Piedmont Research Station work bears fruit

By Frank DeLoache

Salisbury Post

David Murdock and a host of university scientists picked a good time to come to Kannapolis to study fruits and vegetables.

Years of research and experimentation at the N.C. Piedmont Research Station on Sherrills Ford Road appear ready to bear fruit — hardy new generations of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries that flourish in Carolina red clay.

The Research Station's work will prove helpful not only to scientists at the N.C. Research Campus but, just as importantly, to farmers throughout the Carolinas looking for new, profitable, year-round crops.

Long after field-grown strawberry plants had shut down for a long winter's nap, Andy Myers and members of his team at the Piedmont Research Station were still picking berries.

Under the protective plastic domes commonly known as tunnels, Myers, who manages the station's Horticulture Unit, and fellow workers Joanne Mowery and Johnny Meisimer planted several varies of strawberries on Sept. 14.

They didn't pick the first fruit from those plants until Nov. 22, and then they continued picking berries until Jan. 16, when the temperature dipped to 10 degrees.

The tunnels protect their plants by capturing the sun's heat. Research Station workers can adjust the heat by raising and lowering the sides of the plastic sheeting. They also cover the young plants with ground plastic and water them with drip irrigation.

Myers said the tunnels protected the plants from temperatures as low as 13 degrees this past winter.

And Myers and Dr. Jim Ballington, a professor at N.C. State University, are planning on adding "blanketing" protection on individual rows within the tunnels that should protect the plants through the coldest temperatures.

Soon, "they are figuring to go all winter" growing strawberries, said Joe Hampton, director of Piedmont Research Station.

And if Ballington and others can convince farmers to invest in the new technology and breeds of strawberry plants, the Carolinas' potential as year-round fruit and vegetable growers is enormous, Ballington said.

A farmer in York County, S.C., already has invested in his own tunnels, and he was able to sell winter-time strawberries this year for $17 a gallon, Ballington said.

Strawberry growers in the Wilmington area also are using the tunnel technology to extend their berry-picking season through the winter.

Billionaire David Murdock has promised Carolinas farmers a 12-month market for their fruit and vegetables. He's already opened a Dole processing plant in Lincoln County and promises to make the N.C. Research Campus in Kannapolis the world-leader in nutrition research.

Last year, Dole Foods provided a $110,000 grant that Ballington used partly to erect the acre of tunnels now producing results on Sherrills Ford Road.

But the success of the tunnels is due partly to new generations of berry plants that Ballington and the staff at the Piedmont Research Station have been developing.

Hampton gives credit to Ballington for realizing six to eight years ago the need to develop new breeds of strawberries, berries and other fruits that flourish in the Piedmont's red clay.

In the past, N.C. blueberry production was limited to the sandy coastal areas, and farmers were "running out of blueberry soil."

Now, employees at the Research Station are growing two and three generations of blackberries and blueberries.

The new strains of blueberries have the potential for making farming worthwhile "without having to spend a million bucks to change the soil," Ballington said.

Ballington says experiments at the Research Station already have doubled strawberry plants' production using drip irrigation, ground plastic and the sheltering tunnels. Those ingredients serve to "take away the pressure on the plants."

And grocery chains will always prefer locally grown fruit to the "tasteless California stuff," Ballington added.

The technology isn't cheap, and it got more expensive as the recent construction boom shot up demand for steel.

Two years ago, Ballington spent $18,000 to erect tunnels on the first half-acre site at the Research Station. More recently, installing the other half-acre of tunnels cost $23,000, he said.

But the investment can result in a year-round product — one that is only going to get better.

N.C. State is one of Murdock's main academic partners in development of the N.C. Research Campus.

As part of that partnership, N.C. State has committed to placing 12 full-time faculty members at the Kannapolis research center, Ballington said. One of those faculty members will devote all his or her research to strawberries, he added.

And they are likely to spend a lot of time on Sherrills Ford Road because Piedmont Research Station is the closest state facility of its type.

"If I was a younger, I would have loved to move here to be part of this effort," Ballington said.

Contact Frank DeLoache at 704-797-4245 or fdeloache@salisburypost.com.