Our Maine Street's Aroostook Issue 22 : Fall 2014 | Page 9

One Hundred Years Old and Going Strong:

The University of Maine’s

Aroostook Farm
By Catherine Shaw Bowker

On U.S. 1 about one mile south of UMPI is the Aroostook
Farm, one of five experimental farms operated by the
University of Maine’s College of Natural Sciences, Forestry
and Agriculture. Most of us have likely driven past the
complex at some point and if not for the blue and gold
signs at its entrances, may have thought it to be just another
potato farm. If you are like me, you know there is some sort
of research occurring at the farm, but do not know what
kinds of research. When I had an opportunity to tour the
farm in August during its Centennial Celebration, I quickly
took advantage.
In preparation for my visit and to gather some background
information for this article, I did a bit of research. The idea
for the farm began in 1912 after a group of County farmers
petitioned the Maine legislature to create a research farm
in Aroostook to study soil, climate, and cropping practices
in the area. The original 275 acre farm, then known as the
Greenwood Farm, was purchased in 1914 and the Aroostook
Farm was established. Over the years, the farm expanded to
its current 475 acres. In addition, the farm owns three acres
of land at UMPI which it uses for additional crop space,
and it rents an 80-acre plot which is uses strictly for seedling
plantings. As the physical space grew so did the focus of
the farm’s research. Originally, researchers studied tillage
practices; today they study virus and pest management,
breeding, marketing and culinary aspects of the industry, and
potato storage.
The farm consists of several major buildings: a lab building
which houses four individual laboratories, three greenhouses,
a potato storage research building, offices, and the farm
superintendent’s house. I expected my tour to focus on the
greenhouses and labs, but such was not the case. At first
disappointed that I would not be witnessing the scientists at
their work, I was soon engrossed in the presentations of Aaron
Buzza, etymologist and Dr. Gregory Porter, agronomist.
Conducted in the farm’s fields, the presentations focused on
the farm’s current research on pest management and potato
breeding.
Besides pest collection, this region of the farm also studies
pest control. The researchers are studying pesticides with a
hope of not just determining which are the most effective,
but also trying to identify more environmentally friendly
chemicals and chemicals that don’t kill beneficial insects
such as ladybugs which eat aphids. To test the chemicals
a crop is divided into three sections; one section has no
chemical applied, one is treated with the current industry
standard chemical, and the third section is treated with the

test chemical. The Aroostook Farm is the largest insecticide
testing program in New England.
Armed with my new knowledge of aphids and insecticides,
I headed back toward the farm proper to learn about
potato breeding. Conducting his talk next to a field of trial
potatoes, Dr. Gregory Porter, an agronomist and professor
at the University of Maine in Orono, explained the various
breeding research projects at the farm.
One of the major breeding experiments is developing new
potato varieties. This is a long process, taking a total of tens year
to build a seed crop. The process starts with cross pollination
of