Page 52 - 03-May-2024

But, out of practicality, Rosychuk initially turned to the trades: first welding (handy, he thought, for fixing farm machinery), then boiler making. (Now he moonlights in upper management in Alberta’s oil patch.) But he also studied horticulture at Olds College, where he gravitated toward organic practices.
“Oh, this is who I am,” he recalls.
As an expression of that, Rosy Farms is an 80-acre exercise in regenerative agriculture, a method that creates the conditions for nature to do as much of the work as possible, and improve the land. Pest control, for example, falls
to a squadron of barn swallows that shelter in a big, boxy birdhouse atop a fencepost. Instead of berries, they go for the bugs the bushes attract, snatching up about 850 a day. “They’re just little acrobats,” says Rosychuk.
Similarly, crop pollination is enhanced by native bees attracted to a surrounding shelterbelt Rosychuk planted, a mini-forest of 15 types of flowering trees and shrubs.
Adelle Gascon in the Rosy Farms market
What’s going on below ground is just as important. Rosychuk doesn’t till the soil so as to not to disrupt the delicate network of wormholes, air pockets and a type of fungi that delivers nutrients
to plant roots. The soil is further safe- guarded by a dense groundcover including
clovers and fescues (grasses). And deer are welcome among the haskaps; trim- ming and fertilizing by grazers promotes root growth.
For his efforts, Rosychuk can see as much as 70,000 pounds of fruit annually.
Some young agrarians see his approach