Supporting Virginia flower farmers through science and community

I get to work with farmers in all different sectors of agriculture. Primarily, I work with cut flower growers here in Central Virginia. We're here at Rochelle Soleil's farm, Route 11 Farms. And she's a grower that I connected with through a field visit. She called me out to assist, and so our relationship has been maintained about two years now. Cut flower growers are growing flowers that are not for bedding purposes. They're going to have an end use of a florist or arrangement. Growers in Virginia have really elevated and stepped up trying to meet the demand that's here, so that people aren't having to outsource as much. She's put together a great community for us. So we meet up probably once a month at different farms so that we're meeting the people around us. If somebody is having an issue over here, it's likely I'm going to have that too. So if we can come together, someone else has a solution, even if you don't. The purpose of Virginia Cooperative Extension is we're bringing research-based knowledge from our land-grant universities in Virginia, Virginia Tech and Virginia State, to our growers. The name of the game is when somebody calls up and they have a need, we answer. She's got at least 50 species here, I would think, and those all have different types of growing requirements. Everything that we do is research and science based. We also use the resources at Virginia Tech. Right now, the soil testing lab is down there. We provide a lot of those kinds of resources. To get people off to the right footing so that they can be profitable is really our goal. They've helped me tremendously. I've learned a lot about pests and diseases through the trials that the universities do, and storage, post-harvest, all kinds of stuff. And that's this connection through Erin. The growers are passionate about the cut flower discussion group because it helps them, and it's kind of just created a ripple effect.