GFB Farm Tour highlights 10th district

GFB members enjoyed sampling a variety of pecans at the South Georgia Pecan Company.

Lowndes County Farm Bureau member Fred Wetherington (center) talks to GFB members visiting his tobacco farm during the annual farm tour. UGA Plant Pathologist Dr. Alex Csinos (standing in truck) talked to the group about research UGA is doing to combat crop diseases.

Georgia Farm Bureau members from across the state enjoyed touring farms and agribusinesses in the organization’s 10th District during the 2006 GFB Farm Tour, June 9-11.

“With the diversity of agriculture in Georgia it’s important to showcase each district and let people in North Georgia see things in South Georgia they may not have seen before,” GFB Young Farmer Committee Chairman Chad Carlton said. “Even if it’s an operation that’s totally different from yours there are little things you can pick up to use on your operation. It’s also a time you can come together with like-minded people who do the same thing you do.”

The first stop of the tour was Little River Charolais in Cook County, where the Bennett family has been raising purebred Charolais cattle since 1956. Marshall Bennett told the tour group about the conservation measures his family has implemented. Since 2000, they have implemented a three-phase wetland and surface water improvement project through the USDA Conservation Security Program. As a result of the project, water is leaving the Bennett farm cleaner than when it flows onto the farm.

The second tour stop was Wetherington Farms in Lowndes County where the tour group visited a tobacco field in the process of being suckered (breaking the flowers off the tobacco plants). Fred Wetherington discussed the process of growing tobacco and some of the changes that have occurred in the industry in recent years.

Dr. Alex Csinos, a University of Georgia College of Agriculture plant pathologist, talked to the group about research he and other UGA crop specialists are doing to combat tomato spotted wilt virus, a disease that caused $65 million in Georgia crop losses last year.

At the South Georgia Pecan Company in Valdosta, GFB members learned about the process of shelling and processing pecans. The group saw shelled pecans being processed and packaged for distribution.

GFB members tour Sunbelt Greenhouses in Douglas. The nursery is one of America’s top 50 greenhouse growers.

On Saturday, the tour made its first stop at Alma Pak, Inc., a blueberry processing facility owned by 12 growers and one marketer. The facility packages fresh blueberries and quick frozen blueberries. The tour buses also drove past a blueberry field at David Lee’s farm where they saw a mechanical harvester in operation.

At Sunbelt Greenhouses in Douglas, GFB members toured one of America’s top 50 greenhouse growers located on 31 acres. Members walked through some of the greenhouses where they saw bedding plants grown for Pikes Nursery and Wal-Mart.

Saturday afternoon GFB members visited the Okefenokee Swamp, where they enjoyed boat tours and train rides through the swamp.

The tour concluded on Sunday with a stop at Paulk Vineyards in Irwin County. Gary and Ann Paulk hosted tram rides through the muscadine vineyards, explaining vineyard management and the muscadine harvest. Their son, Chris, toured the group through the processing facility where the muscadines are processed for the fresh market, pressed for juice, and the skins and seeds are crushed for dietary supplements.

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