By Julene Reese ’85

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Part of Melanie Stock’s dream upon arriving at Utah State was to create a lab with an applied research program to help recruit students and solve challenges facing Utah farmers.

She wanted the program to be approachable, and social media seemed to be the best way to frequently share research updates, post timely recommendations, and create a direct feed for receiving questions and program input. As she surveyed the growers, their top pick was Instagram, and thus the USU Small Farms Lab account was born (@usu_smallfarms).

“When you’re doing Extension outreach and working with farmers and stakeholders, that’s where you keep your eyes and ears open and learn the challenges they face,” Stock explains. “That information helps feed into new research programs, so that we are continually updating our Extension content to anticipate and fulfill emerging needs.

And, while her dream has certainly sprouted into a successful program at USU, its roots run much deeper.

From City Lights to Small Farm Life

As a city kid from Milwaukee, Stock loved gardening with her father and exploring the woods — but she was far removed from anything that had to do with farming. In high school, she took a landscaping and waste-management job at the Milwaukee County Zoo that sparked her appreciation for plant life and recycling resources and helped shape her education and career path.

During her undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, she majored in botany, zoology, and conservation biology. Graduate school was never on her radar until the end of her undergraduate degree, when she felt she had unfinished business. While working for two years as a chemist to pay off student loans, she discovered a passion for soil science, which combined her love of plants and chemistry.

Stock went back to get her M.S. and Ph.D. in soil science at UW. She credits her coursework and doctoral advisor, who also works in agriculture and Extension, for introducing her to all aspects of farming.

“Margins are tight when you’re a grad student,” she says. “And as I attended farmers markets, I thought, ‘I could grow that.’ So, I started my own plot in a community garden, and it was eye-opening for me in terms of growing my own food. And, as I interacted with the community, [I realized] many of the gardeners were there not just for a hobby, but to feed their families.”

Stock says her garden did well as she followed the crop recommendations from her courses and Extension. She often spent evenings troubleshooting and providing consults to her fellow community gardeners and quickly moved into a leadership role within the garden. In this role, she focused on building creative bridges among community members, city managers, local police units, and garden nurseries, which brought much-needed improvements and support to the garden.

Stock’s doctoral program was on large-scale farms and manure management, and she became passionate about agriculture, applied research, and how that helps deliver better Extension programs.

Toward the end of her doctoral program, she saw a position for a Small Farms Extension Specialist at USU and jumped at the opportunity.

“The position description seemed like it was written for me,” she remembers. “I interviewed and felt an instant connection with my future colleagues. USU offered me the position, and here I am, continuing to live my dream career, 7 years later.”

The Cut Flower Challenge

Stock’s arrival in Logan coincided with the emerging trend of cut flower farming.

“Interest in cut flower farming was rising, but information on profitable production was scarce,” she says. “And here in Utah, we have extremely challenging growing conditions that reduce crop production.”

Stock says Utah’s higher elevations mean the sun can be intense, causing flower stems to be short and unmarketable. Other challenges include brief growing seasons, daily temperature swings, and limited water and soil quality. With sensitive crops like cut flowers, those challenges make profitably even harder without regionally specific guidelines.

“To me, cut flowers were the ideal crop to study,” she says. “We could work to boost yields and refine production methods so our small-scale growers could be profitable where every square foot has to count.”

Her lab targets crops in high demand, as identified by Utah farmers and florists, and has resulted in new management practices that force earlier and longer bloom timing, higher quality stems, greater yields, and reduced water and fertilizer use. One crop, ranunculus, was suggested by farmers because of its difficulty to grow by industry recommendations and resulting negative net returns. With Stock’s research, yield quadrupled, and ranunculus is now one of the highest-value crops ever studied at USU.

Stock says when she started at USU in 2018, there were about 18 cut flower operations in Utah. Now there are hundreds. Most of these farmers are younger and new to agriculture.

“I think the beauty of the crop, along with the spike in social media, make it a great crop for our time,” she says. “Cut flowers can be a premium, high-value crop that works well on the small-scale farms we are seeing in Utah. And it’s helpful to local economies because cut flowers grown in Utah primarily stay in Utah.”

She laughs as she says people think cut flowers are a romantic crop to grow, but when you really start farming and see the aspects of each crop and the amount of labor, it takes the romance right out of things.

Research that Grows Results

Stock’s applied research lab is the first in the nation to focus on the field production of cut flowers and widely share Extension resources.

“We started trialing different cut flower crops to find those that are regionally adapted and profitable,” she says. “We focused on nutrient and water management, and season extension to improve net returns.”

She says every study her lab conducts is published in academic journals and written as USU Extension fact sheets geared for the public. Her team has collaborated on over 50 guides that have been downloaded more than 44,000 times. The team is now writing a Utah Cut Flower Production Guidebook, sponsored by a Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grant. Stock also shares her findings around the U.S. as an invited speaker, leading to the adoption of her work by other Extension systems around the country and the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers.

“USU Extension has an urban and small farms conference every year, and in 2019, we added a cut flower session,” she says. “The attendance was unbelievable, and the energy was amazing. They were so excited to have these resources and work together.”

In addition to cut flowers, Stock’s team works with small farms, community gardens, and community farms. She also teaches soils courses for Master Gardeners and is involved with homesteading groups.

Training the Next Generation

Stock wrote a proposal, Strengthening Training in Extension Plant and Soil Sciences, with two Extension colleagues, Brent Black and Dan Drost. They focused funding from the National Needs Fellowship through the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture for training the next generation in Extension.

“We wanted our students to gain hands-on research experience conducting trials, analyzing data, and sharing results with both academic and Extension audiences — while also learning to directly collaborate with farmers, manage budgets, and engage through social media,” she says. “That has resulted in our students being extremely well-rounded and competitive candidates.”

Nick Volesky, an Integrated Pest Management program associate for USU Extension, was a student of Stock’s and says he reached a point where he wanted to advance his career in Extension, so he joined Stock’s lab to pursue a graduate degree.

“Her program combines scientific rigor with an emphasis on making research applicable and relevant to the needs of stakeholders in Utah’s ag industry,” he says. “I valued the opportunity to work closely with growers who directly benefited from our lab’s work, and I appreciated the chance to share knowledge through field days and conferences. The skills I learned from Dr. Stock and the program have made me a stronger scientist and educator, and they will serve me well in my new role as Extension horticulturist at South Dakota State University.”

Innovating Collaboration with Wool

New opportunities for Stock’s team arose when the Extension sheep specialist, Chad Page, reached out to see if they could use raw wool on small farms because it is undervalued, and many producers can’t sell it.

“This was an exciting question. I wondered if it could be used as a mulch to help the soil retain moisture and keep soil temperatures cooler in the summer and warmer in the fall,” Stock says. “Wool has a relatively high nitrogen content, which could also serve as a slow-release nitrogen source.”

In 2023 and 2024, Stock did a pilot study and tested the wool with cut flowers to see if it could reduce water use. The raw wool came in 200-pound burlap bags, and she and her team laid the fleece throughout the fields.

“It’s kind of like fluffing up a bed,” she explains. “After laying the fleece, we planted the flowers into it. We found the majority performed better in the wool. We received support from the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food and are establishing a large field to formally test it with three new cut flower crops, other mulches, and lots of sensors and measurements. It will be exciting to see where this takes us.”

What Matters Most

When asked what makes her most proud of the USU Small Farms Lab, without hesitation, Stock says it is the work she gets to do with farmers and students.

“Nothing’s more rewarding than working with our farmers and feeling like we’ve made a difference,” she says. “And participating in our research gives them a sense of ownership in the final product, which deepens their connection to the work.

“Then watching our students grow and develop their passion, it’s hard to describe. The farmers and students have made the program more impactful and meaningful — for them and for me.”