IOGA-ASAP Field day at U of I tomorrow

Sept 14  Building a farm to fork business

After starting at the Student Sustainable Farm at 9.30 with Matt Turino w

We move to the I Hotel at 10.30. 

Agenda and some notes.. 

10:45 a.m.  Dr. Carmen Ugarte and team members will discuss a new Illinois Local Grains Initiative .   This includes an on-farm trial and related on-campus work that involves NRES, Crop Science, Food Sciences, ABE, ACE, USDA-ARS and Extension!

11:10 a.m. Brian Jacobson will describe how Food Science and Human Nutrition’s Food Processing Pilot Plant is partnering with U of I’s dining services before Dr. Juan Andrade explains how their research can help optimize processing for local product development—  Brian and Dining services are taking all the organic grain from our new organic study that resides on the south farms for use in the dining halls.  Juan Andrade will look at how processing influences grain quality. Next year we hope for capacity to look at edamame quality.. not this year.

12:15 p.m. Lunch will feature SSF produce and Chefarmer Ken Myszka of Epiphany Farms who will discuss how to grow a farm to fork business. * http://www.epiphanyfarms.com/kenmyszka/  This is a local farm to table success story you wont want to miss.

1.30. Fred Kolb and Bill Davison will talk about a new wheat variety named Erisman that was developed by the University of Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station and released in 2017. Erisman is an early maturing soft red winter wheat adapted to Illinois and surrounding states for organic production. The new variety was developed by the small grains breeding program headed by Fred Kolb. The project was spearheaded by Allison Krill, who worked with Fred since 2013.  Breeding lines were selected that were disease resistant and moderately tall to provide competition with weeds. Breeding lines were evaluated at multiples locations for several years. The U of I wheat breeding program partnered with local organic farmer Harold Wilkins to evaluate Erisman under organic production on Janie’s Farm in Danforth IL.  Harold has been working with others including U of I Extension’s Bill Davison and the Grand Prairie Grain Guild to develop high quality grains for local production.   The variety has been named “Erisman,” in honor of Jack Erisman, a long-time leader in Illinois’ sustainable agriculture movement and one of the first organic farmers in the state, who was involved in the formation of the Illinois Organic Crop Improvement Association Chapter, The Illinois Sustainable Agriculture Society and the Council of Food and Agriculture Research.  While Jack acknowledges that the variety might be tall, like he is, he isn’t sure he deserves the honor. The new variety is already making waves as grain grown in the 2017-18 growing season on campus’ South Farms will be milled at the Food Processing Pilot Plant for use by campus’ Dining Services.

At 2:30 p.m. Interested folks will go to campus to tour the FSHN Pilot Processing Plant.