PALMER — Area legislators spent part of Thursday surfing the turf at Gray Owl Farm and being choked up over artichokes at the Kenley family farm.

As Alaska State Fair organizers prepared to open the gates on the 2008 fair here, a handful of state lawmakers, agriculture officials and high school FFA members spent the morning on the annual MatSu Farm Tour. The tour, praised by state House Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak, gives elected officials an opportunity to see first-hand the innovations and operations of Alaska’s agriculture community.

Supporting Alaska agriculture and the Alaska Grown program, which promotes local products, “has been a concerted effort for me and others,” Stoltze said. “People know about every [industry] failure, but there are a lot of exciting things going on.”

ROBERT DeBERRY/Frontiersman University of Alaska Fairbanks Assistant Professor Jeff Smeenk talks to state lawmakers, agriculture officials and high school FFA members inside a high greenhouse during a tour at the experimental farm Thursday afternoon.

One innovation that has area grower Arthur Keyes excited is his new Water Wheel Transplanter, an apparatus that has allowed him to cut his planting time from about two weeks to five hours. Purchased through a state matching Innovative Crop Grant, the transplanter allows two workers to sit in it while it pokes holes in the earth and simultaneously injects fertilizer-treated water into the holes. The workers, sitting behind the wheels, simply put the seeds or plants into the holes.

The concept may seem simple, Keyes said, but for a small grower like himself, it made a huge difference in his operation over last year, when he scrambled to maintain a small army of local teens to do back-breaking labor planting his 5,000 corn shoots over two weeks. This season with the transplanter, a small crew planted 6,000 corn plants in five hours.

“Before, it was actually a struggle just to get enough help [to plant],” he said. “With this, five hours and it was done. It’s just fantastic.”

Starting the day at the Gray Owl Farm, the tour began with a crop many don’t associate with Alaska — sod. Even those familiar with and active in the state’s agriculture scene said they were surprised by what they learned about growing sod here.

Doug Warner of the state Department of Agriculture said his eyes were opened to learn sod can actually be cut in the late fall and stored over the winter. Then, when spring rolls around, there’s a supply of sod ready to roll before the first new grass is ready to cut.

Franci Havemeister, a Palmer-area resident and Department of Agriculture director, discovered at the Kenley farm that artichokes grow nicely in Alaska’s climate.

“I was born and raised here, and I was shocked to see an artichoke,” she said.

Rachel Kenley, a student at Palmer High School and member of the school’s FFA chapter, said her family has been growing artichokes for a few years, but not on a large scale. Coming from a family of vegetable growers, she found the tour of the sod farm interesting.

“I thought it was cool to learn about turf grass,” she said. “You don’t think about that as a crop. You keep it watered, cut it and sweep it with a tractor.”

Kenley also appreciates an opportunity to meet state lawmakers and others in the agriculture industry.

“It’s nice to just meet people who have professions similar to what I’d [like to] be doing,” Kenley said. “It’s neat to talk to the people in the state Legislature.”