Paw paws are a native fruit with potential for commercial production. The Hort Farm began trials in 2003.

David Redhage showing visitors and heirloom variety of squash growing on the Hort Farm.

Blueberries have potential as a U-pick crop in Oklahoma.

Horticulture Projects

A number of important projects have been done on the 20-acre Horticulture Farm over its fifteen-year history. Currently, trials of small fruits: blueberries, blackberries, table grapes, and paw paws are ongoing.

Recycling nutrients and building up the soil through natural means has been the goal of many projects over the years. The staff has experimented with cover crops, compost, and crop rotations to build soil fertility. These are old techniques that had largely been abandoned; yet they work extremely well.

Cover crops such as purple hull peas or crimson clover add nitrogen to the soil. They also can prevent soil erosion, increase organic matter (which in turn enhances biological activity in the soil) and improve soil structure so that water is more available to crops.

Horticultural crops are well suited to the small acreages so common in much of Oklahoma and are ideal for value-added businesses and direct marketing. Finding the crops best adapted to Oklahoma climate and soils, as well as to the small farmer’s wallet has been an important goal of the Horticulture Farm.

Center projects have included growing U-pick blueberries, strawberries and blackberries as well as greenhouse bedding plants (using composted chicken litter as a potting medium), vegetables, ornamental trees and Christmas trees.

In 1989, the Kerr Center staff began growing shiitake mushrooms on small oak logs. These tasty Japanese mushrooms sell for high prices, and are relatively easy to grow. This popular project spawned regular workshops and numerous requests for information. (Click here to order Shiitake Mushroom manual)

Stewardship Farm Director Alan Ware has been growing sorghum for over ten years.

Sweet Sorghum

One crop that has been grown each year for more than ten years is sweet sorghum. Sorghum grows well in the area, and was a common crop in pre-World War II Oklahoma.

A demand still exists for the syrup as a value-added specialty crop.

Each year in June Alan Ware and other Kerr Center staffers plant three acres of sweet sorghum. The sorghum is harvested in October and the cane is milled and the juice cooked down to sorghum syrup during Fall Farm-Fest, the second Saturday in October.

The Kerr Center offers a manual, Sweet Sorghum: Production and Processing, which describes a small scale, commercial operation. Click here to purchase online.

• Click for information on small fruit trials
• Click here for information about Fall Farm-Fest