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July 25, 2009

Farm traditions meet technology

Franklin County Farm Tour showcases cutting-edge agricultural innovations

By DENISE A. RAYMO

Family farms will always be a part of the agriculture landscape.

And it is the farmers who adapt their operations to suit current local markets, the global economy and the ever-changing technology who will remain successful.

Hy-View Acres in Chateaugay is such a place.

Father-and-son as well as business partners Doug and Rod Malette transformed a deteriorated potato farm into a 600-acre, multi-faceted cash-crop business.

They supply other North Country farmers with high-quality seed, feed and hay, using the latest eco-friendly machinery that disturbs the soil less.

And much of their work is done in the shadow of seven windmills erected two years ago as part of Noble Environmental Power's Chateaugay Windpark.

Hy-View Acres was the first of four sites visited on this year's annual agricultural tour by the Franklin County Farm Bureau and County Cooperative Extension Office.

County legislators, farmers and other interested guests saw the Malettes' operation, the Norm and Vicky Shipman Family Farms in Burke and Giroux Brothers Equipment and the Glazier Packing Co. both in Malone.

Carl Tillinghast, director of the Cooperative Extension, said Hy-View Acres is unique in Franklin County because it is an all cash-crop farm.

Doug Malette said he learned farming from his father and grandfather but went into business off the land for 25 years before returning to his first vocation in 1986.

The potato farm he purchased at the corner of U.S. Route 11 and Cassidy Road was used as a seed-potato farm by its previous owners, who had a large farming operation in Homestead, Fla.

The Malettes had hopes of restoring the land's condition and making it a viable business.

"Potatoes need to be in low pH soil," said Rod, the younger Malette. "Most of the fields were 5.5 pH, which is good to grow potatoes.

"But to grow alfalfa, soy beans and oats, a 6.7 or 7 pH is optimum," he said. "We had to raise it, and it took up to eight tons of lime on some fields to bring it back."

Those once-tired fields are now producing high-demand alfalfa and grass hay for horse, dairy and beef herds.

Last year, Hy-View Acres grew 1,000 tons of balage hay and 15,000 bales of dry hay.

They also produced 6,000 bales of straw and 100 tons of oats with two-third going for feed and the rest as seed.

And the equipment they use is as gentle to the land as possible.

The ground ripper towed by a tractor has longer, more-narrow teeth to carve deeper into the soil to remove more rocks and obstructions.

Their no-till seeder features a seed bin on top of a series of rounded blades similar to a pizza cutter except each has indentation and curvatures along their edges followed by small rubber-coated wheels mounted on the rear of the machine.

The blades pierce the soil and nudge it aside to make room for the dropping seeds before the wheels come along to cover the indentations and bury the seeds.

This type of seeder is so popular now that the Franklin County Soil and Water Conservation District is expected to purchase one with grant money and have it ready to rent to farmers next spring, said the agency's director, Chastity Miller.

Doug Malette said he and Rod thought about growing organic products under the specialized practices and no-chemical introduction, but the time involved weeding and higher cost to produce changed their minds.

And becoming green certified is an even longer and more expensive process than organics, he said.

But still the family works to get the most from its farm, selling chopped fire wood taken from its ash stands and cleaning and bagging its own seed for market.

The family can process about three tons of certified oat seeds an hour for horse feed, Rod said, and use less-clean seed for cattle feed.

The few acres of land not taken up with growing fields surround the seven wind turbines, which Doug joked "haven't done a damn thing" to help dry the hay for baling during the region's continuing bouts of wet weather.

About 15 acres were used for the turbines, and location of access roads and land improvements were negotiated before the first shovel of dirt was turned over, Doug said.

All of the land was returned to its original condition, and fields were planted beneath them.

"The company did everything they said they'd do," Doug said.

"But they do make noise, more than they said they would," said Rod of the wind mills. "It sounds like a diesel motor that never goes away.

"But hopefully they will make a difference in the world."

E-mail Denise A. Raymo at: draymo@pressrepublican.com


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