by Micky Ellenbecker, Purchasing Assistant
I visited Carandale Farm in Oregon, Wisconsin on a hot and sunny afternoon during the first week of August. The farm is situated back from the road and is surrounded by dense tree lines, giving it a cozy feel. Upon my arrival, the irrigation system was running at full tilt throughout the strawberry fields. It is an investment in care to ensure their primary crop is well-established to set good fruit next season. Cory Secher, second-generation farmer at the Carandale Farm, came out to meet me on his trusty four wheeler and we got to talking about the history and all the ins and outs of his family farm.
Farm History
Dale Secher, Cory’s dad, bought the property in 1968 (it had previously been an old dairy farm), and opened Dane County’s one and only pick-your-own farm in 1969. For decades, they grew a wide range of fruits and vegetables for the community to come pick while enjoying the natural environment that surrounded them.
Dale was always focused on sustainability as foundation for his approach to farming, so in 2002 when he partnered with UW-Madison on a 10-year research project to plant uncommon fruits, when he embarked on a new chapter, it still was. His goal was to “identify adaptable as well as environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable fruit types for a local/regional distribution and marketing system that would contribute to local economies, resulting in an equitable distribution of wealth and job opportunities while reducing the carbon footprint of the food system.” Dale was motivated to learn what he could to help other small family farms thrive and propagate new crops, before corporate farms discovered the crops. Dale, now 84 years old, is still actively involved in the farm and continues to keep building on his years of research. You can find more detailed information at uncommonfruit.cias.wisc.edu.
Paving His Way
From a young age, Cory always envisioned continuing to work on the family farm, but Dale insisted he go out on his own to pave his own way. Cory eventually found himself in a successful career in Emergency Services and Forest Conservation Management in Colorado and then Wisconsin. In 2014, his childhood dream of coming back to the family farm started to materialize. He built a home for his family on the farm where he was born and raised and worked around the clock between his off-farm and on-farm careers to make this transition a reality. Finally in 2017, he was able to quit his forestry job with the WI-DNR and started farming full time.
Did he work less? Yes, some, but to be a farmer is to get things done when they have to get done. You can’t postpone this or that until tomorrow or next week, and you’re not only a farmer, but a mechanic, a marketer, an engineer, an agronomist, a leader, and a researcher. So Cory still has a pretty full plate. But most of all, Cory is humbled by the community that is required to be a successful farmer. He acknowledges that he and his family could not do this important work without the support of the community, and he fully embraces and welcomes the need to be a relationship builder as well.
Cory and Dale still work together on the farm, but Cory now manages all their wholesale perennial fruit crops, while Dale focuses on the research plots. Cory’s crop management is an integrated approach of both organic and IPM (Integrated Pest Management), which are based on foundational systems that Dale developed over the decades. He embraces a low- to no-pesticide approach. If his crop requires a particular spray, fertilizer or other input, he takes the entire long-term system into account, not just what’s convenient at that moment. For example, if an organic spray requires multiple applications to be effective versus a non-organic spray only requiring one application, he thinks it’s important to consider the overall load the fruit will be exposed to and potentially absorb, especially a soft-bodied fruit like a strawberry.
At the Co-op, we sell Carandale’s Certified Organic Aronia Berries (usually arriving the last week of August), and their IPM Fredonia & Concord Grapes (usually arriving mid-September). Cory said the Aronia Berries are a perfect example of a fruit that can and should be grown organically. It’s a native fruit that is adapted to our climate and has more built-in defenses, as opposed to a cultivated fruit that was primarily bred for sweetness and flavor but has likely lost a lot of its natural defenses to pests and disease. The fact that it's a native plant also makes it more likely to be resilient to extremes in our changing climate.
The Aronia Berries are an example of a successful uncommon fruit from Dale’s research trials that they then decided to expand into more acreage. They now produce upwards of 14,000-20,000 pounds per year! But they still haven’t taken off in popularity in the way they would have hoped, and they are continuously educating their customers on their immense potential and applications. First off, they have three times the antioxidants that blueberries have! Dale eats them everyday with his breakfast year round, and he said he has not been sick in 15 years!!! It’s a pretty small sample size, but that’s still impressive.
The trick with the Aronias is figuring out how to use them. You can’t just eat them straight out of hand and expect them to be like a blueberry. They are tart, so you need to put a little bit of effort in. Not a lot, just a little. Cory says a fail-safe approach for cutting the tartness is combining them with protein, such as yogurt or milk, or tossing some in your next smoothie for an antioxidant boost! They’re also a great application in baking, such as an Aronia Apple Pie, or skip the crust and take Cory’s recommendation of making aronia apple sauce. I’m also intrigued to try a savory application like chutney or BBQ sauce.
If you haven’t yet tried the Fredonia or Concord Grapes, I strongly recommend you grab a container when they arrive. They are the quintessential grape flavor that all grape flavored products try to mimic, but so much better in the original form. The Fredonia variety is very similar in flavor to Concords but sweeter and we usually only have these for a short time before the Concords. Keep your eyes peeled for this tasty but whirlwind offering.
Thank You
Thank you Cory and Susan for your time and for welcoming us all onto your farm!