Tir Bluen

TIr Bluen's Mission:
To explore and adapt agricultural techniques for the arid high plains allowing for the responsible continued use of the grass and farm land irrespective of climate while providing real economic opportunity and vitality for farms and ranches of all sizes in conjunction with providing local fresh food and farm outreach.

Tir Bluen's Vision
To utilize the principles of regenerative agriculture and ecofarming to adapt techniques such as no-till farming, cover crops, mob and rotational grazing, cross cropping, pasture cropping, drip irrigation, rainwater harvesting, and land race breeding to establish strong robust farms and ranches on the high plains that produce high quality, locally grown food and operate irrespective of most climate and economic shifts.

Tir Bluen's History:
Tir Bluen was started in 2013 by Justin Trammell. Justin was born and raised in the Panhandle spending most of his life in and around Canyon and Amarillo.He grew up on the family farm spending his childhood catching insects and reptiles, watching birds, and tending to cattle. He graduated from Canyon High School after which he attended West Texas A&M University where he got his degree in wildlife biology. While getting his degree Justin became fascinated with the wildlife agriculture conflict and went on to devote two years in graduate school exploring employment possibilities concerning that issue. He quickly discovered that the best way to pursue his interests and provide education as well as a living for his future family would be to start Tir Bluen, his 3 acre farm in 2013. While beginning his endeavors he married his beautiful wife, Whitney. Since 2011 Justin has began to explore what it might look like to be a sustainable agriculture operation on the high plains.

The terms regenerative agriculture and ecofarming are relatively new terms however we at Tir Bluen feel that they are the philosophies and concepts that best describe our agriculture operation.

Regenerative Agriculture is the practice of using agriculture (grazing of livestock, no-till farming, special plant varieties, ect) to restore the ecological function of a piece of land. Very often this mainly refers to grasslands however different methods can be used which combine the fore-mentioned practices. It seeks to bring out the lands full productive potential by maximizing soil health and using the ecosystems original patterns (Grazing systems modeled after bison, fire, ect.) cooperatively with agriculture production. An example of this is I use my meat birds (chickens) to increase organic matter in my soil while at the same time providing a good portion of their feed bill. They will be in 12 ft diameter huts that hold ~ 50 birds each. They will be moved daily and will not revisit the same plot within a 1 month period. I also plan to use my sheep to take care of some desiccated old world bluestem and any excessive cover crop or agriculture weed growth.

Ecofarming is eternal no-till, continuous live cover, and other best practices. It seeks to eliminate tillage as much as possible. This method also focuses on soil health and increasing the soil organic matter. I exercise this on my farm by eliminating tilling except for exactly where the rows lie. While I did not have live cover this winter I did put down hay which will mimic having live cover and also provide a boost to the soil organic matter. I will plant my vegetables during the season and as it winds down I will plant a cover crop mix with wheat and other plants that will grow during the winter. In conjunction to the no till I will also utilize a low flow drip system under the hay cover which should extremely limit the amount of water needed to make my vegetables productive.

Both practices center around soil health. According to the NRCS tillage is the equivalent of an earthquake, hurricane, tornado and forest fire occurring simultaneously to the world of soil microbes. Simply stated tillage is bad for the soil. (http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs144p2_030943.pdf)

Healthy soil is the key to agriculture, if your soil is healthy microbes and invertebrates can provide nutrients for your plants and help keep pests numbers down which in turn gives you healthy plants which leads to healthier crops and healthier animals which leads to a reduction (or in many cases complete elimination) of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, fertilizers, basically all chemicals. This in turn leads to a smaller economic input which gives the producer a larger profit margin which helps the producer have a more stable operation which leads to reasonable prices all in turn lead to a quality local food product on your table.



CSA's (community supported agriculture) are a coop based system to sell locally produced agriculture products. CSA's are very popular in the midwest as well as the east and west coasts. CSA's work by patrons (or members) buying shares of whatever product they are interested in at the farm. This allows the patrons to know where and how their food is produced and gives them a connection to the land. This basically includes any agricultural product you can think of from produce and beef to eggs and honey. I strongly believe CSA's can provide a means to move back to small farm and ranch operations that produce food for the local area. I feel this will be extremely important in the panhandle as we begin to face the issues of climate change and dwindling aquifers. CSA's also tend to be more sustainable and Eco-friendly (and often Eco-enriching) than large agricultural operations.