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THURSDAY. APRIL 28. 2022 PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS PAGE 3A
Farmers Market seeing more vendors
With everything from earrings to greens
Almost 200 tree seedlings were given away Saturday by Pickens County Ex
tension Agent Justin Fellenbaum on behalf of the Jasper Farmers Market and
the Pickens County Master Gardeners.
By Heather Giambra
A great weather market day equals a
great market! Sixty plus tents were set
up and loads of customers were loading
up with all the great choices of breads,
jellies, eggs, lettuce, micro greens,
plants, succulents, earrings, paintings,
stained glass windows and much, much
more!
Roxanne Janes of Roc-Ken Acres of
fers free range chicken eggs that are
from antibiotic and drug free chickens.
She also has a great selection of tradi
tional breads and flavorful fancy breads
like Zucchini, Blueberry, Sour Cream,
Pumpkin, and Monkey style. So many
choices you must see them for yourself!
There are other bread bakers as well, so
look around.
Hand crafted items abound from
soaps to jewelry, cutting boards to fur
niture. There are also services like Y-
Not Sharp to sharpen tools and knives
and traditional caning for chairs. Some
vendors are for the birds! They have
birdhouses, birdbaths, and birdfeeders.
Knitted items, quilting, and sewn
items can be found as well. Then there
were some more unusual items offered
like soda pop top earrings and orna
ments made from soda pop cans. It’s all
part of the fun of the market looking for
interesting or unusual crafts or foods.
Looking for your new favorite loaf of
bread or adopting a baby bunny. The at
mosphere is fun and light hearted with
plenty to see and plenty to take home.
So come on down to the Park-N-Ride
parking lot at Lee Newton Memorial
Park across from the Veteran’s Memo
rial and see what there is for you! Open
Saturday from 7:30-12.
The Jasper Farmers Market is spon
sored by the Pickens County Master
Gardeners. April 30th, aka next Satur
day, after the Farmers Market the MGs
are offering a Garden Embellishment
Art Class from 1-3 pm in the room ad
joining the Chamber of Commerce.
There is a limit of 25 people and no fee.
Call the extension office at 706-253-
8840 to reserve a spot. Pick up a copy
of the 2022 Event Calendar so you can
plan for some of the other programs that
the MGs will be offering in the future.
Keep in mind that the PCMG big
plant sale will be Saturday May 14th
(the second Saturday). The plants
being offered are from the MGs own
gardens and the list of plants is long but
with limited numbers. This sale is a
fundraiser for the Master Gardener pro
gram and also for supporting 4H. The
MGs also offer plants for sale the sec
ond Saturday of each month until Sep
tember. Master Gardeners are on hand
to answer garden related questions and
to offer gardening tips.
City of Jasper Water Treatment
Plant WSID #2270000
The Consumer Confidence Report for the year
2021 is now posted on www.jasper-ga.us.
A physical copy is also available at Jasper’s
City Hall located at 200 Burnt Mountain Road,
Jasper, GA 30143.
City Hall is open Monday through
Friday from 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.
Celebrate National
Lemonade Day with
Candidate Meet & Greet
Come meet Josh Tatum,
candidate for Post 2
East Commission on
Saturday, April 30th,
2022 at the Jasper
Farmers’ Market from
9am-12pm. Stop by and
grab a cup of lemonade
and ask questions and
offer ideas.
Controlled environment agriculture
poised to become a growth industry
Photo / Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA
UGA horticulture Professor Marc van
Iersel's research focuses on developing sus
tainable and cost-effective ways to ensure
that crops — such as these turnip plants in
a grow room at his greenhouses — get the
amount of light they need to grow.
By Eric Butterman for CAES News
Next time you sit down to a crisp, green
salad take a little time to think about where
your leafy greens come from.
Traditional agriculture is highly weather
dependent, and many producers of high-value
crops are shifting over from field production
to controlled environment agriculture. That is
where the University of Georgia’s Marc van
Iersel comes in.
Van Iersel, the Vincent J. Dooley Profes
sor of horticultural physiology in the UGA
College of Agricultural and Environmental
Sciences (CAES), defines controlled environ
ment agriculture, also known as CEA, as both
greenhouse production that relies on natural
sunlight and vertical farms that use an elec
trical light source.
Responding to
climate challenges
“One of the reasons a shift is happening is
that 90% of all leafy greens produced in the
United States are produced in California and
Arizona. That area is in a mega drought and
there is no end in sight. Because of this, they
may not really be able to have water available
to grow the crops in what is essentially a
desert,” he said. Controlled environment agri
culture is appealing to producers who are
“looking for production systems that may not
use as much water in controlled conditions
where you can get predictable, year-long pro
duction.”
In his 27 years at CAES, van Iersel’s re
search has focused on developing sustainable
and cost-effective ways to ensure that crops
get the amount of light they need to grow.
“The greenhouse has to respond to
weather conditions changing all the time,” he
said. “You have shorter fluctuations from
morning to afternoon to evening and year
long fluctuation in many parts of the United
States in winter. You need to adjust to it.”
Based on his research, van Iersel co
founded Candidus — an agricultural technol
ogy company — in 2017 with Erico Mattos,
who received his doctorate from UGA in
2013. The company provides lighting control
systems that use a compact, powerful indus
trial microcomputer to monitor light sensors,
calculate optimal lighting conditions, and
control the lighting in controlled environment
systems via a local Wi-Fi network.
“There was no one taking advantage of
controlling light precisely in greenhouses,”
van Iersel said. “We found we could reduce
electricity costs for lighting by 30%, and
given that, generally speaking, electricity cost
for lighting is between 10 and 20% of oper
ating costs for greenhouses, that can reduce
operating costs by nearly half.”
The partners initially developed a system
that responded to real-time levels of sunlight,
but van Iersel has collaborated with electrical
engineers to improve the system.
Predicting sunlight
“We’re focused on control algorithms
where we can now predict the amount of sun
light we will likely get for the rest of the day,
which helps us make better decisions on how
much light we want to provide,” he said. “We
also developed algorithms that allow the
lighting system to respond to changing elec
tricity prices. You don’t have the same elec
tricity price over the course of the day. I
believe the latest estimate from the Depart
ment of Energy has the United States spend
ing about a billion dollars a year on electricity
to provide light for crops that are grown in
controlled environment agriculture.”
The responsiveness built into the Can
didus algorithm has a significant effect on
growers' return on investment.
“You make a system that cuts the cost by
20% overall and that makes a critical finan
cial difference,” van Iersel explained.
Among the most challenging parts of the
work is convincing growers who have oper
ated in a certain way for decades that a new
system can provide real value to them.
“Many are reluctant to change things, but
some growers love trying new ways,” van
Iersel said. “When you see more people
doing well from trying something out, then
you tend to feel more comfortable.”
Managing
hydroponic systems
In August 2021, Rhuanito Ferrarezi was
hired as an associate professor of controlled
environment agriculture in the CAES Depart
ment of Horticulture to leverage his expertise
in production to help strengthen research ca
pacity in controlled environment agriculture.
Amain area of his work involves improv
ing irrigation, nutrition and cropping systems,
focusing on vegetables and ornamentals.
“My lab is trying to figure out what man
agement systems should be used in hydro
ponic systems for controlled environment
agriculture,” said Ferrarezi. “We also have a
focus on figuring out how we manage the fer
tilizer solutions in a controlled environment
to bring a benefit in using less fertilizer for
production.”
'Like a blood test for a plant'
One of the innovations Ferrarezi is work
ing on is related to sap analysis, which uses
leaf samples or soil substrate sampling to de
termine nutrient content in plant tissue.
“It is like a blood test for a plant,” he said.
“We provide a snapshot of what is going on
with the crop over a growing cycle. In a con
trolled environment, we have the ability to
grow a crop quicker than out in the field. We
can actually monitor the nutrient content in
side a plant in real time and growers can ei
ther increase or decrease the fertilization
based on those results.”
Ferrarezi believes that controlled environ
ment agriculture will continue to attract in
creased attention from industries, with good
reason.
“They are looking for ways to fine-tune
production and controlled environment agri
culture can help lead the
way,” he said. “It’s an excit
ing time to be working in this
area.”
UGA is a member of a
consortium of land-grant in
stitutions in the Southern re
gion of the U.S. committed to
finding workable solutions
that conserve our natural re
sources, feed a growing
world and improve our qual
ity of living.
Help Josh Keep Pickens Rural!
Follow him on his Facebook page
Josh Tatum for Commissioner District 2
Josh
Tatum
Commissioner Post 2
Keep Pickens Rural!
Suzanne Neville Fowler (R)
Pickens County Board of Education
District 2
I am running for the District 2 seat on the
Pickens County Board of Education because I
truly love this county and I believe uue can have
one of the best school systems in the state.
I have witnessed many highs and lows in our
system. I have been a student, a parent of stu
dents, and a teacher in Pickens County
Schools. I am not blind to mistakes that have
been made and controversies that have oc
curred in the system. Such things have gone on for many years. My goal is
to make sure the same mistakes are not repeated as we move forward, and
that we avoid dysfunction as a board. As a board member, I will listen and I
will be a voice of reason. My firsthand experience as a teacher provides me
with a perspective that will bring value to discussions concerning spending
as it relates to our students, staflj programs, and curriculum.
I have enjoyed meeting and talking with so many of you over the last few
weeks, and I look forward to continuing these discussions through the primary
and beyond. One question that I am constantly asked is: “Why are you doing
this, don’t you know what you’re getting into?”. The answer is that I ab
solutely know what I’m getting into! This won’t be easy, but the work has to
be done and I am uniquely qualified to do it. Issues are going to arise that re
quire tough decisions to be made. There will be opposing viewpoints. Overall,
however, the goals we can all agree on as citizens of Pickens County are
that we want our students educated in a clean and safe environment, our
teachers to have the resources needed to educate them, and for our tax dol
lars to be spent wisely. Those will be my guiding principles during my tenure
on the board.
Vour vote for me on May 24th (or earlier if you choose to cast a ballot
during the early voting period between May 2nd and May 20th) is a vote
for a candidate who respects our students and teachers, values the education
our system provides, and who is ready to take on the challenges we will face
as our community grows over the coming years.
yOUR VOTE COUNTS!