Winter Farm Visitors
Puerto Rico Winter Farm Report by Lizandro Perez
The Winter Farm has had several visitors starting with returning customers visiting their growouts and nurseries here in Puerto Rico. A few corn nurseries were planted relatively early this year resulting in two visitors in November ahead of the usual December and January. A group of north-central region department heads, agronomy and soil science, also toured the farm on Jan 8th.
Dr. Adam Davis, Department Head of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois requested the tour as part of their meetings and shared with our CEO Doug Miller the following. “I want to thank Lizandro and the Illinois Crop Improvement Association for an excellent tour of the winter nursery facility on Wed. afternoon. The group of north-central region department heads (Agronomy & Soil Science departments) was very impressed with the scope of the projects and the finesse with which they are run.” We greatly appreciate the opportunity to showcase our services and we will be seeing several visitors over the next few months as they travel to the island to make pollinations, selections, readings and harvest inspections. Chris Lusvardi from Seed Today also traveled to the farm to visit. We hope to see an article from Chris in the second quarter of Seed Today.
For early nurseries and project submissions, we are already shipping seed or replanting for another generation prior to spring plantings on the mainland. We continue to offer a wide range of services for several crops including new additions such as hybrid canola. We have also trialed guar and chickpea with the latter being very susceptible to the tropical environment and disease. We are willing to try new things and in the interest of all concerned will be honest with the results of the trial.
As we head into the second half of our winter season please keep us in mind for any soybean, dry bean and similar crops for another generation. There is still time for another generation and another growout if you have lines, hybrids or materials you want to evaluate. On the breeding side, we have experienced staff for making soybean pollinations as well as corn, sorghum and sunflower.
Last but not least earthquakes have visited the island causing damage and one fatality. No damage occurred at the farm and all of our employees and families are okay. We were closed for the holiday on Jan 6th and decided to be closed on Jan 7th. Jan 8th we reopened and on Friday power was restored from the grid. Numerous termors and aftershocks occurred and on Saturday another earthquake occurred. We continue to operate and customers have continued to come down for work. Our hearts and prayers go out to those affected by the earthquakes. If you have any questions about the effects of the earthquakes on our area please feel free to contact us.
North Central Department Heads
