Category Archives: General

On to the next!

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Pine Island Cranberry is ready for spring! Our team has hit our sanding target, and even finished a little ahead! Sanding is a procedure which helps improve growth and yield by stimulating the development of new uprights (covering the base of the roots strengthens the root system and creates a more healthy vine) while also suppressing disease and reducing insects (by burying weed seed, spores, and insect eggs). It also improves soil drainage while at the same time absorbing and releasing heat so that frost danger in spring is lessened. This increases our efficiency by lowering the need for extra plant nutrition as well as saving water by cutting down frost irrigation times.

CEO Bill Haines is pleased with this year’s effort. “We found it was necessary to go back to our aggressive sanding approach. In the long run, it really helps our crop. So we tackled 361 acres, which is more than we’ve ever tackled in one year before. Matt [Giberson] and his team did a great job getting it done on time. In fact, they even got it done a little early.”

The water has already come off the young bogs, and our team is getting ready to take the winter flood off the established beds shortly.

Bog renovation, of course, is always ongoing, and there’s a lot to do before we start planting in the early fall! “As of right now, we’re moving a lot of sand,” says bog reno manager Steve Manning. “We’re putting sand down, widening dams for the tractor trailers, and pouring the concrete bases for the pumps.” They’re also beginning to install gates. Things are moving right along. . .now we just need the weather to cooperate!

Another year!

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This week, Pine Island Cranberry celebrates the fourth anniversary of our website launch! It’s been another busy year, and our team has definitely been taking our core values to heart!

Whatever It Takes
We do what we have to do when it’s time to do it. We say what we have to say when it’s time to say it.

The best example from the past six months is probably how our team dealt with the extended power outage this past summer, as well as dealing with the massive January blizzard!

Continuous Improvement
We do everything we do better every day.

The best examples of this are the most recent: team member Matt Stiles’ creation of periodic lunchtime learning seassions, where team members get together to brainstorm on various topics, and our work with local members of the NJ Fire Service to learn more about control burning.

Protect the Environment
We care for the place we live, work, and grow.

This past year also saw the launch of our forestry website, which so far has mainly been used to chronicle the adventures of our translocated bobwhite quail. Look forward to updates soon with this ongoing collaboration with New Jersey Audubon!

Continuous Growth
We grow more acres and more fruit per acre.

Once again, our crop management team welcomed experts such as Dr. Joan Davenport to help us achieve our mission and our vision. Our team also shipped equipment to our affiliate operation in Chile, which in turn will help them increase their efficiency in reaching their targets. We also continued an ambitious bog renovation plan that now includes trying the new Haines variety from Rutgers.

We are Growers
We grow stuff. . .It’s what we do and who we are.

We also have not forgotten that first and foremost, we grow cranberries. Our team spent time with other growers at various meetings, as well as celebrating 125 years and five generations, still “growing” strong!

Provide Opportunity
We provide opportunities for people who have the drive to learn, develop skills, and achieve a better future.

Last but not least, this past year also saw us expanding our internship program as well as welcoming some fantastic new team members on board.

It’s been a great year for us at Pine Island Cranberry, and we hope you continue to enjoy following our operation as much as we do living it!

Ocean Spray AGM

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Ocean Spray held their Annual Growers Meeting last week, and Pine Island Cranberry was well represented! Several members of the Haines family spent a week in Florida, learning more about the coop’s plans for the future and enjoying the Florida sunshine!

Family members in attendance were all pleased with the highly engaging presentations. “It was really cool to hear more about the marketing side. Up here, we’re entirely focused on production and don’t really worry about the marketing and selling,” says fifth-generation grower Mike Haines. “But it’s obviously just as important to the business as the actual fruit production. I really learned quite a bit from talking to some of the marketing people; Jeremy [Fenstermaker] and I had a great talk with Peter Wyman [Senior VP of Global Business Development], asking him how they get people unfamiliar with cranberries to try our products. It was fascinating!”

Mike and Jeremy were also really impressed with Aravind Cherukuri [Managing Director, Global Business Development]. “People were genuinely pumped up when he made his presentation,” Mike says. “He brought a lot of energy to the room, and I learned a lot about how Ocean Spray approaches different markets and what kind of steps we need to take.” Jeremy’s thoughts were similar: “Aravind’s enthusiasm was contagious,” he says. “It was really cool to see the expansion, and how things have changed as we move into a global market.”

Another huge hit: the opportunity to try new products being released in the next few months! We were very excited to get a close-up look for you guys. NOW: an exclusive look at what you can expect to see from Ocean Spray!

…Oh. Sorry, folks. Maybe next time!

It would be remiss of us not to thank the entire Grower Relations team for doing such a spectacular job. Cranberry growers work hard and play hard, and everyone at HQ put together some amazing events and activities to ensure we’d all have fun doing both! From charismatic speakers to touring grapefruit operations to spring baseball to unforgettable evenings in the theme parks…Ocean Spray made sure that we had an unforgettable week, and every single member of the Haines family is grateful for the opportunity!

And as always, we’ll let CEO Bill Haines get in the last word: “It was a great event, and great to meet with so many growers from all over the world. I’m excited to see the energy and the new ideas that were presented at the general sessions.”

Thanks, Ocean Spray!

Fire follow-up!

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Last week, Pine Island team members attended a class with some of the Fire Service’s finest! This week, a couple of them followed up with a little hands-on experience.

“Shawn [Judy] called me Saturday and said that if the weather looked good, they were going to burn Sunday,” says Matt Giberson. He and Louis Cantafio met up with the team around 10 the next morning, to start prep. “We set everything up to see which direction the wind was blowing, then we brought out maps, discussed the best approach, then did some wrangling over humidity and some other details. Tommy [Gerber] is the guy everyone kind of looks to as the final say for a lot of this, and he advised us to wait a bit.” Then Matt went for a ride around the 60 acre targeted area, where the team explained in detail what they were doing, what the trucks would be doing, who was positioned where, and the reasoning behind their decisions.

“I got to light the baseline of the fire!” says Matt. “One guy went one direction, I went another, and the guys told me when to stop and check how things were going and when to start walking again. I had to go all the way out to a certain point to form the baseline. It was interesting; the wind was blowing against my baseline and bringing the fire really slowly into the 60 acre block. While that was going on, Tommy was putting strips in to make acreage smaller and smaller.” Some of the results were especially surprising. “That piece hasn’t been burnt in sixty years, they told me. It was a lot more intense than I thought it would be, especially when I heard the roar. They told me it would happen, but you really have to see it to understand! I could hear the fire go, I saw the flames go up. It was really cool!”

Louis Cantafio was also helpful, explaining how to safely transport the equipment. Matt also learned all the problems to look for, such as how to spot fires outside of the targeted block. “Embers can fall out where you don’t want them. This is really where constant communication helps; talking about wind direction, how the fire is burning, all that.” He also learned how fast things can move! “I started walking the left flank while it was burning really slowly…then I started making the turn and Shawn told me to start running in order to bring the flank in and meet the fire as it was coming towards me.” If this is confusing to you, don’t worry: Matt drew a picture in the sand afterward to make absolutely sure he understood what he was doing.

He loved every minute of it, too. “Burning stuff on a Sunday is a good time!” he says. (Sammy Moore concurs: “Matt was having a lot of fun out there,” he says.) “It was amazing to me how quickly it burnt, and how bad the situation can get if you’re not prepared. But now I understand. I learned a lot sitting in class last week, but this kind of thing really is hands-on.”

*Photos courtesy of Matt Giberson.

FIRE!

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This week, in our perpetual quest to do everything we do better every day, Pine Island Cranberry held a class with local members of New Jersey Forest Fire Service. Mike Haines, Matt Giberson, Steve Manning, Matt Stiles, Jeremy Fenstermaker, and Tim Bourgeois met Wednesday night with Shawn Judy, Sam Moore III, and Tom Gerber to learn a little more about the history behind prescribed burning in the Pine Barrens as well as some methods and safety awareness.

All of the participants came away with a greater understanding and appreciation for the work involved. “It was really cool to learn about,” says Mike Haines. “Once you start working here [at Pine Island], you see how much actually goes into growing cranberries, and this was the same principle. Shawn and Sammy and Tommy really know their stuff. We learned a lot of the technical stuff as well as a lot of the history. Ultimately the idea is for us to start a regular program here.” Pine Island and other growers have always used prescribed burning as a tool for both forest and crop management, but now we’re trying to get a little bit ahead of the curve, so we brought in the experts to teach our team how to be safe, how to decide on proper timing, and how to recognize the various effects of changes in weather conditions.

Shawn, Sam, and Tom also stressed the importance of communication. “You need to have situational awareness,” says Matt Stiles. “But Shawn also emphasized their reliance on area growers because of their familiarity with the land.” Matt Giberson agrees: “The communication factor there is incalculable. It helps us too; when it comes time to set up a burn we can get out an aerial map and go over everything with those guys to make sure everyone is on the same page.”

The next step is getting some hands-on experience! “We obviously weren’t able to go out and practice,” says Tim Bourgeois. “But we were able to learn how to use the drop torch, and got a close-up tour of the truck and all of the necessary tools and equipment. And we’re going to be able to start riding along in the next couple of weeks to really get some personal experience.” The hands-on knowledge will be highly valuable; as Matt Giberson says, “You can only talk so much about it; you have to do it to understand how it actually works. I can’t read a book and think I can do it tomorrow!”

All of the team members in attendance were especially intrigued by the history aspect. “I didn’t know it was growers who first started it, because they had learned the hard way that cranberry vines are very flammable,” says Matt Giberson. Tim was also impressed with the instruction. “These guys really know their stuff. Especially with Sammy and Tom being able to give us the grower perspective; they’re a valuable resource.”

They are, indeed, a valuable resource. But better than that, they’re great neighbors. Many thanks to Shawn Judy, Sam Moore, and Tom Gerber for coming out and helping our team do whatever it takes to protect our home and our community!

*Photos courtesy Matt Giberson and Bob Williams.

Lunchtime learning

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This week, some of our team members sat down for the inaugural session of “Lunch and Learn”, the idea of team member Matt Stiles. Matt came to us in October (“a challenging time to start at a cranberry farm,” says COO Bryan vonHahmann) and has been doing a little bit of everything ever since. But one of the places he’s been the busiest has been with new production.

“Setting up this meeting was all Matt’s idea,” says Bryan. “When he came to me with it, I thought about it for a bit and really liked the idea. So I told him to go ahead and facilitate it. He organized the whole thing: the venue, the attendance, the time…lunch was a great idea because it keeps things casual and it’s a chance for everyone to sit down at the same time.” The first topic was weeds and erosion because, as Matt says, “they were something I’d been paying a lot of attention to while working with the new beds; with all the new production I thought it’d be a good idea if we stayed on top of it.”

Tuesday, Matt sat down with Bryan, CEO Bill Haines, Mike Haines, Steve Manning, Jeremy Fenstermaker, Matt Giberson, and Tim Bourgeois for an informal lunch meeting to discuss issues with weed control and erosion as well as brainstorming ideas for prevention and repair. “I wanted to have these meetings to discuss issues and solutions,” he says. “To talk about weeds in the new bogs and what we can do to prevent them, because it can get expensive to fix later on. So I figured we’d start with weeds, have a discussion, come up with some solutions to prevent them from establishing.” Some solutions have already been working. “Putting in clean sand will help a lot, though we have to be careful if we start to stockpile it.” Matt also found an article from Massachusetts about putting grass or a cover crop on dams to prevent weeds from getting into bogs. “We’d have to stay on top of mowing, but it might save extra work down the line. With new bogs we need to be vigilant with prevention after root establishment. If we see weeds, we need to hand pull them as best we can.” The team also discussed erosion, which can take a lot of time to fix and can cause us to lose plants. “If it takes three or four years to establish vines, over time we’re going to have a lot of acres to be repaired, which can take time and get expensive, so we need to do what we can to prevent it.” Our bog reno team already has some solutions in place for this as well.

The team ultimately decided to test a couple of things on a smaller scale, with the hope of expanding the methods to a larger area if all goes well. Both Matt and Bryan were pleased with the outcome. “I think we came up with some really good ideas to make things better,” Matt says. Bryan agrees, and is also looking forward to other topics to be discussed at future meetings: “The guys came up with a lot of good stuff to work on: applications, debris reduction, harvest technique. And it’s great that Matt came up with this; he’s got great experience and capability, and I’m excited to see where we go with this in the future.”

Winter storms

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When a big winter storm is in the forecast, the news pays a lot of attention to bread, milk, eggs, rock salt, and closures. On a farm, the work must be done whatever the weather, and our team needs to prep accordingly!

The number one priority every weekend is checking the water: checking for washouts, making sure nothing’s too high or too low, making sure there’s no water on the dam itself. Team members rotate the responsibility of doing a complete check of entire farm on Saturday and Sunday. “In order to make sure that gets done during bad weather as well, we need to make sure the main pathways are cleared,” says COO Bryan vonHahmann. “In order to do that, we sent the front loaders home with the guys, which meant once the blizzard hit, they were able to plow themselves out and start clearing the main dams. Then the other guys were able to go check the water, reservoirs, bogs, all that. And in the meantime the team just kept plowing. And plowing. And plowing.”

The Equipment/Facilities team also took some precautionary measures, making sure generators ready to go in case we lost power for an extended amount of time. They also made sure the heat was turned up in any vacant properties onsite, just in case. “We also packed the shop with equipment to work on,” says manager Louis Cantafio. “That way, we didn’t have to dig it out, or start it in the cold, or fill the shop with melting snow. We went over all the loaders, made sure they were greased and fueled and ready to go before the operators brought them home.” Then, once the storm hit, they had to start pushing everything. “All the dams where we’re running water had to be plowed,” he says, “but we also had to get all the egresses open and get rid of snow everywhere we needed to store incoming deliveries. It’s no small job, working on this place; the loaders started Saturday and kept on pushing until Monday.”

Another job well-done for one of the best teams around!

ACGA Winter Meeting – 2016

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Yesterday, several team members attended the American Cranberry Growers Association’s annual winter meeting. The ACGA winter meeting is always a good opportunity for growers and scientists to listen to research findings from experiments during the previous growing season and the researchers’ recommendations for the 2016 growing season. This year, Pine Island sent new team member Matt Stiles, as well as COO Bryan vonHahmann and Mike Haines, Matt Giberson, and Jeremy Fenstermaker from our management/supervisory team. Everyone from Pine Island who attended (both the newer and the more experienced) were able to take a lot away from the experience.

“I always say this, but the main thing I like about the winter meeting is it gives you a chance to hear from other regions,” says Mike Haines. “I especially liked hearing from Hilary [Sandler, of UMass Cranberry Station]; I corresponded with her this summer about some issues we were having with poison ivy out at Boricua, and she had some excellent recommendations.” He also likes hearing from various vendors: “It’s great to hear about new things people are developing and how they can be applied to the cranberry industry.”

Matt Giberson was especially pleased to hear from DPI on the use of drones for mapping. “I think that’s the way of the future, depending on regulations,” he says. “It could definitely improve our applications. I know Peter [Oudemans, of the Marucci Center at Rutgers] has been working with him; this kind of tech can give us a better chance to examine sun damage, as well.” Matt also enjoyed hearing from Hilary: “She talked about paying attention to the perimeter being an important aspect in weed control, which is something we’ve talked about here as we continue renovation.” He also appreciates the chance to catch up on research updates every year. “We hear from a lot of the same researchers, obviously, but there’s always something different, something new. Research is always ongoing, and it’s good to hear about the progress everyone’s making.”

Bryan vonHahmann back ups Matt’s observation: “It’s great that we are able to attract quality speakers that provide research and information to help the growers improve their operations. We got to see a glimpse of the future with drones and precision agriculture to the basics on weed management. Another huge benefit is getting the growers together so that we can share ideas and information during the breaks; it’s a good collaborative event.” And as always, we’re grateful to Cesar Rodriguez-Saona for putting together yet another fantastic program!

Irrigation refurb

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A good irrigation plan manages the volume, frequency, and application of water in an organized and efficient way. A clean abundant water supply is only the first step in Pine Island’s water management program; a detailed irrigation routine is also crucial to our goals. A cranberry crop’s needs are met in three ways: rain, irrigation, and soil contribution. Unfortunately, farmers have yet to find a way to control the weather, so they must turn to the things that they can control.

Now that the winter flood is on, our team has begun working on an irrigation refurb. “A few years back we realized not everything was working optimally,” says Jeremy Fenstermaker. “So we started testing the irrigation systems–pumps, nozzles, sprinkler heads, everything–to find out why they weren’t running the right way. Then we made a plan to get everything back up to speed over the next five years.” Jeremy, along with Mike Haines, took some time to review all of our systems and then formed a plan. “Irrigation is the only thing you have 100% control over, so it needs to be done right,” explains Jeremy. “We started out checking the pressure and flow. We knew how many gallons per minute were ideal, and if a system wasn’t reaching that we took the worst ones and decided what needed to be done.”

Part of the issue is uniformity. “There are three different spacings, which means at least three different sizes of nozzles,” Jeremy says. “So it’s a priority to get everything uniform on one system. If nozzles get mixed up, it can screw up the application rate, so we’re trying to get it to where it should be and keep it that way to improve both fertilizer application and frost control. One of the big reasons we’re doing this is that we found out with different spacings there are different rates that water goes on; we want to match it at the rate the soil can take it in, but we were exceeding it in a lot of areas. If the soil is too wet, that can lead to rot. Fixing the flow won’t to eliminate disease, but should hopefully cut it down. When everything is putting water out at same rate, we don’t have to worry about water at different times. The whole farm can run at once.” And since the bogs are flooded, this is a great winter project. It’s a whole lot easier when all the sprinklers from one system are in one box; you can put your hands on all of them.

While Jeremy is working on application rates and while Waldemar Blanco and Bob Heritage are working on refurbishing sprinklers, our Equipment/Facilities team is working on the pumps. “We have a number of engines that we weren’t happy with how they were running this past season, and since the work that needs to be done is considerable, we didn’t want to do it during the season itself,” says Equipment/Facilities manager Louis Cantafio. “We currently have seven systems in here with some issues that needed addressing, and while they’re in here we’re making some adjustments that will be useful going forward. In addition to the repairs, we’re getting them ready for automation as well as making some changes that will be more efficient for the team during frost, during the winter flood, during fertilizer application…anything that could make things better for both the equipment and the team. That’s not the main reason we brought them in, but we’re taking the opportunity to update while the bogs are still under water!”