Water keynote topic during recent Southwest Ag Summit
The Southwest Ag Summit held Feb. 22-23 was a wonderful event, offering the local agricultural community to meet together with agriculturalists all over the West. Of course, water was keynote topic with speakers from the Central Arizona Project; Yuma County Water Users Association and Arizona State University. With the wet winter the west is experiencing, the next couple of years should be less stressful, particularly if the snows continue in the Colorado River watershed. So far this year at my house, 14th Avenue and 16th Street, the rain on Feb. 27 brought my rainfall total since mid-December 2016 to 2-3/4 inches. A whole years’ worth of rain in less than three months! Yuma weather is predictable in its unpredictability!
The education breakout sessions were heavy on science and technology reinforcing the fact today’s agribusiness men need to have a wide spectrum of specialists working together to successfully farm in today’s agriculture. Subjects covered included integrated pest management; micronutrient fertilization in desert productions; automated machines for controlling in-row weeds; what business owners need to know about retirement plans; how healthcare reform will affect employer sponsored programs; understanding the Arizona-Mexico agricultural relationships; and, of course, alternative sources of irrigation water.
Brian Antle, president of Plant Tape, gave a fascinating talk on the development of plant tape for use in vegetable planting. The first tapes were developed in 2004 in Europe. Antle bought the company in 2014 and brought the technology to the United States in 2016. There is a tape production facility in Salinas and the first commercial use will be in 2017. The seed is sewn into pockets of tape containing soil-like material. After soaking the tape in a dunk tank, the seed begins to grow. The tape is then moved to a greenhouse for 10 to 12 days. The automated planter is designed to have the tape with plants threaded through it where the individual tape sections with plants are cut apart and planted. Transplanting with the old technology took 16 people. Use of the new technology and seed tape takes three people. It is also possible to plant 25 acres in the same time it used to take to plant 10 acres. The tape is biodegradable and you can use your seed or other seed suppliers. Presently the company is working with romaine lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes, tobacco, onions, sugar beets, melons, cab- bage and peppers. Seed quality is the key to the system.
The luncheon keynote speakers were from the Agricultural Business and Technology Institute of Hartnell College in Salinas, Calif. It was inspiring to listen to folks who looked at their need for loyal, hardworking and smart employees and decided to use public/private partnerships to develop an educational foundation to take students from high school through college with a curriculum supporting the local agricultural industry. Not only were the graduates trained in highly technical specialties of food safety, advanced diesel mechanics; refrigeration and cooling technology; agricultural business, welding, horticulture, seed science technician and food safety facilities technician, they could find jobs in their local area. With talk of trying to develop a university in Yuma, why not look at supporting the educational institution we already have by strengthening the existing programs and facilities? Perhaps putting a greater effort into the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) program and building a hands-on facility for training students into various skilled occupations would be a start. Future generations would thank us for our foresight.
Bobbi Stevenson-McDermott is a soil and water conservationist. She can be reached at rjsm09@msn.com.