has been blessed with rain, and our crops are all in the ground and looking good.
We direct-seeded corn, sweet sorghum and soybeans, and transplanted sweet potato slips. Planting and management is done entirely by hand in our 'biointensive' plots. Our 'market garden' plots use no machinery larger than a walk-behind tractor. Our 'small farm' plots are primarily managed with conventional 4-wheel tractors and attachments.
[video]
The video shows some of our planting, transplanting, and management activities at each of the three farm scales in June. We have been able to use smaller tractors in the Small Farm plots now that the primary cultivation is complete. We are weeding these plots with a Farmall 130 tractor built in the late 1950s; all other weeding is conducted with wheel hoes, conventional hoes, or by hand-pulling.
The planting and management phases, in June, required much less energy than the soil preparation phase, in May.
Labor (top) and energy use at three farm scales at the Kentucky State University farm, 6 May - 23 June 2008. Bars are divided into soil preparation (black), planting (purple) and management (yellow) components. Each bar is the mean of 4 replicates. Error bars show standard errors of each mean.
Michael Bomford provides research and extension services related to organic agriculture and small-scale renewable energy production through Kentucky State University's Land Grant Program. He thanks Tony Silvernail, Brian Geier, John Rodgers, Joelle Johnson, Monique Marcus, and student volunteers from the CASS program for their help with planting and management in June.
