Salad Days farm is a diverse vegetable operation situated on 30 acres in Versailles, Kentucky. Certified organic since 2015, farmer Maggie Dungan grows year-round in the field and in hoop houses to supply an on-farm store, restaurants, schools, and four weekly farmers’ markets.

Maggie works hard to keep mechanization on her farm minimal, focusing on cover cropping, minimal tillage, and other soil health conservation practices. She keeps 2-4 acres of the farm in production, allowing her to focus on the quality of her systems to grow high-value and sustainable food for her community. Maggie was first exposed to the practice of solarization using clear plastic in 2022 when the farm participated in a research project with the University of Kentucky. The project studied the effect of solarization in high tunnels on root-knot nematode populations. She was impressed by the results of the trial and saw first-hand how this technique impacted a persistent soil pathogen.

However, Maggie was concerned about the impact of the treatment on her soil health, and had some questions – if solarization kills pathogens, won’t it kill the good microbiology, too? How does heat smothering with a plastic tarp impact soil microbial activity? What is the impact on fungal-to-bacterial ratios? Before beginning to incorporate soil solarization into her field plans, Maggie wanted some answers, and applied for OFRF’s Farmer-Led Trial program to help her build out a solid research plan and find reliable results that would have a positive impact on her operation.

For full details on the study’s methodology and results, check out the OFRF Farmer Led Trials Blog, or read the final report linked here.