Ryan Munroe’s Post

I really enjoyed reading A Trail Called Home!

I toured a few beautiful tree nurseries in Maryland this past summer with some of NVK Nurseries' field growers. We visited Ruppert Nurseries (Kelly Lewis), Waverly Farm (Jerry Faulring) and RAEMELTON FARM LLC (Steve Black). These guys have been doing all kinds of innovative things to improve soil health and we had some great, open conversations about how to implement different practices that benefit our soils over the short and long-term. As growers, we share a commitment to improving soil health, and largely achieve this through the use of cover crops and organic amendments. In particular, the use of on farm-produced compost was the common denominator amongst all four of our nurseries. This past summer we've applied significant amounts of our own compost, as well as other locally available organic amendments, strategically across over 50 acres of land we have planted or will plant this fall and next year. We've applied heavier on more degraded and sandy fields, and a little lighter on fields that haven't been worked as hard and/or have been amended in the recent past. With over 100 different field production blocks, soil sampling is critical to keeping track of changes in soil nutrient and organic matter levels over time. In particular, we are interested in how nutrient and organic matter values respond over time (so we can reduce our fertilization needs), as well as how much more water our soils can hold and make available to our young trees. #treenursery #compost #onfarmcomposting #soilhealth #trees #soil

Although this is a little belated, I wanted to post about what a wonderful opportunity it was to attend and present at the Landscape Below Ground conference hosted by the Morton Arboretum. This international conference on tree root development in urban soils only happens every 5 years, and draws in a niche audience of some of the world's leading researchers and practitioners dealing with tree roots and urban soils. I joked with a couple of attendees that this is one of those rare occasions where we can talk about roots and soil as long as we'd like without feeling like the other person, usually our friends/family/coworkers, are losing interest :) It was an exceptional experience to get to meet some of the legends of the field that have taught me so much through their books, articles and lectures over the years... Gary Watson, Andy Hirons, Michael Arnold, Bryant Scharenbroch, Jason Grabosky I also met and had great conversations with many others (Els Couenberg Jim Barborinas Jake Miesbauer Meghan Midgley Christopher W. Fields-Johnson, Ph.D. Huib Sneep Marie Ambusk Riley (Rouse) Johnson Kelsey Patrick Rosalind Remsen Kristin Moldestad Wei Zhang) doing important work, and I look forward to applying their knowledge and research into the work we do at NVK Nurseries. Please stay in touch! Lastly, thank you NVK Nurseries for sending me to represent the work our Plant Health Team is doing to improve tree root quality (the photo I've included represents some of the results emerging from our 'grow bag' trialing this season). If you want to see more of our results, just send me a message.

The IPM Specialist position at NVK Nurseries is still open. Please get in touch if you're passionate about integrated pest management and would look forward to working in a fast-paced, innovative nursery!

We're hiring! NVK Nurseries is looking for a new IPM Specialist to join our Plant Health Team. We're looking for someone committed to a collaborative approach to operating and strengthening our IPM program across our greenhouses, container farms and fields. Know anyone who might be interested? Please don't hesitate to reach out!