91��Ƭ��

Stark Farm is one of the few organic pick-your-own blueberry producers in New England. It enriches the greater community by hosting a farmer’s market on its property, and serves as a real-world classroom for groups of schoolchildren that come to visit. But it would be none of those things if not for three distinct interventions by 91��Ƭ�� Extension specialists.

Stark Farm, located in a quiet corner of Dunbarton, is operated by Chip and Maria Donnelly. They set their first blueberry plants in 2011 as a change in life was looming for them.

“Both my wife and I were looking ahead at retirement and saying, 'what’s going to keep us busy?'” says Chip. They both liked the idea of being a “no-spray” berry farm and reached out to Extension for guidance. That was when the first intervention arrived.

The Donnellys were initially planning to grow several kinds of berries, but George Hamilton, a since-retired Extension field specialist,  talked them into winnowing their plan.

“He said, focus on one fruit because of this invasive fly that’s come into the country,” Chip says. That fly was the spotted wing drosophila (SWD). Typically, it’s considered prudent to plant a diversity of crops to spread one’s bets. In this case, limiting their production to blueberries would allow them to focus their mitigation strategy. 

And so the Donnellys just kept on planting blueberry plants, adding irrigation as they went, until they had 350 bushes across a two-thirds acre plot. 

Stark Farm opened to pickers in 2018. The bushes were still fairly young but they encouraged visitors to “grow with us,” as Chip says, and return in subsequent seasons to see how the bushes matured.

Chip wouldn’t have said that, though, had he known what Mother Nature had in store for them. The winter of 2018-2019 was brutal on their young berry bushes and when spring came, the plants never came out of their hibernation — because they were dead from the ground up.

“We had 80 to 90% loss,” Chip says. “We completely closed in 2019.”

Instead of greeting return customers, the Donnellys spent their second season as farmers pruning back their bushes, cutting them nearly to the ground. Chip says he was demoralized.

“You feel like quitting,” he says.

They didn’t quit, though, because of Jeremy DeLisle, who assumed support of Stark Farm after Hamilton retired. DeLisle  reminded Chip and Maria of their dream, he knew when to commiserate and when to cheerlead, and he promised that the bushes had strong root systems that would quickly rebound. He was right.

It was also that year that they learned that productive fruit farms need a strategy for preserving their produce for the paying customers. They put up nets to keep out the birds and fences to ward away the deer, bears, and turkeys. The system worked — for about one year.

“In 2021, at the end of that year, we discovered what every other farmer was talking about,”  Chip says, referring to the SWD. “It was destroying fruit across the United States.”

With Extension’s help, Stark Farm set traps to monitor the arrival of the fly, which lays eggs on berries for the larvae to eat when it hatches. Their life cycle is alarmingly rapid, and each female can lay so many eggs, that they knew it was already too late for that year’s crop. They closed for the season and called DeLisle.

Chip says he figured there were three possible strategies at that point. They could pivot away from their original plan and start spraying pesticides, which would come with an expense while also turning away some of  their clientele. They could buy costly netting fine enough to keep out the tiny flies knowing they’d likely never make back their investment. Or they could throw in the towel.

“And quitting was high on the list,” Chip says. “We chatted with Jeremy and said, 'this is the crossroad we’re at.' He came back in the fall and said, 'I think I’ve got an opportunity for you.'”

DeLisle’s opportunity came in the form of a Conservation Innovation Grant to purchase fine netting , federal money routed through the Rockingham County Conservation District, with Extension acting as a bridge to local farms. With so few organic berry farms in New England, the efficacy of the exclusion netting hadn’t been verified locally. DeLisle said that Stark Farm would make for a great test case, and the grant would cover 75% of materials and installation.

It was an experiment for Extension, and a gamble for Stark Farm. In addition to paying a  quarter of the cost, the Donnellys spent the fall and winter scrambling to make a plan they could send to the manufacturer — it is custom-made netting — and then prepare their field to be completely enclosed in netting before the SWD arrived.

The bet has paid off. The Donnellys start the season with the netting gathered into bundles running the length of the field. When Extension reports that the SWD has been spotted in monitoring traps in New Hampshire, the bundles are unrolled and the panels zip together, creating an envelope around some of the only organic blueberry bushes in New England.

“The netting is 100% successful for us,” Chip says. “We just completed our fourth year.”

People have started coming to Stark Farm for more than just blueberries. The Donnellys welcome groups of children who are interested in learning about farming, and this year they invited other farmers and artisans to set up on their property for a Friday evening market, which has become the place to be in Dunbarton. 

Chip, who has since become chair of the Merrimack County Extension Advisory Council and sits on Extension’s State Advisory Council, says their farm wouldn’t be where it is today without a few doses of well-timed help.

“I started this as a hobby and it quickly turned into not a hobby,” Chip says. "It’s really hard to be successful, you have to work hard and learn a lot. That’s what Extension does, they’re out there providing expertise to all types of farms, small, medium and large, and backyard farms.”

In the case of Stark Farm, that expertise has made it possible for the Donnellys to stay true to their original organic vision.

“My wife likes to say, the only thing that hits our blueberry bushes is rain drops,” Chip says. “And that’s the truth.”