Tag Archives: continuous improvement

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.”

The finish line!

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Our hard-working crews hit their final targets this week, and our clean-up crew is close behind!

Pine Island Cranberry set several personal records this year. The one we are most proud of: on Monday, our teams moved so fast that we sent almost 14,100 barrels–over 1.4 million pounds of cranberries–to the Ocean Spray receiving station in Chatsworth. Other highlights: we harvested 1,299 acres in 35 days, finishing two days early and averaging 224.53 barrels/acre across the entire farm with only 3% rot.

We picked some of our newly renovated bogs for the first time and got results that give us great hope for our future. It was decided to pick some of the young bogs after only two growing seasons because there was already a lot of fruit in there. As CEO Bill Haines explained: “It might not be entirely useable, but if we leave it, the fruit drops off and rots into the ground. We won’t know exactly what will come up, but chances are it won’t be as productive. It won’t have the same genetics.” He calls those “mutts”. “Mutts will take over a bog if you let them; they grow more vines than fruit. They bloom at different times, making it impossible to time fertilizer and fungicide. They go backwards instead of getting better.” With an average of almost 189 barrels/acre at Panama #5 and 218 barrels/acre at Panama #6, it’s looking like growth and improvement can only continue over the next few years!

Overall, we set a new production record at Sim Place! Last year, our team brought in 32,220 barrels from Sim Place. This year, with several bogs setting new individual records, they harvested 41,966 barrels: a 30% increase in production! The low rot percentage made a huge difference here.

All of our teams did a phenomenal job. Despite the heavy summer rainfall, it was a dry autumn, and our supervisors had many challenges with water management. But they acquitted themselves admirably, and all of our teams surpassed their daily targets.

Our new fourth team, Jorge Morales’ clean-up/swan string crew, is still hard at work, but they expect to be done in good time, making it easier for our planting team to move on immediately to the Boricua renovation and helping Pine Island as a whole become more efficient. Their best record so far: covering 50 acres with swan string in one day!

In the end, Pine Island’s success is dependent on all members of our team, who are always willing to do whatever it takes to help us be better at what we do: growing more acres and more fruit per acre, every successive year!

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.

Ox Pasture

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One of our projects that was bumped up after the effects of the Labor Day storm is raising the level of the dam out at Ox Pasture reservoir. Ox Pasture is the biggest reservoir on the main farm. Situated at the northernmost end and bordering the property now owned by the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, it is the primary source of water for the main farm.

During the Labor Day storm, the NJCF Franklin Parker Preserve lost some dams, making it necessary for us to break part of our Ox Pasture dam to relieve the pressure of the water coming down and to save some of our own bogs from from flooding. “If we can force it to break at one particular spot, it allows us to save more dams from breaking as well as protecting the fruit,” Tug Haines says. It will also help us if (when) we get more heavy rain in the future. The repair to Ox Pasture was made immediately along with the rest of the dams that broke around the farm in other high-water areas, as it was imperative to get back on track for the harvest.

Caring for the place where we live, work, and grow not only means caring for our land and our environment, but for our neighbors as well. Raising the dam serves two purposes: reinforcing our own infrastructure by protecting our water supply, and helping our neighbors. While it benefits us in the future, it will also allow us to help the Parker preserve make the necessary repairs to their property.

Before we started raising the dam at Ox Pasture, we rehabbed existing turnarounds (places for trucks and equipment to pull over) and made three new ones so that it’ll be easier to get more trucks closer to the north end of the property. Dams are only made for one-way traffic: if we can find a way to allow for more traffic, we can get more more trucks out here at one time and do everything more efficiently.

The process itself is pretty straightforward. The truck goes to a clearing and gets loaded with sand:

The load of sand is then taken back to the dam and unloaded in front of a bulldozer:

As with our bog renovation projects, the leveling by the bulldozer is done with the help of a laser.

With so many trucks in circulation, we’ve been able to complete the project in less than a week, which will help us get started on the work repairing the Parker property.

While this project is our top priority at the moment, building up our dams is a yearly maintenance task, and our team will be checking up on other areas affected by the storm in days to come.

Drainage

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Irrigation and proper drainage are two of Pine Island Cranberry’s foremost priorities in our water management plan, which is in turn a top priority in our PIICM program. In addition to having irrigation systems that reduce water usage, well-drained soil is necessary to keep a bog’s root system functional. As we mentioned in our entry on heat this past summer, maintaining sufficient drainage across the bog is crucial in the prevention of conditions that can lead to the presence of Phytophthora, which causes root rot. This makes water management crucial not only for the current crop but for successive crops as well.

Papoose #1, one of our bogs at Sim Place, has had several issues with drainage over the past few years. It has been staying wet in the middle, and after several attempts to mend the problem with drainpipes, our team has turned to building a new ditch as a solution. Jeremy Fenstermaker, leading the team with Junior Colon, says that this is a last resort: “We’re trying to get away from ditches; all of our newer bogs have been designed without them because it makes for an easier harvest. But we’ve laid this one out to make it easier to cross over with the picking machines at harvest time.”

One of the main problems with the previous drainpipe fixes was that the wet soil would eventually clog the pipes and the water wouldn’t be able to get through. Having the new ditch through the middle of the bog will improve both the surface and subsurface drainage. The ditch has been plotted out through the center so that we can make it the center of the picking pattern in the fall; in our more recent entry on water harvesting, each bog is picked in a specific pattern according to terrain. The new ditch will change this slightly, but it’s designed to for minimal damage to the vines.

Jeremy and Junior work with a laser system in order to both set the depth of the ditch and keep it level.

Since Papoose is an established bog, Junior is using the little excavator both for space and because it has rubber tracks, which won’t be as hard on the vines:

For the same reason, team members are running the Gators over wooden boards placed on the bog surface: since they’re driving on the same spots repeatedly, it will keep wear and tear from the plants.

The soil from the new ditch is loaded onto a truck and hauled away. Sometimes we can sift the dirt and use some of it for topsoil, but there are often enough weeds to make it the less efficient choice. Plus, as Jeremy points out, “This really isn’t a common practice.”

Ultimately, the effect should be beneficial, to both the harvest and the environment. Improved root growth leads to increased access to nutrients, which in turn can decrease the likelihood of damage from both disease and drought.

Hand Ditching

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Ditching is often mentioned as a usual part of the spring/summer maintenance routine on a cranberry farm, but at Pine Island Cranberry we also do some late autumn cleaning after the harvest is in. The ditches surrounding every bog must be kept free of debris in order to ensure adequate water flow for both flooding and drainage.

Our spring and summer routines take care of all the main ditches; our autumn/winter ditching covers the smaller ditches in the middle of the bogs. Unlike the main ditches, which we clean annually, we clean the smaller ditches on a rotating basis. Newly renovated bogs are designed differently, without smaller ditches running through the middle, so as bogs are redesigned we can re-allocate our resources toward other post-harvest activities such as sanding, raking, reservoir and pond cleaning, planting, and the winter flood.

Jose Cruz-Soto, better known to us as Blondie, has been with Pine Island full-time for almost fifteen years. He was a member of our highly efficient fairy-ring crew, has run the Orange Team’s gathering crew for the past few years, and runs our weed control, so is well-suited to work with a crew of over a dozen team members to make sure the hand ditching goes smoothly.

The process starts with hand-trimming the ditches: often vines start to grow across, so it’s necessary to cut them back and clean up the edges of the ditch. This can be done with either a trimmer or a brush cutter.

The rest of the crew follows along behind the trimmers. Each member of the first group will use a large hoe to gather the debris (vines, berries, weeds, etc) together; the second group has each member using a pitchfork to scoop up it up and deposit it on the side of the ditch.

Some bogs are easier to work in than others; as it turns out, berry variety can make a difference. Stevens vines are thicker than Early Blacks (which are a thinner, lighter vine), so it’s harder to cut them back, especially when using the brush cutter, since mature cranberry vines grow densely.

Finally, another crew, led by Mickey Mercado, comes along to pick up the debris using handheld beds, or carriers. The bogs are usually too wet to be able to use a Gator, so it needs to be done by hand. The debris is then loaded onto a truck and taken away.

Hand ditching is an unglamorous but necessary task that we perform each year. It is part of the care and attention that Pine Island Cranberry pays to our land and our environment, and it is leaders like Blondie who help us get it done.

New beginnings

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One of our strategic drivers at Pine Island Cranberry Company is our equipment and facilities management. Instrumental to the daily efficiency and success of our operation is well-maintained, consistently available equipment and facilities that are fully operational. We have long maintained our own shop on the property, and early in 2011, began making plans to upgrade our facility. The weather had other plans for our projected timeline: an afternoon storm on July 24 destroyed the maintenance shop and several equipment sheds at the farm and also damaged eleven vehicles. In the end, strange as it sounds, the storm actually helped: despite the difficulties with the aftermath, we were able to put the new building in the original location.

Facilities supervisor Mike Guest acted as general contractor for the project, coordinating all aspects during the long process, and did an amazing job. Bill’s daughter Becca Fenstermaker also helped kickstart the project, visiting several area locations to get ideas for what we would need.

Friday’s grand opening was also a chance for many of our neighbors and vendors to meet our new equipment and facilities manager, Louis Cantafio. Louis, a former land manager with the Franklin Parker Preserve, has been here since early July and is greatly enjoying his time here so far. He says, “Every day it’s always something new and something different.” Mechanic Ernie Waskiewicz agrees: “It’s fun because it’s not the same thing every day, and you’re doing something that needs to be done.” With three advanced degrees, Louis enjoys learning for learning’s sake and is having a good time picking up all the ins and outs of the cranberry business. He was initially attracted to the scale of things at Pine Island, and from his time in the area (he and his wife live in Chatsworth in a house they designed and he built himself) he knows many of our team members and how they both work hard and have a good time.

Louis also believes in continuous improvement; in many ways, starting from scratch here has been a help to him in his work. He doesn’t believe in doing things in a particular way just because they’ve always been done that way; he likes finding out why things are done and then finding ways to improve them if need be, whether it’s ordering parts, purchasing equipment, or analyzing standard practices. And he’ll do whatever it takes to help achieve our company goals, pitching in wherever he’s needed.

Addressing the crowd gathered at the official opening, Bill said, “It’s a great day for Pine Island Cranberry; this makes us that much more efficient and that much better. It makes our team that much better. I’m proud of this place and I’m proud of our team: they do a great job every day to make us what we are.” Mike Guest agrees: “It’s great to see our guys able to work more safely and more efficiently.” He’s also proud of the place; he says that in addition to the surface things (layout, equipment, space), there are many things that we don’t see which contribute to making it a fantastic place to work.