♪ ♪ JOANNE: It's a big wide agricultural world from the shore to the mountains and all points in between.

Did you know that a farm can bridge the generation gap?

That you can belly-up to the barn?

And that going native is sound advice?

Don't go anywhere!

Stories about the people who work the land and feed our state, plus The Local Buy, are coming up next on "Maryland Farm & Harvest".

NARRATOR: Major funding for "Maryland Farm & Harvest" is made possible in part by, the Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board, investing in smarter farming to support safe and affordable food, feed and fuel and a healthy Bay.

Additional funding provided by: Maryland's Best, good for you, good for Maryland.

Rural Maryland Council, a collective voice for rural Maryland.

MARBIDCO, helping to sustain food and fiber enterprise for future generations.

A grant from the Maryland Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Program.

Farm Credit, lending support to agriculture and rural America.

The Maryland Soybean Board and Soybean Checkoff Program, progress powered by farmers.

Wegmans Food Markets, healthier, better lives through food.

The Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

CHILD: The Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation, promoting the importance of agriculture in our daily lives.

NARRATOR: And by, The Maryland Nursery, Landscape and Greenhouse Association.

The Maryland Seafood Marketing fund.

The Maryland Farm Bureau Incorporated.

The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

And by... Closed Captioning has been made possible by Maryland Relay, empowering those who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech disabled to stay connected by phone.

(theme music ends).

JOANNE: It's in our name, that time of year when the crops are dry and seeds are busting.

Hi, I'm Joanne Clendining, welcome to the 10th anniversary season of "Maryland Farm & Harvest".

I'm talking about harvest time, and sometimes you play a guessing game where experience and patience is measured against the rush to get the field cut and stored for winter.

That's the life of a farmer.

Here at The Center for Maryland Agriculture and Farm Park in Hunt Valley, you can see up close and personal how that life plays out on this working research farm.

It's open to the public throughout the year with demonstrations and educational resources, give it a visit.

Coming up, we follow a process at a farm outside the DC Beltway, that takes us from kernel to keg.

But first, not many farms have enjoyed the promise of harvest time quite like this century-plus farm in Northern Maryland where six generations of the Sellers family have worked the land.

Farming has changed a lot over the past 135 years, one thing that hasn't is the family farming Panora Acres.

Since 1888, six generations of the Sellers family have operated this dairy farm in Manchester, Maryland.

Three of those generations are still working the land, with a possible seventh right on their heels.

The family's patriarch, Norman Sellers is 83 and still putting in long days, even with a bad hip.

NORMAN: Right now with my situation I'm over here about eight in the morning until four or five in the evening, depends on day's work or what's happening.

HARRY: You got to look up to someone like that, if that's what keeps him happy, you know, why not?

Come to work, we've got something for you to do.

(laughs).

JOANNE: Today, Harry is taking on one of the farm's dirtier jobs.

HARRY: There's no fancy way to get in this thing.

JOANNE: The weekly cleanout of the corn dryer.

HARRY: Just another day on the job.

JOANNE: Luckily, Harry Sellers' hips are in better shape than his dad's.

Meanwhile, Harry's son Josh is at the wheel of the combine, seems like all day, every day.

Recently, Josh has stepped into managing the farm and part of that job is preparing the next generation of farmers.

JOSH: We got to try to include 'em, you know, like Eli I try to get him, when he's riding with me, you gotta teach 'em early and you let them choose whether they want to do it or not.

JOANNE: With any family farm, there are pressures on the current generation to keep the farm alive for the next generation to take over.

JOSH: You take pride in what you do, you know, what your family started and you want to keep it going best you can.

HARRY: When your family's been in the same spot for you know, it's like 150 years now almost, that you know, you take pride in having an operation or a business that you can hand down to the next generation.

And that's the most important thing, hopefully my son hands it off to his kids and his kids off to their kids and keeps continuing.

JOANNE: Since early 1900s, Panora Acres main business has been as a dairy farm.

NORMAN: We started out as everybody else in this community, each farm 'round here was usually around 100 acres and that was enough for a family to, to support themselves.

We have 11 cows that, that they milked at that time.

JOANNE: By 1957 when Norman Sellers started working the farm full-time, they were milking 80 cows.

By 2022 they had 350.

Today, there are none.

In early 2022 the Sellers made the decision to turn away from 135 years of tradition to keep the farm alive.

JOSH: When we made the decision to get rid of the cows and quit milkin', uh it felt good, pretty good at first, but then when it come down to loading the cows, puttin' them on the truck, you know, that was pretty rough.

Kind of like watching your whole life go out the driveway.

Feels like startin' over.

STACY: It was rough.

JOANNE: For Stacy Sellers it was a hard transition.

STACY: Oh yea, I stood out in Dad's yard and cried.

JOANNE: But she knew her husband was having a worse time.

STACY: 'Cause he wasn't carrying that dairy legacy but times are just different now, than what they were.

JOANNE: It's a sad economic storm that's played out at dairy farms across America.

NORMAN: I never imagined we'd be in the situation we are today, 40-50 years ago.

JOANNE: Milk consumption has plummeted 42% over the past 50 years, from 247 pounds per person in 1975 to 144 pounds today.

Add tighter margins, higher equipment costs and a tight labor market and Josh's decision to pivot the farm away from dairy to grains might just keep future generations on the farm.

JOSH: Sometimes it's not always what you want to do, sometimes what you have to do.

If you're not 3500 cows or more, you know, it's kind of hard to do it unless you have other, off-farm income.

Big get bigger, and the small either find a niche market or they get out.

JOANNE: The Sellers family have no intention of getting out.

They are moving forward.

NORMAN: It's the old saying, if you're standing still you're going backwards.

So we made a decision and I think it's working well for us.

JOANNE: Along with moving to grains, they have enlarged their Black Angus stock, have their license to sell beef off the farm, and Stacy's wedding floral business is growing flowers on the farm.

NORMAN: Who knows what the future holds.

HARRY: That's the million-dollar question, what's next?

(laughs) These days you don't know.

NORMAN: You know, you gotta keep looking forward, and that's what hope the boys do, and my grandson, my son.

And it's up to them to make the track from here forward.

You know, you need to be positive, you need to be looking forward, and uh, keep active and don't give up.

JOANNE: Tough decisions are part and parcel to farm life.

The Sellers pivoted away from dairy and are leaning into the commodity crop market to grow their operation.

And did you know, almost a million acres of grain are grown in Maryland?

But of course, the yield per acre, times the market price at the time of harvest, will keep a farmer on the edge of his tractor seat.

All right, it's time to test your agricultural know-how!

Here is our thingamajig for the week.

Do you think you know what it is?

Well here's a hint: it's not an oversized key chain, but it is the key to control.

Stay tuned and we'll have the answer at the end of the show.

We mentioned the guessing game of harvest time, but when the crops are ready, it's a sight to behold.

Here are some harvest-time photos to enjoy.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ JOANNE: When was the last time you went to a farm to catch a flight?

Well, you're just not going to the right farm.

At this next farm in Montgomery County, flights are on the menu.

Beer menu, that is.

There are times when nothing quite hits the spot like a nice cold beer.

But crafting that one-of-a-kind flavor doesn't come easy, and Lone Oak Farm in Olney, Maryland knows better than most just how much work goes into every pint.

At this farm to glass brewery, it all begins in the field.

And today is a special day for co-owner Chris Miller.

CHRIS: So this is our first harvest from this ground, it's kind of multiple years of a vision that has led to this point.

Uh we bought the farm three years ago with the plan of putting the brewery here, and then part of that brewery plan was to grow as much of the ingredients on site as possible.

So, after a number of years of cultivating the ground, getting it ready for the crop, here we are today getting ready to harvest it.

JOANNE: Whether it's your first harvest, or you have decades of seasons under your belt, farmers are looking for similar signs when it's the right time for the combine.

CHRIS: A way that you can tell when the grain is ready, ideally you want it to dry down not die down, so you can see the heads are kind of tented over, and towards the ground.

That's a good sign, rather than it just falling over, that's called lodging, when it just lays down.

That's not good because it makes it really difficult to harvest.

JOANNE: With the conditions just right, it's time for the harvest.

This particular variety of barley is Violetta two row, known for its disease resistance and high yield.

CHRIS: This ten acres, we're hoping will yield about 100,000 pints of beer.

So we're literally looking at a field of beer right here.

JOANNE: Sounds like the making of a good party!

But the harvest is just one step before the pints can be poured.

Now the barley will be sent to a dryer to lower the moisture content.

CHRIS: Once it's dried down, we'll take a sample, send it off to the lab.

We'll get a lot of the valuable information we need.

Once all those tests check out, we can start malting with it right away.

JOANNE: Malting is a centuries old process, dating as far back as the ancient Egyptians.

And it is what ultimately determines the color, aroma, and flavor of beer.

And it's where maltster Danny Loves comes in.

DANNY: We take grain from the fields, and we put it through the malting process.

And during that process we're changing kind of the chemical make-up of the grain, so that when we give it to the brewer he has something to make beer out of.

Really there's three phases.

There's the steeping phase, there's the germination phase, and then there's the kiln drying phase.

JOANNE: In the steeping phase, the grain is soaked in water to increase the moisture content, which will active the existing enzymes, and stimulate the development of new ones.

Next is the germination process.

DANNY: During the germination phase you see a lot of roots develop, that's a really good sign, we love seeing that, it's really encouraging to us as maltsters.

And that simulates basically growth that would be happening if it was in the soil.

JOANNE: That growth leads to the breakdown of proteins and carbohydrates, and the opening of the barley's starch reserves, in a process called modification.

Variables like temperature, airflow, and potential tangling of roots, are important factors to control to ensure even germination.

DANNY: If we don't agitate it and stir it up, we'll create hot pockets that won't be good for the barley, or you know, it'll actually mat together and become like a block of ice and we'll be not be able to move it.

So by really stirring it up with the ribbon blender, we're breaking it up and we're also allowing it to breathe so that the finished product is something, you know, that we can make beer out of.

JOANNE: By heating the germinated barley in a kiln, start reserves are trapped inside before being used up by the growing grain.

At the brewery, those accessible starches are then turned into fermentable sugars by being hydrated with hot water to create an oatmeal like substance called "mash".

The liquid, or wort, from the mash will then be separated from the spent grain.

Then it's time for fermentation where yeast is added, and begins to multiply and eat the sugars.

Leaving behind carbon dioxide and alcohol.

It's a lot of science, but that's why you have a brewmaster, like Kevin Hilton.

KEVIN: It's constantly evolving, so you really have to be aware of trends and techniques and things like that so that you can stay on top of the, the beer game.

JOANNE: That desire to grow seems appropriate for a farm named after an historic oak tree that predates the Civil War.

CHRIS: Here, Maryland was kind of a border state.

The family that fought for the south lived on the other side of the tree.

And this family here fought for the north.

So neighbors were divided, and the tree is old enough that it was much smaller back then, but it was around during the Civil War, when divide was happening, and it marked the local property line.

So, there's just so much history to it that's still living today in every one of our beers.

JOANNE: That mighty oak now stirs life into every batch of beer, as the brewery's mash paddle is made from a fallen branch of the tree.

CHRIS: There's deep lineage in the brewing culture, that the mash paddle carries with it kind of magical forces that make good beer and pass it on from generation to generation.

So our paddle and every single beer, it comes in contact with oak wood from the oak tree.

MAN: It's a testament to the preservation and adoration of the land, that Lone Oak hopes will one day become synonymous with the beer they brew.

KEVIN: Having the taste of the land in your beer is definitely gonna differentiate our barley from the barley that was grown in, even down in the Chesapeake Bay.

There are gonna be subtleties and you know, that's really what craft beer is about is is experimentation and, and subtlety.

It took us a lot of team effort to uh, to pull this off and, and again we're very fortunate that it did because at other places that I've been we haven't been as fortunate and it ends up as chicken feed.

So, chicken feed, beer, I'd rather have the beer.

JOANNE: Cheers to that!

Lone Oak Brewing is producing some of Maryland's finest craft beers.

In fact, they've won two gold medals at the Maryland Craft Beer competition.

For their Sandbar IPA and another for their 2020 Christmas Ale for the best Belgian style beer.

And did you know, the best latitude for growing hops is between 35 and 55 degrees north or south of the equator?

And Maryland's latitude sits at around 38 degrees.

Making beer lovers very hoppy.

(glasses cling) If you're looking at landscaping ideas, there's a recent trend to stay away from nonnative shrubs and trees.

As far as trends go, this is one we should get behind.

On this week's The Local Buy Al Spoler visits a nursery where the natives are restful.

Al.

AL: Believe it or not the number one hobby in the United States is gardening.

And in recent years there's been a real surge of interest in using native species like these to populate our gardens.

And that's why we've come here to Unity Church Hill Nursery, to learn what our options are.

Michael Jensen is the owner of Unity Church Hill Nursery, and today he's helping to install a new residential garden featuring native species.

It's a trend that got going about 20 years ago.

MICHAEL: It's more and more and more the common language, to use native plants.

AL: Most gardens rely heavily on imported, or hybrid flowers and trees.

But there's always been a wide variety of plants already growing here that are quite attractive.

Organic farmers Bruce and Sally McCoy felt the move to a native species garden was natural.

BRUCE: We thought if we just sort of let everything become kind of natural, that it would be, it would be more us.

SALLY: I like the wild and wooly kind of look rather than these you know, very tended garden.

AL: Michael designed a flowing garden that curved around a new patio.

He then selected an assortment of native species for the space.

MICHAEL: In the foreground here we have two, predominantly two perennials that are going to fill in this entire area.

And this one is baptisia and this one is penstemon.

AL: Mm-hm.

It's gonna be totally different next year, right?

MICHAEL: You won't see any mulch next year.

(laughing).

AL: It may not look like much now, but thanks to Michael, Sally and Bruce are beginning to see the future of their garden.

BRUCE: I think I've got a pretty good, pretty good vision.

I'm looking forward to being surprised though.

AL: I went back to the nursery to learn more.

I'm with Martha and Theresa, who do a lot of the heavy lifting around here.

What great place, it's a good operation, I'm amazed.

MARTHA: Thank you!

AL: How big is it?

MARTHA: Including both our retail and production areas, there's, it's about five acres that we have in operation here.

AL: What kind of things are you doing here?

THERESA: So in the production area we have a tree production where we grow out container grown trees.

We have a line of greenhouses where we seed and grow out perennials.

We have a shrub area out front, and then in the retail area is where all of our ready to buy plants are located so you can take them all home.

AL: Well it's really pretty, you mind showing me around?

MARTHA: Sure, absolutely.

AL: Okay!

MARTHA: Love to.

AL: Oh Martha, look at these nice grasses.

Got a little one here, what's this?

MARTHA: Yeah, this is purple love grass.

AL: And this is a really tall grass here, what is this?

MARTHA: This is the panicum virgatum, it's a switchgrass variety called 'heavy metal', and as you can see it gets nice and big and can take lots of moisture.

AL: When I'm planning a garden, I pay attention to color, and something like this dark red shrub catches my eye, what is it?

THERESA: This is called nine bark, and it's a cultivar called 'summer wine'.

AL: Oh, I like that!

(laughing).

Look at that color on this one, what is this one?

MARTHA: This is Chelone lyonia uh, otherwise known as 'hot lips' or 'pink turtlehead'.

AL: Ah, mm-hm.

MARTHA: And it's a great perennial um, because it can do moist to a dry soil, and has good year-round interest.

AL: Not only is landscaping good for making our gardens more beautiful, it's good for the environment.

On Kent Island, Unity Church Hill Nursery have designed and built a shoreline restoration project.

Lucas Lees tackled the problems of protecting this environmentally sensitive shoreline.

LUCAS: This was just planted this summer.

AL: What are these grasses that I see here?

LUCAS: What you're seeing, two types of grasses primarily.

Spartina alterniflora, and spartina patens.

The root mass on these plants run incredibly deep, probably two to three times what you see above the surface.

AL: These native species are happy living near the brackish Bay water.

Their long term survival is assured by the stout sea wall built on the beach.

LUCAS: So this system will continue to provide stability, uh in, in moving forward.

That it can ultimately recede over time with the changing conditions, or adapt accordingly.

AL: Native species excel at thriving in their intended environment.

Whether on the shore, or in a residential garden.

Martha, if the folks at home wanted to plant a native species garden, you have some selections here that would be a good starting place.

What do we have?

MARTHA: Yeah that's right, we have um six plants here that we selected for full sun, average to dry soil.

Um, on the end here we have little blue stem, which is a native grass.

We have three varieties of Echinacea, we have black-eyed Susan, as well as a pentstemon, which is a favorite of the hummingbirds.

Baptisia, and then here we have a New England aster.

AL: Oh, they're all beautiful.

It's amazing how much color you can get into a native species garden.

We'd like to put all this information on our web site so people can check it out at home.

MARTHA: That sounds great.

AL: Go to mpt.org/farm and give it a try.

For The Local Buy I'm Al Spoler.

Joanne?

JOANNE: Thanks, Al.

Be sure to check out mpt.org/farm for all our recipes and resources.

Plus you can watch all "Farm and Harvest" episodes there as well.

Also, don't forget to follow us on social media for show updates, pictures, and videos.

Now hold on, we're not done yet.

Remember our thingamajig?

Did you guess it?

Our hint was, it's not an oversized key chain, but it is the key to control.

This is a bull nose ring.

Nose rings were used to control bulls, and occasionally cows, and to help wean young cattle by preventing suckling.

At shows or auctions, bull handlers attach a lead to the ring in a bull's nose, to make it safe for everyone, including the bull.

Congratulations if you got it right.

Join us next week for another thingamajig, along with more stories about the diverse, passionate people who feed our state.

I'm Joanne Clendining, thanks for watching.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Major funding for "Maryland Farm & Harvest" is made possible in part by, the Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board, investing in smarter farming to support safe and affordable food, feed and fuel and a healthy Bay.

Additional funding provided by: Maryland's Best, good for you, good for Maryland.

Rural Maryland Council, a collective voice for rural Maryland.

MARBIDCO, helping to sustain food and fiber enterprise for future generations.

A grant from the Maryland Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Program.

Farm Credit, lending support to agriculture and rural America.

The Maryland Soybean Board and Soybean Checkoff Program, progress powered by farmers.

Wegmans Food Markets, healthier, better lives through food.

The Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

CHILD: The Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation, promoting the importance of agriculture in our daily lives.

NARRATOR: And by, The Maryland Nursery, Landscape and Greenhouse Association.

The Maryland Seafood Marketing fund.

The Maryland Farm Bureau Incorporated.

The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

And by... ♪ ♪