Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 8-16, it's FLX Morning, the Tuesday edition, it's time for our monthly visit with Ontario County Cooperative Extension, Jacob Maslin's with us in studio, good morning.
Jacob Maslyn: Good morning Ted, how are you?
Paul Szmal: Good, big day, our big year coming up for Camp Bristol Hills, 4-H Camp Bristol Hills turns 100 in 2025, so what's on the agenda to celebrate?
Jacob Maslyn: Yeah, so camp has a lot of things planned for next year to celebrate the 100th centennial year, the camp's open on January 1st, as many people know, but some of the special events we're planning is like a family camping event, a gala, and maybe a backyard ultra running event, more news to come.
Paul Szmal: And just what a great experience for these campers to be able to have a facility like that, it's just so beautiful.
Jacob Maslyn: Yeah, I know, Camp Bristol Hills is really great, really great during the summer and everything. Now you're also going to do, you have a celebration planned at Rebel Sailor Brewing in Manchester later on this year.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, so there's a fundraising event January 23rd at Rebel Sailor, and all the proceeds will go to camp and support camp. And again, you can sign up starting January 1st and you'll get a free t-shirt if you sign up early, and about how many campers come through in a year?
Jacob Maslyn: I think about 700 campers come through in a year, yeah, and it's been more and more since COVID.
Paul Szmal: Wow, that's amazing. Now coming up, you've got a beginning farmer course called Launching Your Business, Finding the Right Guidance. And you're conducting that with some help from a colleague from Wayne County Cooperative Extension, and it goes into a lot of things that farmers might not think about in terms of loan applications and business plans and paperwork and stuff, so tell us about this program.
Jacob Maslyn: Yeah, so I'm pretty excited to bring this program to Ontario and Wayne County. We're going to have a panel discussion with some loan officers, some from traditional banking and from non-profit banking, or USDA, I should say, and small business loan. And then we also have an expert from the Cornell Center of Excellence, so they give out business advice. So it's going to be really great. If you're a future aspiring entrepreneur and you want to get some questions answered and you just don't know where to go, we're going to help flush out all the information right in front of you. And we'll have dinner too, so $10 for dinner, RSVP, it's in person at Farm Credit in Phelps.
Paul Szmal: Now this is right up your alley in economic development. Is there any particular thing that people, you see, that forget a lot or don't think of when they're thinking of starting some kind of an ag business?
Jacob Maslyn: I think the biggest thing is starting out on the right foot and having a business plan. How do you develop a business plan and what kind of aspects should you include in a business plan? Maybe your business plan shouldn't be like, you know, it doesn't have to be 30 pages or more, you know, that's kind of a lot. What should I have in that couple pages and what does that loan officer really need to know and what are my goals as far as starting a business and going forward?
Paul Szmal: Starting in February, you've got pesticide class. Is it a state license or federal license or both that you need to get to apply some of these pesticides?
Jacob Maslyn: Yeah, so this is something our office does every year. Russ Walzer teaches the pesticide course and this is kind of your core credits, your beginning course. He'll teach you and it's a state certified program and then every year you have to get more certification. So every five years you have to be, you have to have at least 10 credits and you can't get all 10 within the same number of years. So again, you can go to the website by the way and the website is, I always forget whether it's org or what, cceontario.org, there we go, and you can look on the events calendar to sign up for all these things we're talking about.
Paul Szmal: The Master Gardeners are doing some Zoom programs. First on January 15th, creating a fresh herb garden.
Jacob Maslyn: Yes, the Master Gardeners are experts in the field and they're doing these Zooms over the winter, fresh herb garden, beekeepers garden, pollinator container garden, and choosing your shrubs responsibly. So they can also answer any of your questions related to gardening and that will go right into May, which it's funny to talk about May already, but then we have our plant sale in May with the Master Gardeners.
Paul Szmal: Now I know, I was just reading something the other day talking about how important bees are that if they, if their population gets endangered, it can endanger all of us.
Jacob Maslyn: Yeah, so bees are an essential part of, you know, a lot of fruit and vegetable production in the Finger Lakes, especially apples, you know, a lot of bees come in from out of state to pollinate those apples and they are pretty essential to our ecosystem, as the native pollinators are also.
Paul Szmal: I was going to say on February 26th is choosing shrubs responsibly. Is that talking about native versus imports and things like that?
Jacob Maslyn: I'm not sure exactly all the things they'll get into. I think it's more talking about what do I do with shrubs in front of my house, shady spots in my house, and what about older shrubs that might need pruning and how should I choose a new shrub?
Paul Szmal: So those are being done on Zoom by the Master Gardeners, creating a fresh herb garden January 15th, a beekeepers garden January 22nd, pollinator container garden on February 12th, and choosing shrubs responsibly February 26th.
We're getting a little bit late into Christmas tree season, but there are people that get them late. And you just did a whole article about the Christmas tree farming industry in New York. So tell us a little bit about the scope of this industry in New York State.
Jacob Maslyn: Yeah, so I get pretty excited about Christmas trees also, but Christmas tree season starts around Thanksgiving, that first weekend, and that's when a lot of people get their trees. But I know people go right up to Christmas Eve and get their tree if they have to. But Christmas trees came into the U.S. by German tradition, like about 200 years ago. And the first president to bring their Christmas tree in the house was, oh, now I'm forgetting. But the Christmas trees are an essential part of the Christmas season. If you want to read the article I wrote, you can go to our social media. It's on Facebook. It also should be in your local paper. But it goes all into Christmas tree production, how the Christmas tree starts from a seed and goes 7 to 10 years before you can cut it down for your house. And it's really fun. And I wrote it from the tree's perspective, so the tree can kind of tell you about it.
Paul Szmal: You have to be a very good manager to have a Christmas tree farm, because you've always got to have new inventory in the ground to replace what gets cut. And so there's a lot of management and timing involved there.
Jacob Maslyn: Yeah, so for example, a Christmas tree farm with about 7,000 to 8,000 trees can only really sell 1,000 trees a season. That's kind of a lot, it seems like, for New York. But 1,000 trees goes quick when everybody wants one. So yeah, you have to manage your inventory, because everybody wants the same height of tree. You want a 7 or 8 foot tree, you have an 8.5 foot ceiling. Not many people want those monstrous trees, over 9 feet. Some do. And you have to have those in stock also. And then the people who live in apartments would all want a 4 or 5 foot tree. So you have to take all that into account, and it can be kind of tough.
Paul Szmal: We always talk about growing weather for things like grapes or corn and beans and field crops. Is there a particular sort of weather that Christmas trees like the best?
Jacob Maslyn: Well, they like our climate, you know, colder winters especially. But actually, Christmas trees are grown in all 50 states. So they can be grown, they're a pretty versatile tree when it comes to trees. But overall, I think there's a lot more tree production grown in higher altitudes south of us than our area in Canada, especially. So a lot of our seedlings might come out of Canada, I believe. And I know we have a lot of great farms here in the Finger Lakes.
Paul Szmal: And I think there's a, isn't there a state association?
Jacob Maslyn: I think there's a state association that has a website to help you find, especially if you like to do the UCUT.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, so you can go on our local tourism website and find some UCUT operations locally in Ontario County. But our state should have a website too from the National Christmas Tree Association. And they should have a more comprehensive list across the state, and then across the nation also, because they're a national group.
And fun fact, the National Christmas Tree Association supplies the president with the grand champion tree every year.
Jacob Maslyn: I didn't know, I just saw this the other day, I think, is it the Rockefeller Center tree that they cut into boards for habitat?
Paul Szmal: Oh, I do not know that. I think it was either the White House tree, I think it was Rockefeller Center, that apparently every year they take the timber from that and it goes to Habitat for Humanity to build houses.
Jacob Maslyn: That's a good fun fact.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, that's pretty cool. All these things we talked about, and plenty more on the website, it's cceontario.org. Thanks for the visit, we appreciate it, and happy 100th for 4-H Bristol Hills this year. I'm sure we'll talk about that a lot.
Jacob Maslyn: Thanks for having me, Ted.
Paul Szmal: Alright, always appreciate it. It is coming up to 825 here on the Tuesday of Alex Mourning.
