Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Hello and welcome to the Mulch Matters podcast where we will explore the intriguing world of mulch and its impact on agriculture and the environment, as well as update you on the latest research about soil-biodegradable mulch and recycling options for plastic mulch. I am your host, Dr. Nataliya Shcherbatyuk, and I am a Research Associate working on the project, “Improving end-of-life management of plastic mulch in strawberry system”. In each episode, we’ll dive into the latest research, trends, news, and insights on why mulch matters and how we can improve plastic mulch end-of-life options. We’ll also branch out and discuss other plastics as well as talk to researchers, experts, and practitioners in the field who will share their insights and experiences on how to use mulch effectively in different settings.
[00:01:02] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Welcome back to another episode of Mulch Matters podcast. Today we have a conversation with the CEO of Southern Waste Information Exchange. This is nonprofit organization which has been operating since 1981, and it’s been assisting businesses and municipalities with their waste management issues. Gene Jones, welcome. Hi, Gene. How are you?
[00:01:33] Gene Jones: I’m doing fine. How are you doing?
[00:01:35] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: I’m doing great. I’m doing great. It’s so nice to have you here on our podcast.
[00:01:41] Gene Jones: Honored.
[00:01:42] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Thank you. Thank you so much. So, can we start by you telling our listeners first a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you do, what excites you to work with what you do?
[00:01:56] Gene Jones: Sure. You know, my 30-second elevator pitch is: first off, my name is Gene Jones. I’m the executive director for a small nonprofit here out of Tallahassee, Florida, called the Southern Waste Information Exchange. In short, I’m a waste matchmaker. I put waste generators in touch with waste users to encourage recycling and reuse of waste materials. Been doing it since 1981. Kind of hard to, hard to believe, but I’ve been at the same job for, you know, 40-45 years. Oh my God, 45 years. And it’s just something I love doing. I get a chance to work with industry and municipalities and talk about waste streams that have an opportunity for reuse, as well as, as some waste streams that are somewhat problematic in terms of how they’re handled and the recyclability of them, what, you know, some of the obstacles that are in front of certain materials and doing something with them.
[00:03:01] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Well, definitely you’re focusing on that for so many years, you must love it. And you mentioned that you’re doing that since 1981. So, is it like plastic recycling overall since then, or agricultural mulch films as well?
[00:03:18] Gene Jones: Oh, it’s been a whole host of various waste streams. On the agricultural plastic side, it really was brought into that area in 1999. The state of Florida at the time, the Department of Environment—well, it was the Department of Environmental Regulation at that point—asked me to host what’s called a technical advisory group on the subject of agricultural mulch film here in the state of Florida. There was concern about the mulch film generation here in the state of Florida and how it was being managed. And so, they wanted to know exactly, you know, what was the status of mulch film. There, unfortunately, there’s an exemption in the State Solid Waste Act, under Chapter 403 that allows the farming community to burn polyethylene film and various plastics in the field at the end of the growing season. So, there was concern about, uh, the burning of the film and how to address that issue and, you know, what could be done from a recycling standpoint. So, during that TAG, we brought in leading experts, uh, in the plastics industry, uh, as well as the agricultural community, the farming groups and discussed, you know, what the issues were.
And that kind of opened up my eyes to this issue mainly because of the volume of material that’s generated on an annual basis. As I, as I said before, you’ve got roughly 40,000 tons of this, this waste stream being generated annually and, you know, we wanna be able to try to see it recycled and reused. But unfortunately, as you dive into the issue in greater detail, you realize that there are some obstacles associated with the film itself.
[00:05:10] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Yeah, and I think we’ll be touching some of them today during our conversation. And you know, I remember that I was listening to one of your presentations a while ago, and I think you described how mulch film is still, it’s pretty commonly to be pulled by hand and pile in the fields. So, can we talk a little bit more about why has mechanization still so slow to take when we speak about this part of the production system?
[00:05:41] Gene Jones: Yeah. So, if you look at mulch films and the way they’re managed, whether that’s here in Florida or, or California there are some subtle differences in terms of the way that they’re, they’re handled. But for the most part, they are pulled by hand at the end of the growing season. The whole industry is derived of what’s called plasticulture. Um, and so you use the polyethylene film in row crop farming, um where the film is actually stretched over a, a row in the field and then kind of tucked in the ground itself.
And at the end of the growing season, the film is actually, like I said, pulled by hand. It is then either piled up where it is either then baled or in most instances it’s put on a trailer where it is then hauled off to either a landfill or in the case here in Florida, it might be piled up at, at the end of the row and, and, uh, a little diesel fuel is added to it and it’s actually burnt.
I’ve looked at, you know, ways to try to reduce the, the soil, and that’s really the issue with regard to the mulch film is the soil contamination. So, I’ve looked at ways to incorporate mechanically extractions of the film. And I know there are some folks in California, uh, Andros has developed, uh, some equipment that will actually, through their Megabinder pull the film out of the field mechanically as well. But the, but the issue with doing it more mechanical re-extraction is really convincing the farming, the farmers themselves, uh, of changing that philosophy of how they deal with it from a labor aspect of it. Um, one of the issues that has been addressed to me by some of the farmers is that they do have laborers that need to keep busy. Some of the laborers rotate from farm to farm. And so there, there is a fear from some of the farmers that if they go the mechanical route and they don’t have, um, you know, a workflow for the laborers that typically come to their sites, they, they may run the risk of losing that farm or those laborers. So, they wanna keep because they try to keep the labor basically throughout the year and not only the seasonal. They wanna be able to provide a level of workflow for the laborers, so they have something to do, and they can count on that economic stream.
[00:08:36] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Okay, that makes sense. And, you know, you mentioned Florida and that the farmers can still burn mulch film under that solid waste exemption. But I wanted to ask you what do you think are, if we speak from the environmental and soil health perspective and implications, what do you think how that impacts environment and soil health in these practices?
[00:09:04] Gene Jones: Yeah, yeah, it’s funny you ask that. Just from a common sense, it without looking at the science behind it, I think everybody would say, you know, it’s probably not a good idea to burn plastics in the field that you’re gonna grow your next set of crops in. That’s just common sense to me. There is some research being conducted now here in the state of Florida to look at what are the true environmental detriments to burning mulch film in the field. And, uh, you can kind of think of it several different ways.
You can think of it from the standpoint of air emissions, what particulates are being released by burning of the film into the air. You can look at it from a contaminant standpoint of what are the effects to soil, uh, where you’re b…burning petroleum products in the field. Um, what are the effects on groundwater. What happens if you’ve got, you know, stormwater, uh, you know, rainwater runs off, uh, that could potentially get into groundwater? What are the effects there? Um, another issue might be what’s the potential uptake of contaminants into the plants themselves, and does that transverse into the fruits and vegetables that are being grown?
So, I think this issue, at least here in the state of Florida, is being looked at in greater detail. Um, and I hope that will open up some eyes of the farming community and maybe some of the legislators to you know, come to the understanding that burning of the film is probably not the best way to manage it, and there, there are other ways to manage the film.
[00:10:45] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: And, you know, just a follow-up question to this, uh, for our listeners to sort of have a clear picture of this burning, just to understand, it’s the open basically open fire in the field, right? It’s not like there is a designated spot in the field or there is some sort of structure. So, let’s say at the end of the field there is a pile of mulch and let’s burn it. Is that, is that how I imagine correctly?
[00:11:13] Gene Jones: Yeah. And now it. There are some areas, some farms in, in the state of Florida that they collectively bring their mulch film to, and they will burn in one location. But by the vast majority of farms here in the state that are burning, they basically just pull the mulch film down to the end of the row or the start of the row, uh, and pile it up, uh, in individual small piles, add a little diesel fuel to it and then burn it. And that uh, is, is basically volume reduction is what they’re, what they’re doing is reducing the amount of material that they then have to handle. Once they burn, that residual is either plowed into the field or the small amount of unburnt plastic that might be there, they’ll pile up, um, and either take to another area on the site or perhaps send it to a landfill.
[00:12:06] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Oh, I see. I see. Okay, moving forward with that. So, you’ve done a lot of studies, and I know that you found that contamination levels as high as 72, 74% in Florida mulch film samples. And can you expand a little bit on this and explain why soil moisture and biofilms accumulation are so severe in there?
[00:12:36] Gene Jones: Yeah. So then, you know, that’s this whole issue of the level of soil contamination really hit home to me. When I first got involved in this and we were pulling mulch film out of the field, we actually got a grant to look at, right, well, how can you foster market development? And if you’re gonna be shipping mulch film to potential end, um, you know, end user, you’ve gotta be able to bale it, right? So, you’ve gotta have density to, um, into the, the shipping loads, right? So, you will bale the film and then stack it in a, on a flatbed trailer or in a box truck and send it off to the end processor. And what really came to me is what you think is a nice bale of plastic film is far from it. And so, if you, if you look at the end markets, I’ve had brokers, uh, that have tried to get rid of the film, uh, here in the state of Florida tell me the contamination level, soil level is, like, 25%, 50%.
[00:13:43] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Uh, really?
[00:13:44] Gene Jones: Yeah. And so, I wanted to see it firsthand myself. And so, um, I took some film and had it shredded up. And then, you know, if you’re in the pesticide arena, they do something what’s called triple rinsing once the pesticide container is empty. Uh, to pull out the residual that might be in, in the pesticides or herbicides that might be in those plastic containers. Um, and then once it’s, you know, triple rinsed, they can then process it, basically shred it up, um, and move forward with recycling. I replicated that idea. So, I took some mulch, uh, or some shredded film and triple rinsed it. Um, I had three, uh, baths, of water, and I started off from the first one, soaked my shredded film, took the film out of that, moved it into the next one, washed it around. Um, took the film out of that, put it in the third, washed it around.
And as you go through this process, you realize that you’re dropping out a lot of the contaminants. And then you took them from the third bath, you took the film out and you, you know, kind of rinse it and you let it dry. And then you go through and your de-water the first three baths and separate out what’s, what’s there at the end.
I basically strained off the, the soil, let it dry. I then de-watered, uh, the, the baths themselves. Um, and you’ve got some very, very fine particulate that’s left in those particular containers which I combined and then I did the analysis. And what, what came to, um, you know, the eye-opening aspect to me is the amount of soil that’s there.
So, of the one sample that I did—and I did this the first time, a one-pound sample—so I had 16 ounces of shredded film. And I ran my analysis and lo-and-behold, of those 16 ounces I got 4 ounces of film.
[00:15:54] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Oh, okay.
[00:15:54] Gene Jones: Eight ounces of soil. Um, and then the fine particulate, uh, it’s a mixture of very fine, uh, soils, biofilm. Um, and so the ultimate result was it’s, you’ve got roughly 72 to 74% soil and moisture contamination with mulch films. And so, I replicated that test 10 times and l…and every time I hit the same number within, you know, within that 72 to 74%. Now, I realize it will vary from what area you’re in country, location, but for Florida soil, specifically in the South Florida area, those numbers are real and they don’t, they don’t vary that much.
[00:16:42] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Now, why do you think that contamination is so high? Is it having something to do with the soil moisture itself and the conditions in Florida?
[00:16:52] Gene Jones: It has to do with the ground contact of the film itself. I explained that the way that that film is laid over the row in the field, it’s then tucked. Uh, the ends of it are tucked underneath soil. So, you’ve got ground, soil contact with the film. In addition to that, there they run the farmer run a drip tape underneath the film itself to provide water to the plants. And so that moisture accumulates underneath the surface of the layer of the mulch film with the soil. And when you start handling this, the moisture’s still there when you start pulling it out of the field, so that moisture adheres the soil to the film, so it’s kind of like sticky. Um, and when you pull it up and pile up that film, that, that moisture’s still there along with the, the soil content. So, it’s, it’s, it’s wet. So, dirty films come out of the field.
[00:17:52] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Yeah, yeah. And speaking about that, I also, um, was listening when you’ve been talking about, or reading, ’cause I’ve been reading tons of your stuff as well, that you’ve been experimenting with, for example, letting mulch dry in the field before actually pulling it out, yeah?
[00:18:11] Gene Jones: Yeah.
[00:18:11] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: And can you tell us how effective this approach is basically in reducing the soil load we just spoke about, and what are the limitations that we need to consider?
[00:18:23] Gene Jones: Yeah. So, when we got involved in looking at how you extract the film out of the field, we want to leave that soil level in the field. It’s topsoil, right? So, there’s no better place for that topsoil to be than in the field itself. Uh, we wanna leave it there. So…
[00:18:41] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Yeah.
[00:18:42] Gene Jones: …in looking at pulling the film, um, we came up with not only the methodology of how you pull mechanically and the types of rolling mechanisms that you can create to pull the film, but we also came up with a strategy, and that strategy is if you can envision, um, a level of pulling the film by hand and allowing it just to lay in the field in a linear fashion. So, if you’ve got a… a row of strawberries that’s 400 to 800 feet long, you basically pull the film up, and just as you pull it, you set it back down. Um, and you let that film sit for 15 to 20 minutes. In the Florida sun, it gets hot. Um, typically at the time of the year that they are pulling the film. Especially strawberries, I meant, uh, tomatoes, excuse me.
Tomatoes are, if they will pull in June, or they’ll pull normally in, uh, December, January timeframe. Strawberries are typically pulled in in February and March. Um, and so if they pull that film, just let it lay on the ground for 15 to 20 minutes. Once you start handling that film and rolling it from the end of the row, uh, you have a vibratory action, uh, of that film.
As it goes down the row, it’s bumping, it’s, you know, being pulled, and a good bit of that soil falls off. So, we are able to reduce that soil level substantially, um, by using that methodology. You know, the problem is a…again, convincing the farmers to do it mechanically as opposed to doing it by hand.
[00:20:30] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Yeah. You almost need something, some sort of need the side of each row to If you can imagine what I’m trying to say, it’s to basically lift up the mulch and let it hang and then take it. It just I don’t know. Yeah. Make sense?
[00:20:50] Gene Jones: Yeah, that would be one way to do it. It would, uh, I’d have to figure out how you go about doing that from hanging the film, but it,
[00:20:57] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Yeah, ’cause the problem is that it’s very, the rows are quite long and it becomes very heavy.
[00:21:03] Gene Jones: Yep.
[00:21:04] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Yeah. Well, and, well, you know, you’ve been working on this quite a bit, as you mentioned already, and you tested multiple types of equipment. So, I know you’ve been working with modified tobacco baler and potato harvester and more stuff, more binders. So which designs do you think actually shows one of the best promises when we speak for the large, large scale, uh, adoption?
[00:21:37] Gene Jones: Um, from the, from the technology that I’ve seen, the units that we, um, worked on, I worked with an, an individual by the name of Norman Milner with, um, Milner Industries, and unfortunately Norman passed away last year. So, his technology right now, um, unless somebody can come in and advance it, move it forward, um, u…unfortunately I think that, that opportunity is just gonna sit there for a while. Um, I’m, I’m confident that that technology will work. It’s relatively easy and inexpensive to create and operate. It basically hooks up to the back of a, a tractor, and you use the hydraulics to operate the rolling technology.
[00:22:23] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: So, you are looking at it.
[00:22:24] Gene Jones: Yeah. Currently right now the, the Megabinder by Andros, I think by far is, is the unit to use just from seeing it operational, um, in some of the videos that I’ve seen of what they’re doing in California, not only for the drip tape, but it is, uh, applicable to, you know, rolling various agricultural films. So, I think there’s some. So, opportunities there some equipment in France that I have seen that not only pulls the film, but it has a series of brushes. So as the film goes through the rolling process, it runs through, um, uh, uh, two brushes, one on the bottom, one on the top, that kind of sweep the soil off the film. You know, I’ve been working with Norman when we were doing the field experiments. We looked at, developing a piece of equipment that would basically go down the rows and extract the film. We’ve basically settled on the most advantageous was basically to roll from the end of the, the row, it just makes less moving of the equipment, um, and you’re able to pull from the end of the row. We you’re able to roll, you know, 800 feet relatively easily.
[00:23:45] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: So, what do you think is actually the biggest or are the biggest engineering gaps when you speak about the equipment and imagine or think about this mulch film pull from the field?
[00:24:01] Gene Jones: Probably the biggest thing to deal with that is really needed within industry is the solving of the soil contamination in the film. And that really gets to the processing end, not necessarily on the field side, ’cause I think you’re limited to what you can do in the field. But on the processing side, um, that’s where the biggest obstacle is because you’re dealing with a waste stream that is highly soil-laden, and traditional recycling equipment doesn’t like hi…highly contaminated soil materials. So, you have to think out of the box of how you process this, this material. Um, you know, what we’ve kinda tested and have kind of resolved to use is there is shredding equipment within the recycling industry. It’s not traditional plastic recycling, but there is equipment that’s used mainly in the construction and demolition debris industry, um, or yard waste industry that can shred plastics that are highly laden with soils. And so that’s what has led us down the road to, uh, look at using some of this, those C&D shredders to shred the plastic and then use that as the forefront for traditional film recycling, process that film, um, wash it if you can outside, uh, before it even goes into traditional film plant and reduce that soil level.
[00:25:34] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Yeah. And I, I was just imagining because at some point during one conversation I had someone say, “What about just shake it off?” And it has to be, we have to realize it’s not something you easily can shake off. No soil contamination from the mulch. It’s not only outside stickiness like you mentioned, it’s sticky, but it, like penetrates mulch pores into mulch texture, correct?
[00:26:06] Gene Jones: Um, if you shred and if you use high-speed shredders, so one of the experiments that we did is looking at couple of different shredding technologies. Um, one with like a two-inch screen, so we were working on a trial with a cement plant that could potentially use the film as alternative fuel, but they needed to have the film shredded down to two-inch minus in order to pneumatically blow that film into their kiln. Um, when you start shredding the mulch film down to that particulate size, you, by handling and shredding to that capacity, you’re, you’re creating heat. And by doing so, you are actually embedding some of the soil into the film itself if you shred down to that size. So, what we ended up doing, which is problematic, um, what we ended up going is, um, take the screen off, and so we’re, we were shredding, uh, the film, you know, six inches, 12 inches, um, in size, and it cuts down the friction of, you know, those, um shredder blades hitting that film and creating, you know, um, a normal heat in the process. So, you lower the embedding of the soil into the film.
[00:27:28] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Yeah. Well, and now when we speak a little bit already after the process of recycling of mulch film, and when you think about once this mulch film is being pelletized, what types of products can it realistically be turned, you know, into? What can we do with those pellets after?
[00:27:50] Gene Jones: Um, oh, there’s, there’s a host of potential end markets for the film after it’s been processed. So, uh, you could incorporate. The majority of this film is LDPE. Um, along with the drip tape, um, there are some other polymers that are used in, in the manufacturing of, of some of the films, but for the most part there, it’s LDPE.: And so, you can go back into, uh, products that LDPE traditionally goes into. I know there has been experimental, um, work with like creating railroad ties, bumper stops, you know, car parking lot stops. Um, it could go back into films. Um, in my opinion, not thin films. It could go into thicker films. Uh, trash bags. I don’t think you can blow it in, back into an agricultural mulch film that is like 1.5 to, you know, 1 mil thick. I don’t think the blowing of that film would be, um, applicable given the nature of them, what might be in those pellets. The biggest opportunity I see is on the pyrolysis side, where you’re converting that film back into petrochemicals. Um, Exxon is a great example of that through their, their pyrolysis plant that they built in, in Houston. I know the plant here in Florida, um, the process pellets that are coming out of that plant are going to Exxon.
[00:29:24] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Great. It’s good to know that there is a lot of products that can be done b…after recycling, so it’s great.
[00:29:33] Gene Jones: Yeah. And then for those, you know, the other opportunities is, I mentioned are the cement industry. Um, they can definitely use cleaner version of the process film, um, for alternative fuels. Uh, the majority of the cement plants in the U.S. burn coal. Um, the other fuel source for them is natural gas. Um, of the ones that are burning coal, they all have an interest in trying to reduce the amount of coal that they use to cut down on sulfur emissions. And this, feedstock, the agricultural plastics provide a, um, provide an opportunity for those ce…the cement industry to reduce their emissions. It’s great BTU value, British Thermal Unit value, and provides a great energy source for the cement industry.
[00:30:26] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: And I know that some members of our team are working into recycling mulch into asphalt, so it’s another op…opportunity for recycling plastic.
[00:30:37] Gene Jones: Yeah. There’s a couple of different, uh, you know, folks that are looking in this arena. You know, I mentioned Andros. Uh, there’s a company out in California called Flipping Iron. And they’ve developed, uh, a way to, you know, use some of the Andros mega binders to pull the film out of the field, and I think they are actually then at that point using either guillotines or some sort of cutting system to cut the film, uh, and then run it through some trommel screens, um, to, you know, to reduce that soil level. And then from there, they’re able to, you know, bale that film off and send it to folks that might be able to use it.
[00:31:20] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: And when we speak from policy perspective, I wanted to ask you, what do you think? What kind of policies or regulation changes or updates would be the most beneficial or would accelerate when we think about mulch film, film recycling in the United States?
[00:31:42] Gene Jones: Um, let me start off with which one I think would be the most beneficial from an environmental perspective, and that would be for the state of Florida to stop allowing the burning of mulch film in the field. Um, so that’s number one on my list. Number two, if from a regulatory perspective, what would advance, uh, the recyclability of the, the film, uh, within the industry? Um, yeah, I’ll use the term, a lot of folks may not wanna hear it, but EPR, um, is something on this particular side that, that might be beneficial. Um, ’cause I don’t see industry stepping up to the plate, though in my opinion, the way they should be to help solve the problem. Um, so if, if that’s not the case, there’s not an industry cooperative to try to help solve the problem EPR might be the way to, to address this issue and whether that be from individual states, um, which would be problematic for the manufacturers no doubt, because then they’ll have to, you know, try to keep up with what’s to, what state’s doing what. Um, be great if it was on a federal level, but I don’t, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
[00:33:00] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: And you know, it’s really great talking to you about this because you have a very special perspective on this issue and, uh, not only issue, but also developing since you’ve been in this for quite a bit of years.
[00:33:14] Gene Jones: Yes.
[00:33:14] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Thank you. And I…and I wanted to see if you looking at this on the big scale and you’re looking ahead, what do you think, what kind of innovations, and we’re talking about technical and logistical, that give you the most hope for the sustainable end-of-life pathways for mulch film?
[00:33:37] Gene Jones: Um, for me, I think the ultimate cure for this whole issue is gonna be down the paralysis side or alternative fuel side. The traditional recycling of this film is so difficult given the economic issues that the industry faces. It might be done in Europe to some degree, but in Europe things are managed completely differently than they are here in the United States. First off, our tip fees are extremely low, uh, compared to what European nations, uh, have to face. The other thing is there are, uh, various recycling schemes in Europe that provide funding, uh, for the processing. We don’t have that here on, at least for agricultural films here in the US. So, it’s up to the industry to get that is doing this too, to flip that bill. And if I can recycle a film coming out of a grocery store in a plastic bag versus the mulch film, I’m gonna go the plastic bag way because it’s less headache for me as a recycler.
[00:34:50] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: It’s cleaner.
[00:34:51] Gene Jones: Right.
[00:34:51] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Yeah.
[00:34:52] Gene Jones: And a lot less expensive. Yeah. You know, they say in the recycling industry, “If you wanna make a small fortune, you start off with a large one.” I think that definitely hits home on the agricultural, um, you know, specifically agricultural mulch film side. It takes money to do, to do this the right way.
[00:35:13] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Right. Yeah. Well, you know, we hope that with all the studies and research and work and practices and industry involvement and policy updating, hopefully we will reach the solution how we actually can recycle mulch film and definitely avoid burning it in the field.
[00:35:33] Gene Jones: Yeah.
[00:35:34] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Yeah.
[00:35:35] Gene Jones: For sure.
[00:35:36] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Well, Gene, thank you so much for your time and information. I think it was great eye-opening, uh, discussion, so I think our listeners will really enjoy this.
[00:35:48] Gene Jones: Oh, my pleasure, Nataliya, and I thank you for what you do. Um, you know, I’ve listened to your other podcast and some of the webinars that you all have put together and, you know, education is key in this industry. Keep everybody abreast of what’s going on. Um, and so I applaud, applaud for what, you know, applaud you all for what you all do.
[00:36:12] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: Thank you so much. On behalf of the whole team, thank you.
[00:36:16] Nataliya Shcherbatyuk: That’s it for today and until the next episode. You can find more information by following us on Instagram and LinkedIn by @mulch_matters and going to our websites (www.smallfruits.wsu.edu) and choose ‘Mulch Technologies’. This work is supported by Specialty Crops Research Initiative Award 2022-51181-38325 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed on this podcast are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Intro and outro music credit to Zakhar Valaha from Pixabay