Specialty Crop Block Grant Recipients for Fiscal Year 2015

  1. Webb City Farmers Market – to develop and increase blackberry production and marketing in Southwest Missouri and statewide by promoting, through a demonstration plot, workshops and field days, recently developed production practices, and newly available blackberry cultivars to farmers and by expansion of marketing efforts to ensure that increased production will be matched by increased sales - $15,907
  2. Webb City Farmers Market – to establish a hands-on learning center for winter production and season extension, designed for Hmong farmers and other specialty crop farmers in the region by providing hands-on workshops that focus on fall, winter and/or spring production - $60,452
  3. Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture – to increase use of Missouri specialty crops in meals prepared by low-income families and increase attendance at the Columbia Farmers Market by low-income families. Organizing field trips, offering cooking demonstrations at a local food pantry, and giving cooking classes will result in increased sales of specialty crops - $36,800
  4. University of Missouri, Bradford Research Center and Jefferson Farm and Gardens – to increase the knowledge and marketable production of organic raspberries in Missouri by demonstrating methods of growing using moveable high tunnels and caterpillar tunnels to increase fruit yield, quality and deter Spotted Wing Drosophila - $37,401
  5. University of Missouri, Southwest Research Center – to determine and understand definitively if and specifically where cyanide occurs in both ripe and unripe elderberry fruits; developing highly sensitive methods to test for cyanide and its possible forms in elderberry fruit; and use the results from these analyses to provide qualitative and quantitative information about the presence of cyanide - $29,775
  6. Missouri Farmers Market Association – to increase production and sales of Missouri specialty crops by providing training that results in better managed farmers markets and more successful specialty crop growers - $8,580
  7. University of Missouri, Center of Agroforestry – to decrease knowledge gaps regarding the infection level at which elderberry rust reduces plant growth, fruit yield, and juice quality. Fill knowledge gaps regarding the rust pustule density at which elderberry production and juice quality is adversely affected by providing producers with new information on the infection level, pinpointing which disease control is needed – $26,325
  8. Kansas City Community Gardens – to increase knowledge and support for Missouri’s youngest gardeners in their efforts to grow fresh fruits and vegetables in school and youth gardens by providing education, technical assistance, garden construction supplies, and soil amendments to help ensure garden success for school and youth gardeners in the Kansas City area - $32,084
  9. Missouri State University, Darr School of Agriculture, Center for Grapevine Biotechnology - to select promising new varieties for further evaluation of enological characteristics by conducting an assessment of seven new grape varieties for their viticultural characteristics in 2015 and 2016 - $19,550
  10. Missouri State University, Darr School of Agriculture – to increase knowledge of the genetic determinants of the Norton Grape, determining whether the Norton Grape can be improved in the hybrid population, by seeking knowledge of any factor that promotes or constrains rooting ability and guidelines that allow the incorporation of rooting ability as a selection criterion in strategic or operational breeding plans - $49,988
  11. Missouri State University, Missouri State Fruit Experiment Station – to determine which varieties of primocane bearing raspberries are best for production in grow bags in this region by investigating the production in grow bags rotated in and out of high tunnels and rotated into a high tunnel after late winter planted vegetables are harvested that may add a profitable crop to their mix, ultimately leading to greater economic farm sustainability - $13,500
  12. University of Missouri Extension, Jefferson County – to provide education to Missouri farmers and producers to increase their decision making of scaling up production for specialty crops through 13 workshops across the state over a 3-year period - $36,627