By Chris Aldridge

Kentucky Ag News

Ruby Branch Farms in Simpson County has been in the Snider family for eight generations. Filling an empty area next to a patch of chrysanthemums eight years ago pointed the diversified farm in yet another direction.

“We had a bare spot and thought sunflowers would be pretty for fall,” said Laney Snider, who runs the farm with her husband, Drew. “Everybody loved it so much, we thought we might be onto something there. We’re growing 15 acres of sunflowers this year!

“Most people’s first reaction to seeing acres of sunflowers in bloom is awe,” she told Kentucky Living magazine. “The second reaction is to smile, and that smile tends to remain throughout their visit. It’s impossible to not be happy in a giant field of sunflowers!”

The sunflower patch makes up what the farm calls “Kentucky’s Largest Sunflower Maze.”

“The maze was my husband’s idea,” Laney said. “People wanted to go in and take pictures, and we needed way to get people in there, so he mowed a path.”

One path led to the multiple paths that make up the maze of traditional yellow sunflowers. The Sniders added a separate patch of specialty-colored sunflowers in red, white, orange, bright yellow, and variegated – even unique Teddy Bear Sunflowers that resemble feathers.

If you want to check out the sunflowers, act quickly. “Sunflower season” will conclude at the end of August, then the farm transitions to its fall agritourism season Saturday, Sept. 5 by opening a traditional corn maze and selling chrysanthemums.

“We started our agritourism journey growing mums,” Laney said. “We have 16,000 mums, seven acres of pumpkins, and a u-pick tulip field every spring. The only thing we sell that we don’t grow or raise is cut Christmas trees and tulip bulbs on Black Friday weekend (Nov. 27-29).”

That’s not all. The farm sells beef that’s pasture raised and finished on non-GMO corn and sunflower seeds.

“This year, we raised watermelons, cantaloupes, and honeydew melons,” Laney said. “We also sell soft red winter wheat berries for home milling.”

Not even mentioned are the corn, soybeans, and winter wheat that cover most of the 1,800 acres that the Sniders either own or rent.

Drew and Laney opened Ruby Branch Farms in the fall of 2015 to diversify Drew’s family row crop farm. The couple met as students at Murray State University, where both received agriculture degrees. It was Drew’s idea to grow mums and pumpkins to sell to the public, while Laney saw the bigger picture to make the farm an agritourism destination.

While Drew is an eighth-generation farmer, Laney grew up in Ohio riding and showing horses and competing in rodeos. “My only link to agriculture was I owned a horse,” she noted.

When Drew and Laney married, they purchased a farm owned by Ruby Oslen next to Drew’s family farm. They named the farm “Ruby Branch” after her and a geographic feature.

“She was like another grandmother to my husband,” Laney said. “The ‘branch’ comes from two branches, or creeks, that come together on her farm.”

The Sniders have a young son, Briggs, who could one day be the ninth-generation farmer in the family.

Ruby Branch Farms is located at 780 Lake Spring Road near Franklin, Ky.  For more information, go to www.RubyBranchFarms.com or search “Ruby Branch Farm” on Facebook.