J&S Farms
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About
J&S Farms is a small family owned farming operation, consisting of myself, Jim, my wife, Samantha, our children, parents, brothers, sisters and nephews. We grow our produce primarily for the local farmers’ markets we attend, local groceries and our own roadside stand. As I tell out customers, “We grow a little of a lot of stuff”. As in 2 acres of asparagus, 3 acres of peaches and nectarines, ½ acre of apples, 1/8 acre potatoes, 3-300 ft. rows of green and wax beans and so forth.
We use conventional farming practices and we are MAEAP verified.
In 2001, we bought our property here in the Kalamazoo area. At that time it was a cornfield. In 2002, we planted our first fruit trees, 2003 we built our house and barn. 2004 we planted asparagus and have been expanding ever since. In 2012, I made the jump from working full time and farming to farming full time for two reasons: One, our farm had grown to the point where it need fulltime care. Second, but most important was to raise my favorite crop, OUR CHILDREN!!
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Production Practices
Integrated Pest Management Extended Growing Season Non Gmo Perennial Crops
Even though we are a smaller farm, we use commercial practices to raise our produce. We follow all recommended label procedures per product we are using. We use an Intergrated Pest Management system that requires frequent scouting of a crop to determine the economic threshold of a spray application. Soil tests are used to determine the nutrient requirements for specific crops. Fertilizer is applied accordingly. Some examples are: Asparagus, per soil test and recommendation from Michigan State University Extension, we apply 50lbs/acre of N(nitrogen) which equates to 100lbs/acre of a product called urea(46-0-0) in a split shot form. Split shot means 1/2 of required fertilizer before harvest to boost production and the second half after the season is done to promote fern growth over the summer for energy for next seasons crop. Urea(46-0-0), the 46 represents the percentage of N that is in the product. Urea is a granular product, so for every 100 lbs., you get 46 lbs. of N. Tricore is a product we use to control annual weeds in our asparagus fields. We apply 2/3lbs/acre. The asparagus beetle we do have in our fields, but I do not try to control it with sprays. It does do some damage, but not enough for us to justify a method of control. If you ever see an asparagus spear that looks bent, odds are that it has some scar from where the beetle has bitten it. They do not burrow into the spear, but just bite it enough to cause a scar that causes abnormal growth, hence the bent spear. For every crop we grow, we have procedures similar to this one but with there own unique charicateristics. You can contact us at any time for more specifics for any of the crops that we grow.
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