It’s once again time for the fall planting, which this year finishes the renovation at 11 Acre and Ben Haines that we started after the 2013 harvest. While in previous years we’ve started the fall planting after the harvest, we moved that forward in order to take advantage of the weather, the longer daylight hours, and the increased team availability.

Assistant Manager Mike Haines is running the planting operation this year, and has been very busy making preparations. Mike’s previous job was with Integrity Propagation, so he was already familiar with the process from the other side of the business. “Here, we have a lot more heavy machinery involved,” Mike says “Integrity does the growing and the shipping; they also hedge all the flats for us. Otherwise, the vines are too long for our machine and they get caught.”

He’s been fairly busy getting everything ready prior to the start. “We had to finish the land leveling and disking so the ground is soft and the plants can go in more easily. We also had to get all the equipment out there: the machines, the tractors with the wagons to carry the flats, the excavator and the cage to move the plants from the truck to the wagons. We also had to assemble the teams; there are twenty-nine total on the crew with Kelvin [Colon] and Waldy [Blanco] running a crew each. It’s great having them there; they really know what they’re doing.”

Kelvin is always happy to help: “Everything he needs, every question he has, I’ll get the answer for him,” he says. “Whatever it takes!” One team started at 7:30, and the other team started from the other side of the bog at 8. “It’s going very smoothly right now,” Kelvin says. “Hopefully it stays this way to the end, if the nice weather holds up!” The team has a target of three acres per day, with 17 acres total, and everyone is confident they can get it done.

Mike is excited to see these bogs starts to produce. “This is our first big Mullica Queen bog,” he says. “It’s one of the new Rutgers varieties–a later variety that gets picked toward the end of the season–and was really popular with other growers when I was at Integrity. It has a very high yield potential; it will be really cool to watch it as it develops.”