 If you enjoy watching Common Ground online, please consider making a tax-deductible donation at lptv.org. Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people November 4th, 2008. Within our food chain it is absolutely essential that we have trust, and that is that that consumer trusts that producer. And so when we can open the doors today and bring in the consumers in this case and have that one-on-one communication with a grower, or at least see the techniques and the concerns that are going on. So when we walk into a grocery store, we know that when we're buying the cob of corn or the potato, what have you, we know that on the other side there was a producer that he or she is interested in utilizing the latest technology from an efficiency standpoint, just to remain in business and to protect that natural resources. So really I look at today as that bridge-building piece between that producer and consumer. I'm Keith Holander, director of the Ag and Energy Center here at Central Lakes College, dean of agricultural studies. So really what that means is I oversee all of the agriculture programming here at the college. The center specifically here just off the Staples campus has to do with applied research and demonstration. So that involves the latest in science and the latest in technology. As it relates to cropping, and we talk about that from local foods all the way over through the agronomy arena, and the natural resources. We have multiple partnerships, probably 40-50 private partnerships. The University of Minnesota, North Dakota State University, USDA, Minnesota Department of Ag. Our local FFA chapter was here. The Lions Club helped put this on. Living Legacy Garden was also part of the process, and that's available as well for the people here today. But it certainly is just something that we're able to collaborate and coordinate with the partners. Midwest Machine around the machinery side, already off it was on some of the land and technology side with them. So it's just this idea that we're able to facilitate and be a catalyst for partnership in agriculture. We had specific speakers. There's three that I'd like to talk about specifically. Jake Bryce is a regional manager here for Midwest Machinery and John Deere, and that really allows us here to have the access to that technology. Very site-specific technology in all aspects of what we're doing in agronomy. So we're talking about exact seed placement of the right genetic material in the right place and really maximizing production and utilizing that soil's resources. Then we had Commissioner Fredrickson came in. Kind of gave that legislative update to agriculture. So as an agriculturalist, which we all are because we consume and wear it daily. But it's that idea of what are the issues on a state level and how are they going to impact us and where does our partnership lie with MDA as well as we have a local partnership with Minnesota Department of Ag. And then finally, Federal Representative Colin Peterson has been very supportive. Obviously, agriculturally, he ranks on the committee from a democratic side, but just instrumental, you know, and it's really a non-partisan piece that we have in agriculture and that's really important that we are legislating federally. Part of that we sometimes get a misconception out there via GMO or avian flu or what have you. And so to have a friend in the legislature federally is really important and on a national scale because obviously everything we do in Minnesota, we not only affect the rest of the nation, but it affects us globally. So if we look at technology and agriculture, the positive ramifications of that, if I take nitrates, we should think of nitrate and water is such a bad thing. But we have the technology in place now where we're identifying plant need at a very specific site at a very specific level and delivering that nutrient on a timely basis as the plant consumes it in the right levels. You know, we have that very precise process and as that plant grows, it doesn't matter what plant we're talking about, it's wheat or corn, obviously soybeans produce their own. But just the precision, when we talk about precision agriculture, there's a lot of levels to that. That just mitigates that leaching that we have had over years of the nitrates. And we do the same things with that chemical. We have reduced our chemical applications dramatically in amount just because we can be so site-specific to identify the particular, if it's a weed or an insect or whatever the problem may be to ensure a safe and cheap food source for our country to just really be specific in everything we're delivering. And all of this technology converges and continues to converge on how do we become more efficient. As we looked at Precision Ag, we're a leader in the United States and obviously CLC and the Staples Campus, we're proud to host a lot of that technology here. So obviously the newest wave in technology, especially to agriculture, is the UAS or the unmanned vehicle system, drone as we commonly call them. So we had a quadcopter here today. That's relatively new to us, but we're just demoing today, but looking at that in terms of how do we remote sense problems within the field. So it saves us time obviously from that aerial view and perspective, but with the technology now, we use infrared technology to determine the differences in soils, water needs or availability, and then also insect festation. So then that leads us to a point we don't need to treat a whole field area with adjusting the soil nutrient or treating it with a chemical, we can treat specific areas. And that's really where that drone technology is leading us and linking that, but that's really new in its development and doing that. So it's really in that trial stage and that's really what we were about today. In the local foods arena, we had demonstrations in the local foods and orcharding. Currently we have an orcharding in North Workshop actually going on right now, but all about those hardiness strains in an orchard setting, obviously apple specific with that. Local foods in terms of the blueberries that we have growing here on site, and then we have a greenhouse and high tunnel and production within those, teaching our youth about how to grow the vegetable within that, and of course handle those environments as well. On the agronomy side, we have a lot of research and demonstration going on today in the area of water movement across the soils, and of course when that water moves, what nutrients is it taking with? And so we're looking at monitoring that and what is going on with that. Another arena is how do we mitigate water use? So we're trying to amplify the amount of water holding capacity of sand. So that's another piece that's going on. And then we have a basic variety of trials, if you will, and it's that whole idea of, we have about a hundred trials going on just within specific varieties within different seeds. And so comparing those technologies specifically, the genetics of those seeds and those comparisons were all available as well today. We have an orchard here on site, so viticulture and analogy. Participants were able to come in and just get some concepts of what we're doing here as far as hardiness with vines. My name is Dennis Emsley Drummond. We're at the Staples Ag Center, part of the Central Lakes College. I teach winemaking and viticulture at the college, basically online. And I've been doing this now for about four years. Today I am doing tours of the vineyard. We have 32 varieties on about an acre. Most of them are in 10 vines per plot. And we're doing teaching on training vines, how to deal with mildew, which is one of the biggest problems with grapes, and then different varieties and what can make it in a region three, which is what we are here in Staples. I started working first in Illinois for the family farm. I wandered out west, got into grape growing, decided I would tan very well and started working, got my master's degree from UC Davis, California, and been a winemaker now for about 30 years. I teach fruit winemaking online throughout the U.S. I have about 10 students starting up first of September. And we go over the legalities because the rules are a little different for fruit wines. And then I have some examples here today for the visitors. Well, we have winter here. The wine varieties that they grow in California on the east coast don't make it. They don't survive this winter. So U of M through Elm Swenson, who was a dairyman in Osceola, been doing this for about 50 years now, developing grapes that are hardy. And so we are trying them in probably the northern part that some of those vines will do. And then there's some independent growers, too, that we are working with. So some of their grapes are doing quite well in our climate. The grapes behind me, they are called valiant. That's probably the hardest grape that I know of. It doesn't make the best wine, but it still is worthy of trying because it's so hardy. Well, it's definitely a value-added product as in you can start with grapes and make something that's worth some money. And it's fun. It's a real fun thing to do. People enjoy drinking wine. It seems to be catching on there about 50 wineries now in Minnesota. And there's about 70 licenses. So there's a lot of people planning to open soon. So it's a really growing deal. So part of what I do is help start up wineries. My favorite part is actually the winemaking because that, I think, is where the finesse is and where we have to keep our standards up. Growing the grapes is mercy of Mother Nature. We've had a couple of winters here that really haven't helped development of vines. A lot of the wineries had to get grapes from other states because of the winter we've had. But hopefully the University of Minnesota has come up with a new variety of two that are coming down soon to be released and we're hoping we have very high hopes. So it's a very much a growing industry and another reason for people to come out and visit the countryside is to go visit all the scattered wineries. The reason for today is to help people who have started vines and how to grow them. And the second is to promote the online classes that I'm part of. And the third thing is to try and show people what varieties are hard enough for this region. I mean this is pretty much on the edge of grape growing for it to be profitable. So we need to make sure that they're growing the right varieties and show them how we can test them up here. I recommend to a new wine grower or winemaker to buy northern wine works. It was started by a couple of guys that done a lot of research and traveled around the world finding grapes. And it's very well written and it gives some very good tips on how to grow grapes and what winemaking to do. So it's a very good start. So I teach three classes for Vesta. It's online. I have anywhere from five to fifteen students and we go over all the legalities and what I like about it is the students can be wherever they are in this evening class so they can work full-time and still do my classes, all the Vesta classes and actually get a very good education in winemaking and grape growing and wine business which I would have loved to have done. I spent about eight years in college which I had done this online thing and kept working and still learned the same amount of information. We look geographically we probably carried somewhere around a hundred mile radius but really the people that were interested around here are those growers and producers in those specific arenas. So those that might be interested in that wine production or specifically grape growing maybe in that orcharding piece or local foods how to improve the techniques they may have at home or somewhere just investigating and then on the other side of the agronomy piece we're all interested in natural resources and preserving them so how are we mitigating water leaching through the soil and taking nutrients with and then also watching the agronomic practices that we have going on. So just that chance to get out and kind of see what the latest is as well as we have a line of machinery here a brand new and so it's got the latest in technology and in this case today we're really allowing the public just to open the door and crawl into a tractor that probably they've never operated before or never even interested but just to understand the technology that's going into agriculture today. I think we all have to view ourselves as you know we're consumers of agriculture we wear clothes those kinds of things so I think that we all have to see ourselves as vested in agriculture and so therefore I would challenge all the viewers to be knowledgeable in agriculture know where that food source is and investigate that and I think this is a wonderful arena here at the college to be able to do that and it doesn't have to happen in an August day it can be any time during the year that we can arrange tours and I have those set up multiple times during the year where you get a chance to ask openly about what's this going on because in our case we're not private so we can display a lot of the data and pieces about what's going on really and kind of be that non-biased truth if you will sometimes people approach someone they think of the corporate farms or what have you and they don't think there's always truthfulness there and I would welcome them to come and share here and I think we could share that very truthfully in that story you know so that they take ownership of where their food comes from both locally at the local store as well as how it fits in nationally and globally.