County Horticulture Demonstrations
Container Gardening with New Potatoes 
Location: Marshall, AR | Searcy County
The purpose of this research is to see if it's possible to grow potatoes in milk jugs for a cost-effective solution for people who have trouble bending or lifting a pot to harvest potatoes.
Will New Potatoes grow in a milk jug?
Fruit Tree Training and Pruning Workshop
Location: Searcy, AR | White County
The Orchard Project is a community-based hunger program focused on providing sustainable
long-term food sources for individuals locally by planting perennial crops such as
small fruits and fruit trees. Currently they have a half-acre orchard at 1211 West
Vine Street and one at 110 North Oak in Searcy planted with blueberries, raspberries,
muscadines, a variety of apples, mulberries, pears, apricots, plums, and peaches.
The location on Vine street is a busy pathway for high school students (around 50)
who walk to school every day. This is located in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood
and the families struggle to put food on the table. The orchard is there to help provide
fresh fruit for anyone, especially the youth on their way to and from school. See
the workshop below.
Fruit Tree Training and Pruning Demonstration
Blackberry Demonstration - Primocane and Traditional Blackberries
Location: Searcy, AR | White County
The blackberries demonstrations were planted in 2017 with Osage, Ouachita and Prime-Ark® Traveler being the three main varieties used in our location. Tissue culture plug plants were used for the Osage, Ouachita and Prime-Ark® Traveler plantings. A standard fertility and pest management program was utilized and plants were allowed to establish over the 2018 season. During the 2019-2020 seasons the berries were harvested over several weeks and recorded the average weight of individual berries and recorded their observations.
Blackberry Demonstration - Primocane and Traditional Blackberries (multi-year project)
Tri-County Pecan Orchard Demonstration
Location: Prairie, Lonoke and White Counties
The tri-county pecan orchard demo was a collaborative effort between Prairie, Lonoke
and White county and born from a basic pecan growers informational meeting the group
conducted. The pecan orchard was soil sampled on April 9th and recommendations were
made on overall fertilization. An initial fertilizer application of 350 lbs. of 30-46-60-1-12
was made. The demo was marked and trees to be included in the demo were selected.
Read the rest of the demonstration in the PDF below.
Tri-County Pecan Orchard Demonstration
No-Till Watermelon Demo
Location: Bentonville, AR |Benton County
This trial demonstrated a reduction in tillage, weed pressure, and synthetic mulch
while maintaining yield and increasing fruit cleanliness. This demonstration was an
attempt to reduce the time and frustration caused by removing plastic mulch from the
field after harvest.
No-Till Watermelon Demonstration
Summer Hedging Blueberries
Location: Benton County
This demonstration used hedge trimmers to cut blueberry plants back to 3' tall directly
after harvest. This practice is common in North Carolina, but is not done in Arkansas.
This trial was conducted to see if summer hedging should be a recommended practice
for commercial producers in Arkansas.
Summer Hedging Blueberries Demonstration