Tag Archives: bog renovation

Reno update

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Work on bog renovation continues! Our renovation plan really got a boost from a trip to Wisconsin last month. “When [COO] Bryan [vonHahmann] and I went out to Wisconsin, we visited several elite growers [Ed Grygleski of Valley Corp, Steve Gephardt of Beltz Cranberry, Bill Hatch and Nicole Hansen at Cranberry Creek, Chris Weidman of City Point Cranberries, Martin Potter at Cutler Cranberry, and Craige I. Scott and Craige P. Scott of Scott Cranberry Marsh] and came away highly impressed,” says CEO Bill Haines. “We had made the trip because of their incredible increase in production per acre. They have some advantages with regard to location and climate, but each growing area has advantages and disadvantages. The biggest reason we saw was growers in Wisconsin have been very aggressive in the last fifteen years in renovating bogs and making sure they had the best varieties. They improved the way they built their bogs, and they’re still looking for ways to improve every single thing they do.” The Warehouse bogs are going to be the first to reap those benefits.

“When we got back, we were determined to do whatever it takes to keep growing and to keep improving,” Bill says. “We’ve known that the Early Blacks are our weakest variety and eventually need to be entirely replaced, and decided to become more aggressive about it. By 2022, we’ve targeted 769 acres to replace Early Blacks with hybrid varieties, and we’re going to do it by using some of the same techniques they use in Wisconsin.” He points out some of results already taking place at Panama, finished in 2012. “We already had a lot of great fruit after only two growing seasons,” he says. “We had nearly 218 barrels to the acre in Panama #6. That’s the direction we want to be going.”

As part of our accelerated growth plan, preparation for the 2015 renovation has already begun. “We’ve started the prep work on the next stage of our renovation plan,” says GM Fred Torres. “We’re going to be hauling out vines and hauling in sand with 25-ton articulated trucks, so we’re widening the turns for more efficient hauling. We’re going to crown the Worth Tract dam to allow the trucks to travel faster. The more we have done ahead of time, the better. Just like 11 Acre and Panama before that: by the time we’re planting, the gates will be in, the ramps will be in, the dams are crowned, and everything’s done.” Bill is very excited about the scope of this project. “It’s a big project; I know that,” he says. “It’s going to take lots of planning, lots of organizing, and lots of plain hard work. The team is going to have to reorganize. We’re going to have to invest in new equipment. But we’re all going to learn and improve as we go along, and everyone is looking forward to the challenge.”

Meanwhile, the 2014 reno is on schedule. Land-leveling has begun at the 11 Acre/Ben Haines site, with planting scheduled to begin September 15. “We should have it all done before the harvest,” Fred says. “Getting it done now means more time to focus on our usual post-harvest work, and we can also start concentrating on the new renovation right away.”

2013 Fall Planting

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Our fall planting at the Boricua bogs is almost done, which will complete the Oswego renovation. Our team started last Monday, and the weather has been mostly cooperative.

The planting team has been moving faster than ever before, and has even set a new record with over 3.5 acres planted in one day. Team member Casey Koehler attributes this to each team member knowing what their assigned task is in addition to good communication by New Production foreman Kelvin Colon. “We start at 6:30 in the morning and everyone just works,” she says. “Everybody has their job but if they’re needed elsewhere, they’ll step up, no questions asked. We switch off a lot, too; it can be hard on your back sitting on the planter. So people will exchange jobs so there are fresh hands and a fresh back on the planter.” In addition, Casey says, “The guys doing the hand planting are fast and they’re good. If everyone’s doing their jobs, then Kelvin can make sure everything’s getting done that needs to be done.”

Every team member is keeping busy. Casey was tracking the daily averages: daily acres planted, number of trays, and the number of plants per acre, as well as the running total acres, while Waldemar Blanco is in charge of making sure both planters are always fully loaded, the plants are delivered, and all trays are sorted and counted according to planter and/or hand planting in order to make accurate measurements.

Communication has become much more efficient with new technology, as updates in the field can be viewed on the office database. The team is also able to track the plant totals: how many carts ordered per day, how many trays used on both planters, how many carts are left at the end of the day, and how many cuttings are planted per acre. Our target is 60,000/acre. “We leave at least one for the following day,” Casey says. “Once we come in at 6:30, we’re moving. So the night before we’ll leave one ready to go, with a tarp over it to keep the heat in.”

Every day a team member measures the acreage to see if they’ve hit their targets, which started at 2.5 acres/day then changed to 3 acres/day. Some bogs are tougher than others, depending on layout: Boricua #5 has some unusual angles due to topography, which made more hand planting necessary and added to the overall time. But the team has been doing very well and are actually ahead of schedule, expecting to be finished by this afternoon.

All that remains to be done is watering the new acreage. While the mostly sunny and dry weather has been good for getting the planting finished, it does mean that the sprinklers need to be run every day for the new plants. It does serve a dual purpose: in addition to sealing the sil around the plants, the team can check for damaged sprinklers.

Thirty acres in ten days is a fantastic achievement, and our team should be proud of the work they have done. It is this willingness to do what needs to be done that helps Pine Island grow more acres and more fruit per acre, year after year.

Starting from scratch – bog renovation

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Now that the crop is in and clean-up is just about done, it’s once again time to focus on bog renovation. Fall planting has started at Boricua, and with the Oswego renovation nearly complete, our team is turning its attention to the next system in our improvement plan: parts of 11 Acre and Ben Haines. 11 Acre #1 and 2 and Ben Haines #6 make up about 18 acres of ground and run on the same pump system, which is why we’re redoing these particular sections. “It’s not quite as big a project as the ones the last couple of years, but it’s going to be very manageable,” says Bog Renovations manager Joe Colon. “It’s a small amount of acreage, comparatively, but with the new acreage starting to produce, we’re not going to be losing anything.”

The first process in renovating preexisting acreage is a lot of fun for team members.

If we were simply removing the old vines, burning them wouldn’t be entirely necessary. However, it’s a lot easier to remove the irrigation and drainage if the vines are gone first. “You can’t pull that pipe out with vines in the way,” explains GM Fred Torres. “Once you get down to the turf, it’s much softer.”

In order to do that, each team member takes a can to the vines, going by the picking patterns and going by the prevailing winds. “We go by the picking patterns because they’re usually ‘fluffier’,” says team member Matt Giberson. “The less dense the are, the easier they’ll go up. Frankie [Torres] and Vince [Arnwine] are out there making sure the vines are lifted up so we can get underneath.” The winds are especially important, says Fred. “Once we get the permit for a controlled burn, we wait for good conditions. We had a wet morning, but once the sun came out, we were good to go. The breeze was coming from the south, which helped dry things out; it doesn’t burn as well when the clouds roll in. We had to burn against the wind to start, though, which was why we started from the bottom; once that was done, we could start from the top and not worry if the fire crossed a dam, because after that it had nowhere to go.”

Once the vines are burned, Joe’s team will take an excavator and pull the old pipe out of the ground, which will be a much more efficient process without the vines in the way. Team members are also digging out some of the old hardware by hand.

Once the old irrigation lines are torn out, the team will begin to push the old turf off the bogs and haul it away. “We’re going to try and get the briars out while we’re at it,” says Joe. “These bogs will be a lot bigger, too, because we’ll be using the entire acreage. We have a lot of gates to repair or replace, as well. We’re taking out all the small ditches and doing the land leveling, which will make it a lot easier to flood. And we don’t have to move the pump house or build a new one; that stays where it is.” Joe also points out that the previously existing sand layers will make putting in new topsoil easier. “We’re not going to have to do as much with that as we did out at Sim Place.”

It’s a lot of work, but our team is more than able to get it done. “We’re a well oiled machine,” Fred says. “We set out to do something and it gets done, because we plan ahead. We set our targets, and we knock ’em down.”

Crowning dams

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Long-time readers of the blog will remember that “continuous improvement” is one of our core values here at Pine Island Cranberry. (First-timers will quickly pick up on this, as well.) Part of that continuous improvement includes dam maintenance. On a cranberry farm, dams serve two purposes: to detain the water used for irrigation and water management, and for vehicle use.

Dam maintenance is highly important for both safety and equipment. “During last year’s Labor Day storm, we had water coming over the dam on this side of Little Meadow,” says GM Fred Torres. “It was lower than the main side along Jonathan Wright [one of our big reservoirs]. We couldn’t get the water down fast enough and had to breach the main dam to get it down. Raising this one over here will help if that ever happens again.”

The procedure is the same as it was when we made some necessary repairs at Ox Pasture this past winter. A team member picks up a load of sand in their dump truck, then hauls the load back to the dam and drops it in front of a bulldozer.

Team member Wilfredo Pagan then uses the laser to get the level he want and keeps going. Once he puts sand down and pushes to get it where he wants it, he comes back at an angle in order to “crown” the dam. Then team member Mickey Mercado follows on a roller to smooth the crown.

Fred says there are targets for this, the same as everything else. “We have everything mapped out: the ones we did in 2012 are in red, the ones for this year are in blue, and the ones planned for next year are green. We’re on target to finish all 7.36 miles by harvest. Next year’s target is 7.26 miles.” The targeted dams are usually the most heavily travelled ones. Some dams are really only used during harvest, and if they get any ruts in a heavy rain, it’s usually fine. But the ones everyone uses most can deteriorate quickly, pushing out both water and sand; proper maintenance now is much more efficient than trying to fix the problem later. “The main dam at Jonathan Wright is a good example,” Fred says. “We crowned it a few years back, and now just touch it up with a dozer a couple times a year, or run the scraper the width of it. All that rain in June and July and everything is still okay; it makes a real difference. Ten years ago, it would have washed out all the time and we would have to touch it up, add some gravel. This is better.”

Our team is also making big improvements over at the Oswego bog renovation. In addition to crowning the dams, our team has been busy widening the dams in some areas. “We’re trying something new,” Fred says. “In this area, we have eight, sometimes nine trucks over here during harvest. Each truck can carry two boxes. But! If we use a tractor trailer, it has nine boxes on it. With three drivers for three tractor-trailers, we won’t need to use as many trucks. It will be more efficient for both the gathering team and the packing house. And it frees up team members to be elsewhere if we need them.”

“We’re doing this all along the main dam behind Oswego so we can take the trucks all the way out to the side road,” Fred adds. “Wherever a trailer might need a wider space, we’ve made it happen.” This includes building a 40 foot pipe gate at a couple of the wider turns. Ultimately our team is willing to do whatever it takes, as always, in order to keep doing what we do: growing more acres and more fruit per acre.

Boricua renovation

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Pine Island’s bog renovation team is moving steadily forward on the next stage of our Oswego project at the Boricua bogs, which we will be planting with Crimson Queen this fall. Like the rest of the bogs at the Oswego renovation, they had previously been planted with Early Blacks and had been productive bogs, but “…they were starting to become what we colloquially call ‘mutts’, which means they weren’t true Early Blacks anymore,” Bill says. “Production started to drop off. They were adequate and not necessarily terrible, but definitely no longer up to our standards.”

As we mentioned in January, part of the renovation includes new pump houses. We’ll be installing the larger size double-wall fuel tanks, which have the benefit of better environmental protection (always a concern with water management) and having to be fueled less often, which is more efficient. But first, the bog renovation team had to work closely with the facilities team to get the dog leg and suction line installed.

The installation is fairly straightforward: the team (Facilities supervisor Mike Guest, foreman Wilfredo Pagan, and team member Emmanuel Colon) places an eighteen-inch stone bed at the bottom of the canal. They place the screen (a PVC pipe with slots cut into it) on the stone bed, then add another foot of stones on top. “It’s so much more efficient this way,” says Wilfredo. “We end up using less water with this design, because we don’t need to raise the water as high. And it’s fun to watch!”

While the installation itself is straightforward, it does take some time to make sure it’s done right. The team works with the long arm excavator and a laser level to ensure that the stone bed is properly set, as well as getting into the bed and checking by hand.

Once it’s installed, the stone bed will act to filter out any natural debris that’s in the water, such as leaves, sticks, twigs, and dirt. The stone will stop any debris from entering the system and plugging the sprinklers.

While one team is working on the suction line, another team is installing the main irrigation line as well as laying out a plumb line at Boricua #1 and #2. Plumb line is installed to make sure the layout of the irrigation system is a true grid. Once that’s installed, the team will be able to put in sprinklers.

Bog Renovations manager Joe Colon says all that remains after this is land leveling so that the team can start mapping for the sprinklers and underdrain. “It’s a lot of acreage,” he says. “But we did a lot last time. We can definitely do this.” Wilfredo agrees: “We’re getting better at this all the time.”

Renovation and progression

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If you’ve been paying attention over the past year, you’ll know that one of Pine Island’s core values is continuous improvement: doing everything we do better every day. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been taking you through our efforts at improving drainage, and part of that is making sure that the soil in our newer beds is doing what it’s supposed to do.

According to the UMass Cranberry Station: “Cranberry bog soil is unique in that it consists of alternating layers of sand and organic matter. Dead leaves accumulate over the course of time and sand is added to the bed surface every 2-5 years to encourage upright production and maintain productivity. In contrast to normal agricultural soils, cranberry soil requires no tilling, remains undisturbed over time, and little mixing of sand and organic matter occurs.”

However, with our Sim Place bogs, we’ve had to become, in Bill’s words, “bog doctors”: adding ditches, installing more underdrain, repairing existing underdrain, and replanting weak areas. “It’s making it better,” he says. “But we’re not where we should be.” While it’s not an ideal situation, “[t]he bogs at Sim Place weren’t very productive when we started. Anything they’ve been producing is a bonus. But we need to make a plan. What’s been working for us on the home farm is not going to work out there, because the soil isn’t uniform. We need to figure out what we have, and get ahead of it.”

This week, Bill sat down with GM Fred Torres, PIICM manager Cristina Tassone, team members Jeremy Fenstermaker and Matt Giberson, Dan Schiffhauer of Ocean Spray, Peter Oudemans of Rutgers University, and Joan Davenport of Washington State University in order to weigh some options and work on a plan for the next round of renovations.

The bogs at Sim Place have been of mixed construction, and the same methods that we’ve used at the home farm haven’t always worked out there. Papoose #1 has had several issues with drainage, partly due to the type of soil we added on top. You can see where our team has tried several different drainage improvement methods, such as underdrain at varying depths and adding a ditch just last fall.

We have been able to get this bog to dry out, but now we have to micromanage different growth stages of the plants we used to get the bog to fill in. Just as we do in Fishhead #1, we have established areas and rooted cuttings in addition to pressed-in vines. This map shows the different planting areas so when we irrigate, anyone will know where to let sprinklers run and where to shut them off.

Getting back to our discussion with the experts: the key to renovation is soil testing, which is required for optimum yield and quality of berries. The question here is: how deep will we need to go for a core sample, and how many samples should we take? Bill, concerned with layers for adequate drainage, commented that as long as we have two feet of sand plus the topsoil layer, what’s underneath doesn’t really matter. Joan, Dan, and Peter all agreed that it allowed for ideal underdrain installation as well as capillary rise (rise of water into the root zone).

Since consistent uniform texture is what’s needed, we will need to acquire the proper equipment, although we will be able to test the soil ourselves, Joan says. And fortunately, “even with gravel in some of these soils, they are so much easier to probe into than regular mineral soils,” she adds. “And should you run into clay, it’s wet enough that you won’t damage your equipment.” While this is not an issue on the home farm, Sim Place has a lot more variability, and in addition to drainage issues, the soil needs to be able to take the essential nutrients to help both new and established beds.

The end result of the discussion: we will need to make a 50′ x 50′ grid and take the soil samples. Once we determine precisely what soil layers we have, we draw up a plan and decide how we make the bed uniform in order to make the best decisions regarding irrigation as well as water filtration. The more efficient we become with our renovation process, the better our production.

Bog renovation

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While the 2012 spring planting was being completed, we had already turned our attention to our latest project: renovating our Oswego bogs. Bog renovation is a time-consuming and capital-intensive but necessary project that will increase both yield and quality by improving bog and irrigation design.

Earlier this year, our team first redesigned the layout, deciding how to best work with the surrounding water resources for maximum land use efficiency. They reshaped some beds, removed the old vines, and did the initial leveling to prep the soil.

We’ve previously stated that the three things most important to growing cranberries are water, water, and more water. Currently, the team is hard at work on the irrigation improvements. They’ve begun ditching, which, as we spoke about last month, ensures adequate water flow for both flooding and drainage. Effective bed drainage is critical, especially in New Jersey, where the humid climate can provide a favorable environment for Phytophthora cinnamomi, a known cause of root rot.

According to Joe Colon, Pine Island’s bog renovations manager, we have replaced over twenty of our wooden floodgates with a newer PVC design. While some of our wooden gates have been in use for almost seventy years, the new design will have even greater longevity. They are also easier to install and repair, which will in turn be easier for team members to make the most efficient use of their time.

Other improvements to the water system besides new gates and rebuilt ditches include the relocation of the pumps. As part of our irrigation redesign, and with the redesign of some of the beds, it was necessary to make some changes in order to maximize water flow to the pump. Relocation of the pump houses is also helpful for improved access, both for refueling and repairs.

Even though planting is not scheduled until November, weed control has already become necessary. There are already briars appearing in some of the beds scheduled for planting in 2012-2013 even after rotovation (mechanical tilling of the soil). The current plan is to rotovate again, and then flood in order to keep them from taking root.

Bog renovation is a key component to maintaining Pine Island’s core values of continuous improvement, continuous growth, and protecting the environment. Increasing production over time through bog renovation and decreasing the time to achieve full production is essential to accomplish our growth objectives.