{"id":7144,"date":"2021-07-15T04:44:38","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T21:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/?p=7144"},"modified":"2022-04-13T10:20:11","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T03:20:11","slug":"weather-affecting-accs-agriculture-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/weather-affecting-accs-agriculture-department\/","title":{"rendered":"Weather Affecting ACC’s Agriculture Department"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Story by Nick Brown<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edited by Pete Ramirez<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Austin Community College\u2019s 17-acre Sustainable Student Farm, located at ACC\u2019s Elgin campus, is home to a herd of sheep, an orchard, a greenhouse, and a small plot dedicated to vegetable production. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also where you can often find Savannah Rugg, Department Chair of the Agricultural Sciences Department, who leads a small team that runs the farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although trending in a positive direction, the farm has certainly faced challenges from this year\u2019s weather.
First was the winter storm. While the orchard remained intact, heavy snow and freezing temperatures brought by the storm resulted in a significant loss of plants in the farm’s greenhouse that were used for propagation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt did push the season back,\u201d Rugg said, referring to the plot of vegetables on the farm.  The late start after shifting planting from February to April means now-maturing plants are faced with current, intense temperatures, and thus less flower production.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we had more hands it probably would have been a relatively productive season because we have gotten a lot of rain,\u201d Rugg said. \u201cWe haven’t had to irrigate too much like a couple summers ago when we were hardly getting any.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent rain, however, has also had an affect on the farm. \u201cWith all the rain we are getting and the high heat days, the weeds are probably the biggest challenge for us right now.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"The
The entrance to Austin Community College’s Sustainable Student Farm located at the Elgin campus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Farm
Farm assistants moving plants in and out of the greenhouse for regular maintenance.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Plants
Plants in their early stages avoid the harsh summer heats inside the cooler greenhouse.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"An
An Asian pear tree in the orchard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"A
A close-up image of the pears growing in the orchard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Okra
Okra growing in the vegetable garden.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"A
A basket of freshly picked tomatoes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Senior
Senior Lab Assistant, Travis McPhaul, picking tomatoes in the garden.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"A
A farm assistant, Miranda Maldonado, working around the garden.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Senior
Senior Lab Assistant, Travis McPhaul, moving between projects in the vegetable garden.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Story by Nick Brown Edited by Pete Ramirez Austin Community College\u2019s 17-acre Sustainable Student Farm, located at ACC\u2019s Elgin campus, is home to a herd of sheep, an orchard, a greenhouse, and a small plot dedicated to vegetable production. It is also where you can often find Savannah Rugg, Department Chair of the Agricultural Sciences […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4103,"featured_media":7142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1135,12,17],"tags":[1174,1170,1172,1173,1171],"class_list":["post-7144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news","category-news","category-photos-2","tag-agriculture","tag-nicholas-brown","tag-nick-brown","tag-weather","tag-whether-changes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}