Friday Schedule
Session Resources will become available within each session sometime after the event.
Morning Schedule
Conference Registration Opens
Walk-in registration is available.
Concurrent Session 1 (Detailed Schedule Below)
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Concurrent Session 2 (Detailed Schedule Below)
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Lunch & Exhibit Hall
Description for lunch and exhibit hall.
Concurrent Session 1
Meet-and-Greet at the PFI Conference
Whether it's your first time at the conference or you're a long-time attendee, it can be hard to strike up conversations with new people. In this “non-session,” we'll spend the time passing the mic around the room so people can introduce themselves and then continue visiting as time allows. Don't be a stranger!
Growing and Selling Ginger and Turmeric
Spice up your life! Fresh ginger and turmeric are popular ingredients for flavorful recipes and health products. Despite growing well in Midwestern high tunnels during the summer, they are still a rather uncommon crop to grow or find at farmers markets. For many seasons, Nicki raised ginger and turmeric at their farm in Missouri, and they hope to add them back to their Iowa farm soon! You'll learn about seed-sprouting in the greenhouse, transplanting, care and maintenance throughout the season, harvesting, marketing and value-added products.
Nicki Morgan
Nicki Morgan owned HartBeet Farm, a diversified vegetable operation in Missouri, for eight years. After a brief sabbatical, Nicki and their wife, Katie, are transitioning to perennial agroforestry with their new farm, HartWood, located in Riverside, Iowa. While embracing the title “Recovering Vegetable Farmer,” Nicki still has a deep love for vegetable production as well as exchanging seeds of knowledge within the farming community.
Cleaner Water Through Conservation: Quantifying Water Quality Impacts of Edge-of-Field Practices
Join Lee Tesdell, a fifth-generation Polk County farmer and Soil and Water Conservation District member, as he shares his 13-year journey to improve water quality. He has adopted no-till, cover crops, prairie strips, saturated buffers and a bioreactor. Partnering with Iowa State researchers, he tracks nitrogen removal in tile-fed water, comparing inflow and outflow at bioreactor control boxes and saturated buffer test wells. With four years of data, Lee will highlight his farm's progress and the need to scale these practices for healthier watersheds within Polk County and beyond.
Concurrent Session 2
Panel: Vegetable On-Farm Research With PFI's Cooperators' Program
One of PFI's core programs is farmer-led, on-farm research through our Cooperators' Program. During this session, hear from three vegetable farmers about how participating in on-farm trials has helped them make production decisions and ask better questions. They'll share their favorite trials, the benefits (and challenges!) of research and what research ideas they hope to implement in the coming years. This session is part of the SARE Farmers Forum.
Lee Matteson
Lee Matteson grew up on a small farm in southeast Iowa, where he worked with his parents and grandparents in the summer growing fruits and vegetables. He owns and operates Lee's Greens, LLC near Colo, Iowa, with his wife, Kelly, and four children. The farm's main focus is off-season crops in 2 acres of heated greenhouses, and another 5 acres of outdoor production. Lee has a bachelor's degree in horticulture from ISU.
Carmen Black
Carmen Black, with her sister, Maja, owns and operates SunDog Farm and Local Harvest CSA near Solon, Iowa. On the diversified operation they raise vegetables for 200 families and graze a small flock of sheep. They also conduct on-farm research through the Cooperators' Program. Carmen is PFI's current board president.
Jill Beebout
Jill Beebout runs Blue Gate Farm with her husband, Sean Skeehan. They steward 40 acres of family land in southern Marion County, Iowa, where they raise Certified Naturally Grown produce, hay and alpacas, marketing through CSA and VegEmail custom sales.
Timing and Executing Vegetable Succession Planting for Key Crops
Succession management is vital to meet consistent demand for Featherstone Farm's 1,400 summer CSA shares, 700 winter CSA shares and wholesale markets. Achieving this is done through staggered plantings, multiple varieties and managing the harvest of cut-and-come-again crops. Abby will share how Featherstone plans for managing and selling their many successions, particularly sweet corn, broccoli, cabbage, kale and hoophouse crops. She'll also discuss how they make decisions when the timing gets off track or a planting fails.
Abby Benson
Abby Benson is the production coordinator at Featherstone Farm, an organic veggie farm in Rushford, Minnesota. Featherstone's enterprises include about 140 acres of vegetables, a small organic apple orchard and pastured pigs. Abby loves growing brassicas, especially cabbages!
Morning Schedule
Breakfast sponsored by Niman Ranch, Affinity Groups & Exhibit Hall
Test description.
[Test] Sample Manual Name
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PFI Business Meeting & Award Presentation
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Concurrent Session 1 (See Details Below)
See details below for concurrent sessions.
Concurrent Session 1
Top 10 Takeaways From Visiting Iowa Fruit and Vegetable Farms in 2025
Dan Fillius logged thousands of miles on the road during 2025, visiting over 50 farms around Iowa. He walked fields, looked at plants, asked questions and listened to what was on farmers' minds. During this session, he'll reveal his top 10 takeaways, which may include discussion of leaf spots, weird germination and complications from the heat that just wouldn't quit.
Dan Fillius
Dan Fillius is the commercial vegetable and specialty crop specialist with ISU Extension and Outreach. Prior to this role, Dan spent more than 14 years managing vegetable farms in Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa. He brings a wealth of practical knowledge and vision to commercial horticulture in Iowa.
Grazing Diverse Native Grasslands for Livestock, Soil Health and Wildlife
Prairies and savannas once covered our land, building our rich prairie soil. Today, these grasslands can be re-created to provide excellent livestock forage, wildlife habitat and soil health. The farmers at Diverse Native Grasslands include native warm-season grasses, native cool-season grasses and native forbs and legumes in their pastures. Due to this plant diversity, they're able to provide year-round forage for livestock. Come learn from Elizabeth about getting the right plant in the right place – and good grazing management – so you can make native grasses work for you.
Elizabeth Steele
Elizabeth Steele works in her family's native seed company, Hamilton Native Outpost, located in Elk Creek, Missouri. In addition to producing seed, they also raise cattle and bison almost exclusively on native forage in both savannas and open grasslands. Elizabeth and her husband, Loren, also raise meat goats and three children.