My technical advisor for the Organic Weed Control in Perennial Navajo Tea Greenthread Project is Charles Martin of the NMSU Alcalde Science Center in northern New Mexico. Charles is personally and professionally devoted to nurturing the role of traditional herbs in the landscape of New Mexican small farms. It is a long haul from Alcalde to near the AZ border, but he never shows any lack of enthusiasm for this project. “This is a good crop of cota.” he tells me, as we log each sample’s weight. I try to count my chickens before they are hatched of course, projecting totals based on the widely varying sample weights.
We brought in anywhere from 5lbs to nearly 20lbs fresh weight from the 20 samples, each from 50′ rows. There are 5,000 row feet in this zone, the best of the three equal sized zones.
Charles Martin advises on the technical aspects of sampling the first harvest.
A hanging scale is used to wiegh each sample from the first harvest.