Back in August, the Southern Aroostook Soil and Water Conservation District held its conservation awards ceremony with a pig roast dinner at Hidden Spring Winery in Hodgdon. Board members, friends, and family gathered to recognize Shane Kingsbury of Kingsbury Family Farm LLC of Bridgewater with the 2017 “Outstanding Conservation Farmer” award.
Kingsbury Family Farm has shifted its focus in recent years from planting small grains in a rotation year to planting cover crops and having a goal of keeping the soil covered. The change to a priority on soil health came after noticing changes on the ground over the years and dealing with erosion and soil degradation.
Kingsbury Family Farm roots can be traced back to 1977 when Shane’s father Keith moved the family back from central Maine and bought his uncle’s potato farm in Bridgewater. Shane grew up working on the farm with his dad.
Since then Shane, with his wife Duska and their family, as well as his parents Keith and Donna have grown the farm dramatically with acreage now encompassing a little over 2,000 acres from Littleton to Mars Hill. It is a long way from the way his grandfather farmed with a few acres of potatoes, a few animals and a focus on having a farm that was self-sustaining for a family, but it remains a farm that is committed to producing quality potatoes and building soil health.
Shane acknowledges that while the farm has grown and things have gone pretty well, getting bigger comes with a lot of challenges. Their growth has stemmed from staying competitive with quality potatoes that has allowed them to expand their contracts. Managing farm fields that are many miles apart has also been a challenge but for the most part it works and they have figured out the most economical way to plant, maintain, and harvest the different locations.
The focus on taking care of the soil came after attending many soil health meetings and the realization that there is only so much farmland and it is important to conserve and care for it. The Kingsbury’s and their crew have done that with such practices as planting rye followed by tillage radish.
The radish naturally decomposes during the winter, eliminating a fall plow and bare soil going into the winter months. At this point in November, 80 percent of their acreage is in some sort of cover crop, preventing erosion and feeding important soil microbes. Shane noted that the change to building soil with the use of cover crops takes commitment and time.
They learned a lot through experimentation and have done things like investing in the right equipment to plant the covers in one pass. He also stressed how the farm’s success is due in part to the dedicated employees who care about their work and have taken on a larger share of the farm management.
The farm would not be successful without them. Working together, these days the farm’s priorities are to grow quality potatoes and soil.
