AgBioResearch Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center

Right now, you may be wondering why they wanted to study muck farming.

Well, Michigan has roughly 4 million acres of soil that is considered muck. Given the amount of land that could yield crops and generate revenue, there was growing interest across the state in learning how to farm these soils, so the Muck Farm was started in 1941. Carrots, potatoes, onions, and mint were some of the main things grown and studied here. In fact, Michigan is still one of the top five carrot producers and one of the top ten potato producers in the US!

In addition to growing, the farm also conducted research on things that damage or ruin crops like diseases or insects. One example is Potato Blight – a fungus that makes potato crops inedible. They also studied experimental pesticides and herbicides on the crops here.

Lots of people worked at the farm over the years, many of them local high school and college students who helped care for the land during the summer growing season. Often their work consisted of pulling weeds around the crops. Looking at the marsh now, try and imagine rows of crops growing right here and students crawling around pulling weeds from under those rows.

Today, you likely see water in the former plots – that water is what makes muck soils different and good for farming – but it also makes them difficult to farm. Remember, these are marshes, so to farm muck, the water has to be removed or it will drown the plant roots. The ditches we are walking around today were created for this purpose, and the small buildings you see in the marsh are pump houses. The pumps were used to move the water from the marsh to the ditches so the soil could dry. This modification of the land allowed for farming and research to take place and contributed to better understanding about how to grow vegetables in these kinds of areas around the state and beyond.

As the water removal continued, the muck began to shrink and disappear over time, this is known as subsidence. This subsidence, in addition to heavier rain events that have been occurring in recent years, led to more frequent and longer lasting flood events at the farm that would often damage or kill the crops. Eventually these events changed the landscape and limited the research opportunities at the farm.

In addition to increased flooding on the landscape, general interest in muck soil research declined across the state, ultimately resulting in The Muck Farm’s closure in 2012 – after 70 years as a research farm.

As farm operations ended, active management of the landscape stopped, and the site began to transition. Looking at it now, it’s hard to believe that not long ago this was all crops. Now let’s head out of the former farm plots and take a look from outside the old fence line.