Better known for probing deep space to study the nature of gravitational waves, discover the presence of molecules that could potentially support life, and search for the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence, the Green Bank Observatory in Green Bank, W.Va., has added a more down-to-earth research role to its repertoire: potato production.
On Thursday, the last of six five-acre plots on a stretch of level land between the observatory’s headquarters building and its iconic 100-meter Green Bank Telescope was seeded with potatoes. The work, done by six teams of Pocahontas County growers using a state-owned planter, is part of an effort by the West Virginia Department of Agriculture (WVDA) to encourage growers to consider the potato, which once had a much higher profile across the state, as a new cash crop.
Records show that in 1927, West Virginia’s best year for agricultural production, about 53,000 acres were devoted to potato production statewide, compared to fewer than 1,000 acres today.
“More than 1,000 acres of potatoes were once grown in this county alone,” said state agriculture commissioner Walt Helmick, who was on hand for the final day of planting on the 30 acres of potato land on observatory property. “Kanawha County once had 2,200 acres in potatoes, making it the second-biggest potato county in the state, behind Preston,” he said.
Statewide, “we have a $6 billion divide between the food we eat and the $1 billion worth of food we produce,” said Helmick. By encouraging growers to produce more of the state’s most-consumed agricultural product, “we can help close that gap,” he said.
Helmick rolled out a plan to promote the potato as a cash crop last year with 36 participating growers in Mason, Jackson, Wayne, Cabell, Lincoln and Putnam counties, in cooperation with the West Virginia Conservation Agency and soil conservation districts within the western part of the state.
The WVDA supplied potato planters, seed potatoes, fertilizer and harvesting equipment, while the growes supplied the land, labor, tractors and fuel to pull the state-owned implements and their own plows and discs, plus half the cost of planting a post-harvest cover crop. More than a half-million pounds of potatoes were produced during the first year of the project.
Later this month, the WVDA will open a new processing center in Huntington, W.Va., where West Virginia growers can have their potatoes washed, dried, graded, weighed and bagged. The service will be free to growers taking part in the six-county demonstration project and offered at cost to other private growers. A number of similar sites are expected to open at regional hubs across the state as production increases. The potatoes grown at Green Bank will be processed at Huttonsville State Farm on a used washing-sorting-bagging machine the WVDA bought last year.
Money for the processing center and other components of the WVDA’s $250,000 potato promotion program came from a timber sale in the Becky’s Creek section of the Huttonsville State Farm, Helmick said.
The idea to use Green Bank Observatory land to expand the program eastward began taking shape after the Marlinton Fas Chek supermarket closed in May 2015, leaving the community with only one full-service grocery store, according to Mike Holstine, director of operations at the Green Bank Observatory.
“I started talking with people involved with the Go Marlinton project about possible re-uses of the store, and we started to consider the idea of opening a year-round farmers’ market there, and what kinds of things they would sell,” Holstine said.
Meanwhile, Holstine said, Green Bank contractor and trucking company operator Jacob Meck attended a dinner during which Helmick outlined the WVDA’s potato project.
Holstine said he, Meck and fellow Green Bank resident Charlie Sheets, who serves on the Greenbrier Valley Economic Development Corporation, discussed the idea of bringing the potato project to Pocahontas County and using observatory land for test plots to determine the potential profitability of the crop and to see which cultivars would perform best at Green Bank’s relatively lofty elevation.
Helmick gave a presentation on the project and how it could work at Green Bank during a meeting at the observatory last December, and Holstine signed on to the concept.
“The commissioner has a really good vision for this program,” Holstine said.
Earlier this year, he asked for and received permission from the National Science Foundation to offer use of the land to the WVDA free of charge. Interested growers were organized into six teams consisting of two to three people each. After plowing and harvesting a bumper crop of rocks from their plots, the teams spread fertilizer on the turned soil and waited for a break in rainy weather to begin planting, which started last week.
“Through the whole process, the people on all six teams have been helping each other out,” said Jerry Nelson, special projects coordinator for the WVDA, as he watched a group of six growers help load a 1,000-pound bag of seed potatoes into the planter.
“It shows what kind of a farming community we have in this county,” added Meck.
“Learning is a big part of this project,” said Keith Beverage, who is working one of the six Green Bank plots with his son Tyrell. “It’s not a common crop here, so we need to learn the best growing techniques and then learn the best ways to do marketing.”
Beverage said he is interested in helping the WVDA project achieve its long-term goal by growing potatoes on his own land, applying what he learns from his work on the Green Bank plot to his own operation.
Farmers involved in the WVDA program at the observatory plan to work together after they begin growing potatoes on their own land. There’s already talk of establishing a co-op in which the growers would pool resources to build a storage cellar, then sell their potatoes in bulk to both in-state grocery stores and restaurants, as well as markets in the Washington, D.C., area, about 200 road miles to the east.
“We want this to be the beginning of something that will help us all out,” Beverage said.
Finding a niche for West Virginia-grown potatoes in the local food and farm-to-table movements would help the state’s new generation of potato growers get top dollar for their crops when market prices are up, and buffer them during market downturns, according to Helmick. The potatoes being grown at Green Bank have already been sold for use in state prisons and state hospitals, he said.
Boosting and broadening West Virginia’s agricultural industry is a vital part of diversifying the state’s economy, according to Helmick.
With the industries that drew West Virginia’s farmers off their land for more secure income in coal mines, glass factories and chemical plants now in decline, agriculture, Helmick said, “is an ideal place in which to diversify the West Virginia economy. It is a part of the solution.”
Source: Charleston Gazette-Mail