Ollin Farms rehabilitating Boulder County land with an agricultural grant

Mark Guttridge speaks and walks quickly while casually throwing out phrases like "ultraviolet spectroscopy," "collaborative incubator," and "regenerative agriculture" during the course of a quick tour of Project 95 in South Longmont.

Guttridge, an environmental engineer turned organic vegetable farmer, is clearly obsessed with science and data, said, "The best thing we can do as scientists for this earth is to teach the next generation how to collect data and most importantly, how to make decisions from that data."

In late February, Boulder County announced the recipients of the 2020 Sustainable Food and Agricultural Funds, and Guttridge's Ollin Farms was one of seven awarded organizations. Ollin Farms earned a grant for $40,000 for Project 95, a bid to rehabilitate about 125 acres of Boulder County land near his family farm.

On March 6, the first known case of coronavirus was announced in Colorado, and everyone's attention became a little bit diverted. But Guttridge and the county's work went forward.

The county land in question is on the southeast corner of 95th Street and Plateau Road in South Longmont, just across the street from Ollin Farms' home and farmstand on the west side of 95th Street. Ollin Farms sits on six acres, and Guttridge leases another 14 acres from Boulder County Parks and Open Space Agricultural Resources Division for his family's organic vegetable crops.

In contrast, the new Project 95 encompasses around 125 acres, intersected by irrigation channels and rough roads. Guttridge has plans for three different rehabilitation measures: a plum orchard interspersed with organic fruit and vegetable alley crops, a hay crop, and cattle grazing.

In the shorter term, though, the land needs some love.

Last year, it was leased to a hemp operation that never materialized, so "the whole thing went to weeds and the weed seed was blowing everywhere" according to Guttridge. Before that, it had been leased to grow crops like Roundup Ready corn and sugar beets, so the soil was degraded and not cycling carbon.

The story of Project 95 goes back even further, though, more than 10 years ago, when Boulder County first decided to recommend against using GMO crops on leased county farmland. Guttridge said through that decree, that the "county got in this kinda fix."

According to Guttridge, most of the county's land had been dedicated to those Roundup Ready crops and "no other economic models work on these fields."

Early efforts to support new and beginning non-GMO farmers to lease county land between 2011 and 2016 resulted in 18 of 24 of those farmers going out of business. There has been a lot of frustration on both sides, with the county expecting quicker results, and the farmers learning the hard way that the path to rehabilitation is long and expensive.

Early in the tour, Guttridge posed the question that if the county's goal is to divest from GMO crops, "Who should be paying who to heal the soil?"

The Sustainable Food and Agriculture Funds grants are a start toward the county investing more money, and also additional collaborative resources, manpower, and eventually the data collection that Guttridge says is so necessary to continue the work.

As for Project 95, hay is currently growing in a small corner of the land and work has already begun on the eventual plum orchard. This work will take many years to bear literal fruit, though.

This year, around 25 acres have been seeded with cover crops which, hopefully, will bring the soil back from its degraded state so it can grow and nourish the plum trees and organic plants. The county has provided grant money, manpower and equipment to plant these cover crops, which consist of varied rows of oat grass with mixed white clover, red clover, and purple vetch.

On a sunny day in late April, seedlings were spotted popping up in the freshly tilled rows. The oats will grow quickly and be mowed in early or mid June. Then, if all goes according to plan, the land will erupt in clover and vetch flowers some time in June.

These efforts won't earn Guttridge's farm any money this year, which is where the county's help is essential.

In the longer term, Guttridge imagines a larger portion of the land will be devoted to cattle, saying, "The most economic way to start regenerating a lot of soils for the county is using animals. That's how the prairie has any topsoil."

As for the data collection, ultraviolet spectroscopy, a light analysis tool which is often deployed by drones, is a relatively new tool that farmers are using to collect information on crops. Spectroscopy can provide detailed chemical and microbial analysis of soil without having to collect physical samples to send back to a lab.

Guttridge has plans for this, too. All of it will take a full community effort, and close collaboration with Boulder County, whom Guttridge said "have become good partners."