Client Spotlight - Fry Road Farm

Dee and Philip Landis own Fry Road Farm cultivating nearly 215 acres of annual ryegrass, wheat, and an 85 head sheep herd in Albany, Oregon. After meeting them at the Small Farmers Conference in October of 2023, we have been working together to gain better understanding of their working soil biological communities through testing and management practices. Together, we are running field trials on their land? for the 2024 season to see how Earthfort's biological inoculants can improve their crops and soil health.

Dee and Philip started out farming livestock, forage, and grains in Pennsylvania before moving to Oregon with their sheep in tow. After being here a while, they realized grass seed and sheep grow well together and decided to try producing grass seed on a small scale.?

For the last 7 years they have been primarily selling grass seed, a well suited crop to the Willamette valley. In fact, all of their fields have volunteers from the previous crop due to the impossible nature of harvesting 100% of the grass seed paired with how well grass grows in Oregon soils. The land they are leasing has been under annual ryegrass cultivation for over 50 years, and since so much of it volunteers to grow each year it is incredibly hard to rotate crops without getting smothered by reemerging ryegrass.

In the last few years Dee and Philip, and other farmers in the Willamette Valley, have experienced drought and late, cold springs along with very high fertilizer prices which has lowered yields and increased expenses for seed production.

Our goal over the next growing season is to encourage a healthy soil microbiome to ensure resilience among the plants and decrease the need for expensive fertilizers. Soil microorganisms create a buffer zone between the roots and the soil that can protect them from environmental stressors and provide plant-available nutrients from the soil to replace some of the fertilizer needs each year.

We are planning to thoroughly document the effects our biological products do or don't have on their soils and crops. It is going to be a fun and interesting year, follow along on our socials to stay in the loop!