CT innovators

Kaisers of Singing Frogs Farm in Sebastopol, CA recognized as CASI 2017 Farmer Innovators!

Michael McRee of Chowchilla, CA receives 2017 CASI Farmer Innovator recognition

2016 Conservation Agriculture Technical Support Innovator Award recipient is Steve Gruenwald. 

The recipient of the Farmer Support Innovator Award for 2016 is Ladi Asgill.

The recipient of the Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation Center’s Farmer Technical Support Innovator Award for 2016 is Mike Winemiller.

Mike Vereschagin, a fourth-generation Glenn County farmer, is a 2016 CT Innovator of the Year.

On Wednesday, December 2^nd of 2015,  our CASI Conservation Tillage Farmer Innovator recognition was posthumously awarded to Charlie Rominger in a very moving and memorable ceremony that took place at the home of Charlie’s brother, Bruce Rominger and his wife, Robyn, just north of Winters, CA.  About ten members of the Rominger family and over forty others who had known Charlie were in attendance.

The recipients of the California Conservation Agriculture Farmer Innovator Awards for 2014 are Darrell and Trevor Cordova of Denair, CA.  They are recognized for their tenacious dedication to improved performance no-tillage and precision irrigation systems at their farm in the foothills in eastern Stanislaus County.

The 2013 CT Industry Award recipient is Ralph Cesena, Sr., president of Cesena Distributing of Stockton, Calif.

Ron Harben is one of our founding and most stalwart workgroup members. He has made truly exceptional contributions and exhibited phenomenal dedication to conservation agriculture in California.

Danny Ramos is the manager for The Morningstar Company’s Lucero Farms Central San Joaquin Valley crop production activities.  He is responsible for the company’s farming operations and is also the one who develops efficient production paradigms for crop productivity and quality for the largest processing tomato production company in the world.  The tremendous initiatives that he has instituted within Morningstar during the past few years in terms of implementing a whole host of conservation tillage practices for tomatoes, corn and cover crops are nothing short of phenomenal and abundantly qualify him for our Workgroup’s 2013 Conservation Tillage Farmer Innovator Award.

Gary Martin - 2012 Conservation Tillage Farmer Innovator Award

A 2011 CT Farmer Innovator Award recipient is Fritz Durst, the owner of Tule Farms in the Dunnigan Hills in Yolo County. 

The CT Farmer Innovator awards for 2011 go to Steve Fortner and Fred Leavitt of Sun Pacific Farming in Exeter, Calif. Together, they have developed and successfully refined state-of-the-art tomato production systems that employ strip-tillage with winter cover crops.

A 2011 CT Farmer Innovator Award goes to Michael Crowell of Bar Vee Dairy in Turlock, Calif. This award acknowledges the outstanding and pioneering work he has done to develop and expand no-till dairy forage production systems not only at his dairy, but also throughout the Turlock region, and also recognizes the very generous contributions he has made to achieving the goals of California’s Conservation Cropping Systems Workgroup.

John Diener, the owner of Red Rock Ranch in Five Points, Calif., was named the 2010 CT Innovator by the Conservation Tillage and Cropping Systems Workgroup. He has been an articulate spokesperson for Central Valley agriculture over the years, and a demonstrated leader in a variety of civic, research and policy arenas.

Alan Sano is the co-owner of Sano Farm, a 4,000-acre farm in western Fresno County. Jesse Sanchez is the farm manager. Together, they have developed revolutionary tomato production systems that are based on conservation tillage, the inclusion of off-season cover crops, and highly efficient and innovative management.

Sano and Sanchez have made advances in CT systems for a crop that previously has not had reduced till practices available. The essence of their innovative CT system involves permanent, 60-inch tomato beds, subsurface drip irrigation, winter cover crops (when water allocations have been sufficient to allow their growth), strip-tillage in the tomato transplant line, and minimal postharvest tillage.

Giacomazzi epitomizes the intent of this prestigious CT workgroup award and he continues, and indeed enhances, our tradition of acknowledging truly outstanding innovation and achievement.