Dry Farmed Tomatoes Facilitator: Matt Davis Description: Discussion of all things dry farmed tomatoes, including variety recommendations, grafting, blossom end rot, and marketing strategies.

Participants:

Matt Davis OSU Patsy, a gardener from Minnesota Lindsay Diaz, Wilsonville, Campbell Family Farms (a flower farm) half acre, half acre market farm, No water rights Chris, clackamas community college, student farm, expanding into doing dry farming Julia Vastola, Small dry farm tomato trial, participating in squash trials, dont have water rights, small market farm. Minimal irrigation and rainwater collection Silas savinski, manages farm at college of the redwoods, 5 acres of diversified acres. yvonne socolar, phd at UC berkeley, dry farm researcher Myrle mclernon, no water rights, half acre dry farmed this year, san marzano tomatoes Marilyn, Pdx master gardeners, multnomah county demonstration garden. Adapting dry farming for the city

Discussion topics:

Lindsay - recommendations to just get started: dealing with plowpan? do we have a high quality soil? Andy says to plant deeply or subsoil chris - trellis, pruning, and spacing We have found that trellising reduces gold top, increased spacing increased yield per acre and decreased BER Marylin - have we done any pruning and trellising trials, we have a lot of problems with rat damage Yes, limited studies, we would love to do more Julia - what is the best planting depth and container size for dry farm tomatoes - some people using anderson tree pots Andy - What mulch are people using - Landscape fabric, paper mulch, leaves, chips Lots of discussion of using clover as a cover crop in the pathways. Andy - Cherry tomatoes, why do they have low BER Andy - What tomatoes are people going to be growing? Lots