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The Student Farm has always operated with an organic mindset, but a formal certification requires us to standardize how we monitor and document any treatments used to address pest and disease issues. Our pest and disease management begins with prevention by implementing many of the best practices we’ve shared in past newsletters: crop rotation, nutrient management, cover crops, and diversified planting arrangements. An important part of disease prevention includes researching and selecting seeds for not just organic plant varieties but also prioritizing seed selection for disease resistance to mitigate our potential pressure during the growing season.
Once the season is underway, monitoring is an important next step. A cornerstone of our practice includes conducting regularly scheduled field walks. These walks allow the team to scout for emerging insect pests, weeds, or disease pressures in real-time. If uncertainties arise, the team collaborates with knowledgeable plant science staff at Rutgers Gardens and within Rutgers Cooperative Extension, maximizing available university resources to stay ahead of potential issues with proper identification and remediation strategies.
When a pest or disease emerges despite our preventative measures, we employ several management strategies. For weeds in the growing area, we rely on hand-weeding using tools like hoes, spades, and sickles. Timing our weed removal so that plants are removed before they set seed is key to reducing future weed pressure. Additionally, we generally apply a thick layer of leaf mulch compost that acts as a natural mulch layer to suppress some weed growth. In the aisles between planted rows, we use landscape fabric. Along the farm driving paths, we utilize wood chips to suppress weeds naturally. We also regularly mow and trim the grass around the edges of the farm.
For insect pests, we employ organic measures through cultural, biological, and, if needed, approved chemical controls for each crop. We use floating row covers from the time of planting for most crops to act as a physical barrier to exclude pests. We remove the insect netting at the time of harvest for leafy greens, or when long season crops either outgrow our wire hoops or require pollination from beneficial insects. The Student Farm has also introduced beneficial seed mixes as cover crops and flowers to attract natural pest predators.
On occasion, we will use organic deterrents like neem oil (Azadirachtin) for extra protection of lettuce and leafy greens. If we start to see an outbreak of aphids, to protect the crops, we will apply something a bit more potent like Pyrethrin or Spinosad. For beetles like harlequin bugs or Colorado potato beetles, we will physically remove the insects from the plants and put them in an organic insecticidal soap solution.
Finally, to address disease pressure, we prioritize cultural methods like proper plant spacing and irrigation timing to avoid excess moisture, as this can encourage disease organisms. We utilize drip irrigation to minimize unnecessary foliar moisture from overhead irrigation, especially for crop types such as onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers that are particularly vulnerable to water-loving bacteria and fungi. As a small-scale farm, it is challenging for us to use overhead irrigation because of the proximity of crop families to one other in each field section: for instance, overhead water that might benefit emerging lettuce seedlings could be a detriment to nearby cucumbers. The use of landscape fabric to reduce soil splash back during extreme rain events can make a huge impact on field tomatoes not becoming vectors for disease; when needed, we remove infected branches or whole plants to preserve the integrity of healthy plants nearby.
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