Tucked away in the foothills of the Connecticut Berkshires is a 300-head dairy farm managed and co-owned by the Freund Family and Canaan View Dairy. On the outside, the farm looks like many others throughout the state – which has over 5,000 farms contributing $4 billion yearly to the local economy1. But a tour of the property tells a deeper story of sustainable generational farming and the significant conservation impact that can be achieved through collaborative partnership.
Since the farm was established by Eugene and Esther Freund in 1949, the Freund Family has become a national leader — and pioneer — in sustainable farming practices. In the 1990s, Freund’s farm was one of the first in the state to test their soil for nutrients.
Plus, they’re home to Connecticut’s first cow-milking robots and have upgraded their cattle barn with an automatic manure sled that cleans the cow beds, capturing livestock waste and pushing it to a manure collection pit. The Freunds also own CowPots, biodegradable planting pots made from composted manure.
“And we were doing cover crops way before they were popular,” said Ben Freund, who owns the farmland with his brother Matthew.
The family has also formed a farmers’ collaborative for agricultural professionals to get together and discuss what they do, work through challenges, and share advice with those in their industry. That includes demonstrations hosted on the family’s farmland.
The property’s latest addition is a 1.3-million-gallon waste storage facility. The swimming pool-like structure, completed in early October, is estimated to prevent 19,000 pounds of nitrogen and 11,000 pounds of phosphorus from farm waste from entering local waterways, according to reporting from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The farm is in North Canaan located adjacent to the Blackberry River, a tributary of the Housatonic River which contributes roughly 11 percent of the freshwater entering Long Island Sound.
“Dairy projects are big in Connecticut,” said Ben Freund. “It’s hard for farmers to imagine how you build that tank, but it’s simpler than you think.”
“For a farmer to come here and spend time seeing it as it gets built – it sets the tone,” he continued. “They start to understand and come here because they know how important it is to have storage… I’m just getting people in the door.”
Workers begin laying the foundation for the manure (slurry) tank. Photo courtesy of NRCS.
A critical part of the manure storage tank is the internal piping components that bring waste from the barn to the tank. Photo courtesy of NRCS.
A look inside the completed and operational tank. LISS Photo
The panels used on the outside of the manure storage tank are sealed with tar. Photo courtesy of NRCS.
The completed manure storage tank at Freund’s Farm. LISS Photo
The waste storage project is one example of the conservation practices that the National Resource Conservation Service recommends and is an example of how federal partners can work together to connect stakeholders throughout the Long Island Sound Watershed. An interagency agreement between NRCS and EPA funds three staff positions in Connecticut, one outreach specialist and two nutrient management specialists, for the Long Island Sound Study.
“The manure storage structures are needed to hold that manure somewhere safely covered until the farmer is ready to spread it according to the plan that NRCS nutrient management planners have developed,” said Vivian Felten, Outreach Coordinator for NRCS Connecticut, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “They analyze the soil to determine the appropriate manure application rate so that it won’t infiltrate into the groundwater.”
“And they develop a manure spreading plan so that manure is spread when the plants can use it. The timing of application is important to keep it in the fields for the plants and so that it does not get washed away into nearby streams,” explained Felten.
Roughly 70-80 percent of the nitrogen and 60-85 percent of the phosphorus contained in cow feed is excreted in manure. Farmers have been utilizing manure as a natural fertilizer for approximately 8,000 years, leveraging its nutrient-rich properties to enhance soil fertility and promote the growth of pastures and crops. This age-old practice continues today, as cow manure can effectively replace traditional chemical fertilizers, providing the nutrients needed to support healthy plant growth. However, when manure is improperly managed, it can contribute excess nutrients to waterways. According to The Nature Conservancy, the average dairy cow can produce up to 100 pounds of manure daily. But crops do not always need nutrient-rich manure as much or as often as the cows are producing it, so having a facility to hold the manure is key.
Felten works to connect agricultural producers and landowners throughout the Connecticut portion of the Long Island Sound with USDA technical and financial assistance programs while the nutrient management specialists, or planners, help farmers achieve proper nutrient applications to decrease contaminated runoff from entering the Sound.
“It’s the local planners that really do the technical work with the farm,” said Felten. “My role as an outreach coordinator is to let farmers know about our programs and practices and how they can help their farms and connect them with the local NRCS offices.”
The Connecticut NRCS branch has five field offices located in Danielson, Hamden, Norwich, Torrington, and Windsor.
Felted was onboarded as the NRCS outreach specialist for LISS in the fall of 2022. Since then, she has leveraged existing connections to farmer networks, gaining exposure through program partners, newsletters, events, on-farm demonstrations, presentations, tabling at farms and festivals, and hosting workshops. The agreement has also helped NRCS to reach new audiences.
“This year, 51% of our contracts went to beginning farmers, limited resource producers, socially disadvantaged, and [military] veteran producers,” said Thomas Morgart, Connecticut State Conservationist with NRCS. “That means this outreach is working. It’s highly effective in getting producers in that we haven’t worked with before. We are reaching those same audiences of the Long Island Sound Study, getting them interested in on-ground conservation.”
In recent years, the Long Island Sound Futures Fund (LISFF) has seen an uptick in grant applications to complete conservation practices on farms. LISFF has funded projects to build waste storage structures, plant cover crops, create confined composted bedding areas, and develop soil health management plans. Total project funding for Freund’s new storage tank reached $725,000, $418,000 from a LISFF grant awarded to Connecticut’s Northwest Conservation District and matched by $307,900, which was awarded in 2023.
“Having that connection with NRCS, other farmers, and the Long Island Sound Study helped us learn about all of these different grant opportunities,” said Freund.
Since the early days of agriculture, people have settled farms next to rivers because the water nurtured a rich soil environment for growing crops. Today, this creates a challenge—agricultural runoff like fertilizers and animal waste is the country’s largest contributor to non-point source pollution to waterways. Nutrient pollution is a costly environmental problem that has impacted streams, lakes, rivers, and coastal waters for many years.
In Long Island Sound, nutrient pollution can cause low oxygen levels by fueling the growth of harmful algae. Algal blooms can significantly reduce the amount of oxygen in the Sound, harming fish and other aquatic life. In addition to farms, nutrient pollution can come from sewage treatment plants, septic systems, atmospheric deposition, and runoff of home fertilizer and pet waste.
Achieving clean water and healthy watersheds is one of the LISS program’s major management goals. To address nutrient pollution, EPA and the states of New York and Connecticut established a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) to limit nitrogen inputs into the Sound. The states met the TMDL goal in 2016, but nutrient pollution remains a concern for the Sound. Continued program efforts are focused on reducing nitrogen loading through upgrades to wastewater treatment plants and reduced non-point source pollution. The quality of water flowing into Long Island Sound from surrounding watershed states directly impacts water clarity, and abundance of wildlife, and affects the overall health of the estuary.
NRCS has over 100 conservation practices to preserve and improve the management of natural resources. Freund’s manure tank is an example of a nutrient management conservation practice. The farm engages in many other conservation practices around the property, which all work together to mutually benefit the soil, water, plants, and animals. Other nutrient management conservation practices include:
Agroforestry is the intentional addition of trees and shrubs into farming systems. Benefits of agroforestry include increased productivity, protected soil and water resources, conserved energy, more wildlife habitat, increased landscape diversity, and a “richer” ecosystem. The Freund Farm has followed this practice by planting nut trees around the perimeter of different structures on the farm. The trees provide shade, improve soil quality and stability, and produce a small, tasty crop.
Cover crops are a type of practice where an annual plant is seeded after cash crop is harvested. Rather than leaving fields bare, or without any cover, a farmer creates a blanket for the soil made of plant material, which protects soil and water quality.
“It’s about getting cover on the ground and preventing erosion,” said Morgart. “We mostly see corn fields. When covered for the winter, you pull up the nutrients in the soil and hold them in the cover crop until next season.”
The Freund Farm double crops its long-season corn with triticale, a wheat and rye hybrid. Double cropping continues to gain acceptance as a production practice on farms and can have benefits like higher yields and better crop quality. Nearly every crop grown on the Freund Farm is used for cow feed and improved nutrient management.
“With triticale, we’re able to harvest it for feed and at a more optimal time. We shift our planting date for corn and double crop with this, it’s incredible feed and we don’t lose anything,” Freund added. “There’s less field erosion and better hold of nutrients, which all leads back to being super critical for nitrogen. Because what you want to do is tie nitrogen up in a stable form and there’s nothing more stable than a plant on a field.”
A growing interest in agricultural conservation practices across the Long Island Sound region shows the value of collaboration between federal, state, and local partners, as producers like Freund can gain support and guidance from NRCS planners funded through the Long Island Sound Study. This is important, as tackling nutrient management can be a challenging and costly venture.
At the heart of Freund’s sustainable farm is a desire to protect the earth while paving a successful path for his family business.
“The air I breath, the water I swim in…You grow up with an appreciation for the environment,” said Freund. “I also think about the long-term future of the farm.”
From late winter to early spring, cold waters in Long Island Sound create the perfect environment for long dark-brown and green lasagna-shaped seaweed strands to thrive. Attached to a rocky seabed or flowing from a stretch of rope suspended between buoys is sugar kelp, Saccharina Latissima. Its ribbon-like strands can grow as long as twenty feet or more providing habitat for juvenile fish and small invertebrates.
In addition to being used as a sweetener and thickening agent in commercial products and a popular ingredient in restaurants and home kitchens, sugar kelp can supplement traditional nitrogen-based fertilizers while providing water quality improvements.
“Long Island Sound is impacted by nutrient pollution, namely nitrogen pollution,” said Kimarie Yap, the Long Island Sound Study’s Bioextraction Coordinator. “This causes water quality issues, such as algal blooms, the depletion of oxygen in the water that marine animals need to breathe (known as hypoxia), and large-scale fish die-offs.”
As it grows, kelp absorbs excess nitrogen and other nutrients in the water column, acting as a filter and preventing algae from using the nitrogen, which can result in harmful blooms. Nutrients are absorbed into the seaweed’s tissue, making sugar kelp a natural source of micronutrients which are important for the yield, quality, and flavor of agricultural crops. Seaweed aquaculture of farmed kelp can support bioextraction in the Sound—the process of growing and harvesting shellfish and seaweed species in order to remove extra nutrients from coastal waters. Previous work in the western and central Long Island Sound has estimated that sugar kelp can remove between 38–180 kg 1 of nitrogen per hectare in a growing season.
Part of the Long Island Sound Study (LISS) Bioextraction Initiative is a Sugar Kelp Fertilizer Pilot Study, which launched in the spring of 2020. Researchers and agriculture specialists are setting out to determine if sugar kelp can be grown, harvested, processed, and successfully used on Long Island to support water quality and agricultural growers.
“On Long Island, we have sandy soils,” said Sandra Menasha, Vegetable/Potato Specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County. “Because of that, our soil does not hold onto the micronutrients that a plant needs very well because sand is all negatively charged, and so are a lot of our nutrients. Sugar kelp is known to be full of a lot of micronutrients. So, it can kind of replenish the soil.”
“This is where bioextraction’s strength comes into play, said Yap in a recent article about the pilot published in the Long Island Nitrogen Action Plan newsletter. “It is a management strategy currently available that can remove existing nitrogen after it has entered Long Island’s embayments.”
First-phase trials using sugar kelp fertilizer amendment were conducted in greenhouses at the Long Island Horticulture Research and Extension Center in Riverhead, New York. Two trials were conducted on tomato seedlings and tomato and petunia plants.
“[Working in the extension center] allows us to do more closely watched, smaller plot replicated studies to get a sense about what treatments work, what doesn’t work,” said Nora Catlin, PhD, Agriculture Program Director and Floriculture Specialist and Menasha’s collaborator on the pilot. “Then we bring them on to the farm and try them out with a grower and do it on a bit of a larger scale. My interest was primarily in seeing if this sugar kelp, compared to other similar amendments on the market, could fit in that same space of how those are used.”
“If seaweed, such as sugar kelp, could be grown locally and used as fertilizer to impart the nutrients naturally taken up by the seaweed onto lawns and gardens, this could potentially help close that nutrient loop and would be a better, more sustainable option for both marine and agricultural industries compared to importing kelp fertilizer, and thus excess nutrients, from other states,” said Yap.
Sugar kelp in the first round of greenhouse trials was grown in Riverhead on the north shore of Long Island. Subsequent trials used kelp cultivated on mooring lines in the East River, located in the Bronx, New York. First rinsed thoroughly with fresh water and line dried, the kelp was then cut, crushed into small pieces, dried in an oven and ground into a course meal. In addition to the meal, an extract was made from boiling dried kelp with water. However, later iterations of the study have not included rinsing the seaweed as researchers found little affects in salt concentrations between rinsed and unrinsed samples.
“After hearing from other researchers, we tweaked that formula because we heard from other folks that they weren’t finding a lot of differences between their rinsed and unrinsed kelp,” Catlin said. “For the sake of time and thinking about if someone were to do this step as a grower, we took that into account.”
In June of 2020, field trials on tomato plants showed no significant difference between plants with or without the fertilizer amendment. In addition to observational data, soil samples were taken and evaluated for nutrient levels, pH, soil electrical conductivity (the ability of soil water to carry an electric current), and organic matter. Fruits were harvested and sent off for nutrient and sugar analysis, and data was collected on yield and quality.
“For field production, tomatoes are the king of most farms,” explained Menasha. “Most farmers are willing to spend more on amendments to increase production and quality of tomatoes, whereas something like radishes have a small profit margin…your benefits aren’t going to be as realized.”
Research thus far has shown some mixed but promising results. Fruit analysis testing showed higher sulfur levels in kelp amended plots compared to plots that did not receive any kelp amendments. Research from Rutger’s University finds that sulfur applications to some crops, including tomatoes, can enhance their quality and flavor.
“When we analyzed the tomato fruit from this trial, where we had sugar kelp, we had higher levels of sulfur in the fruit,” said Menasha. “So, I can infer based on the research from Rutgers that there is likely a better taste in that tomato. Taste and quality are what keeps people coming back, so that’s a huge impact.”
CCE’s specialists were not, however, able to measure many of the reported benefits that people believe kelp can offer. But comparable results were generated between the pilot’s fertilizer amendment and commercially available kelp fertilizers, a good sign that future fertilizer supplements could be produced from Long Island Sound grown kelp and used by local growers, bypassing the need to introduce kelp fertilizers (and thus nutrients) from outside the region.
Moving into the next phases of the study, Catlin plans to explore the utility of different amendment products.
“I definitely want farmer input to see what form they wanted to use,” said Catlin. “Do you want to use kelp extraction? Do you want kelp meal? The farmer I worked with felt the meal would work better for his production system. But broadly, you want to engage grower input.”
Caitlin and Menasha also plan to explore how tomato plants could react to double treatment: grown with the kelp fertilizer amendment in greenhouses and treated with the amendment at field planting.
This pilot is funded by the Long Island Sound Study. $54,643 was awarded to Cornell Cooperative Extension for the most recent phase of trials.
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