Category Archives: General

Season’s End

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Another year, another excellent harvest!

“A lot of good news this year,” says GM Fred Torres. “We broke records on all kinds of bogs this year: new bogs, old bogs, big ones, small ones. The berries were smaller this year, which means less weight and fewer barrels, but even with that we were able to increase the number of berries per acre we grew this year. That’s just fantastic.” A cooler August this year meant smaller fruit. “The berries need some heat in August,” he says. “But we had cooler temperatures this year than we normally do, which starts the color a little earlier and means they’re not going to grow anymore. But we’re still really happy with the crop; we can’t control the weather, but we did everything else we had to do when we had to do it and still brought in an average of over 236 barrels per acre. We can be proud of that.”

Another big triumph this year was the success of the Gates Harrow. “We’re very pleased with Gates Harrow and the time that it takes to do a bog,” Fred says. “Not rushing, just setting the normal pace the machine needs to run. And it picks clean.” The learning curve was a little steep at first, as you would expect. Team member Mickey Mercado had to learn how to move the ramps around as well as set them up for the machine; it has to be right so the tractor can easily turn around with as little overlap as possible. Fred says they got it down to a science: “By the end of the season, Rick [Zapata] couldn’t catch him. He would get to the end, and Mickey would be waiting already. If the guy on the tractor slows down, it’s going to slow down the guy who’s picking. At no time did Rick have to stop because he had to wait for Mickey. They both did really well.” Team members Joel DeJesus and Caesar Colon also put in some time on the new equipment, so when we eventually add another, we’ll have team members who are ready.

We also found out that we can run two crews with one Gates Harrow. “We have to manage the time well, but it can be done,” Fred says. During that particular experiment, the team members usually assigned to the smaller machines were able to do work elsewhere (such as bog clean-up after harvesting), making it an efficient use of time.

Best of all, everyone worked really well together. It can be tough; the crews are out there seven days a week for five weeks, and everyone gets tired toward the end. But we had a strong finish! “We set our target to finish by the end of the month, and we did,” says Fred. “We were done before the weekend and it was great! The weather was good, too. We had the one rough day, which was a little chilly with a lot of rain, but other than that it was good.” And we’re already using the season as a learning experience. “We’re always looking for ways to improve on the good stuff we already have: we have a great team, we have great equipment, but we can always challenge ourselves to do better. We know we can grow ‘em; we did it this year. But we have a lot of work to do this winter, and at the end of it, we’re going to come out of it working more efficiently than we ever have.”

Innovation in action

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It’s the last week of harvest at Pine Island Cranberry, and our team, as always has been working hard and doing whatever it takes to bring in the crop every single day.

The team is already making plans for the big finish! At the end of the season, our seasonal team members celebrate with a pig roast. Longtime seasonal crew member Albert Torres heads up the project, which is partly funded by recycling. In order to make this easier, the little camp has a small can crusher set up. Albert thought the big camp could use one, as well. And that’s when things went a little…crazy.

“Albert came to us because he wanted a can crusher for the big camp,” explains welder Fred Henschel. “I just figured I’d go out and buy him one, you know? And then I saw how much he and the guys had collected out there, and realized he needed something heavier. Louis and I got to talking about it, and things just spiraled from there.” At first, they were simply designing something utilitarian, building it entirely from scrap. “The motor that runs it is an old pool pump I had at my house,” Fred says.

“He’d be through here every day for one reason or another, and would ask me, ‘you working on my can crusher yet?’ I’d tell him, we’re getting there, and he would tell me he needed it for the piggy bank. He was very insistent: ‘I need it for my piggy bank!’ And that’s when we got the idea.”

Yes, our Facilities/Equipment team built a mechanical, can-eating pig. (Which is probably not so strange, when you consider that this area is known as Hogwallow.) “Once we had the idea, we just went all out and had fun with it,” Fred says. “Coco came up with the idea for the crushing mechanism, and if you look inside, I painted it red, because it’s really the heart of the project.”

Fred just loves building anything, and really got into the spirit of the project. “I had fun making the pig’s face and tail; that was a challenge,” he says. “And then when I went to buy the paint, I saw the shade was called Berry Pink, which I thought was…berry appropriate. It should do a berry good job crushing cans!”

Indeed. Though the pig apparently has a mind of its own, and refuses all Coke cans. (Something about the structure of the can, the shop team says.) Allow Louis to demonstrate:

Louis admits he was a bit worried about “frivolous” spending, though the project only came out to about a hundred dollars altogether. “You can’t put a price on art, Louis,” Fred tells him. Sometimes it gets a little silly around here, but in the end, our team is still doing whatever it takes to make things better: for themselves, for the place, and for the environment!

New Jersey Audubon Quail Restoration Initiative

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Last week, Pine Island Cranberry was proud to welcome some of the members and staff of New Jersey Audubon for a tour of the harvest and some of the selected sites for one of our favorite projects: the quail restoration initiative. Bobwhite quail have almost vanished from the Pine Barrens, and Pine Island, along with NJ Audubon and Bob Williams of Pine Creek Forestry, hope to bring them back. According to NJ Audubon: “Northern Bobwhite, once a staple of the New Jersey countryside and common enough to be a game bird in the state, has all but disappeared. According to the Christmas Bird Count and Breeding Bird Survey data, the bird has suffered one of the most severe population declines of any North American bird: a population decline of 82% in the last forty years. This is primarily due to a loss of habitat from development, change in farming practices, change in habitat due to a lack of disturbance, and an overall loss of young forest habitat.” Over the course of three years, they say, “…approximately 240 wild birds will be captured on private land in Georgia, and transferred to the core of the pinelands where they will be fitted with radio collars, released, and monitored. The goal is to establish a self-sustaining population on this magnificent property.”

Eric Stiles, President/CEO of NJ Audubon, and John Parke, his Stewardship Project Director, are both very excited: “This project makes us feel that we’ve been bringing everything we’ve been promoting: sustainability, agriculture, habitat. This is all about the private sector taking it upon themselves to do great work and show how it’s supposed to be done out there on the landscape. This is all being done by agriculture: how they deal with water and disease and production, straight up to how they’re dealing with the forest. We need to take into account the cultural, social, and economic aspect; if we don’t, we miss a lot of useful info from people who have been out there working on the land, and they’re the ones leading the charge. Pine Island Cranberry, and what they do, is such a big component of how this state is going to be able to proceed as far as sustainability and natural resource protection.”

The first item of business, of course, was going out to see the harvest on a picture-perfect day.

CEO Bill Haines was glad as always to explain the importance of water to our industry. “The key to this business is water,” he said. “The protection of our water supply has protected this business from the beginning. We have 1400 producing acres, but about 14,000 acres of land to protect our water supply, which sounds more impressive than it really is. Back in the day, no one wanted it, so if it was upstream, we bought it. And because we have all this land, we’ve always done prescribed burning. This is where we grew up; this is where we do business. It’s important to us in a business sense, yes, but it’s also important because it’s our home. That’s how this family was raised: if you have a resource, it’s your responsibility to take care of it.”

The group was off to Sim Place to see the targeted habitat and how Pine Island’s forestry and stewardship practices are helping make this happen. While seeing the harvest always has an impact, it was even better to see the reactions to some of the native plant growth flourishing on the land.

Ultimately, it’s not just about restoration or protection; it’s about doing the stewardship work for the long term. “It’s not only good work,” says Bill. “It’s also fun. This will show that you can successfully manage a business in the Pines that not only doesn’t damage the environment but enhances it. It’s good for business, but it’s also the right thing to do.”

A visit from Cory Booker

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This week, Pine Island Cranberry was pleased to host a visit from Senator Cory Booker and his team! It seems the Senator was happy to visit, as well:

Our tour started with a brief introduction in our main office, and then it was off to see our red October!

The Senator and his team were able to speak with both CEO Bill Haines as well as Dan Crocker, Vice-President of Cooperative Development at Ocean Spray, and learned a tremendous amount about both Pine Island’s history and the cranberry industry in New Jersey. The highlight of the trip was the chance for him to get into waders and help our Orange Team gathering crew bring the crop in.

It was a fantastic chance for him to witness the importance of a clean, abundant water supply for cranberries and the many ways water is crucial to bringing in our crop every year: flooding the bogs for harvest purposes, pest management and fertilizer application, application of sand to bogs during the winter months, and use of irrigation to prevent frost damage, as well as how these production activities remain consistent with good conservation practices.

Other highlights included getting the Senator to taste a raw cranberry. Because cranberries have little natural sugar and need to be sweetened for palatability and processing purposes, getting a reaction from folks who have only tried “finished” products can be fun. The Senator rolled with the punches, however, and inspected them inside and out!

All in all, it was a highly successful day for everyone. “We were proud to have Senator Booker here to show him our operation, and are really pleased that he was so interested in our industry. He was a total good sport and it was really fun to have him,” says Bill. Senator Booker agrees: “It was a great visit. I’m honored to represent [Bill’s] interests and the interests of New Jersey’s farmers in Washington, DC.”

Packing House Team

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The daily routine at our cranberry platform is a simple but continuous process, and relies on constant communication between the team leaders and the packing house team, as well as between the packing house and the receiving station. It remains the same as always: each team on the bogs has been assigned a color: Orange, Blue, or Green. In order to properly track each team’s production, their bogs are assigned a different section on the packing house platform. Each bog is run through the blowers separately. The first load from each new bog has a post-it note attached to it with our Exhibit A number, or bog identification number. It is the team leader’s responsibility every day to let Mike Guest, our facilities supervisor, know what their plan for the day is and to keep him informed of any problems that might occur during the day.

First, the forklift crew, led by Emmanuel Colon, unload the full cranberry boxes from the trucks coming out of the field. If the boxes are coming from the bog that Mike is sending through the blowers, then the forklift crew will dump the cranberries from those boxes into the hoppers. If Mike is not running that particular bog the forklift crew will stack the boxes in the appropriate spot for that crew on the platform. Once the cranberries are poured into the hoppers, they pass along the belt through the blowers, which are used to partially dry the fruit and remove as many of the leaves as possible. Once the leaves are blown out, the fruit drops onto another belt and from there move up the truck elevator into the waiting trailer. Team member Harry Mick keeps the loading moving; he signals our drivers, Josue and Pedro, to keep the trailer inching forward as each section is filled with fruit. It is then his task to halt the line when the trailer is full or the bog is finished in order to bring the next waiting trailer forward.

While all of this is going on, other team members are busy rinsing off the belts in order to keep the equipment as debris-free as possible. They also take advantage of pauses in loading to sweep up the extras and push them toward the debris pile. In addition, everyone pitches in when necessary to clear out the hoppers, which occasionally can get jammed. The last box out of a bog usually has a lot of leaves, grass, and other bog debris, and can clog the line and cause hold-ups both here and at the receiving station if we do not take care of it immediately. Therefore, the constant washing of the equipment and attention to detail by the packing house crew help keep our harvest running.

Mike always welcomes any ideas from his crew to improve the process. “They’re the ones who are on it every day; if they come to me and ask if we can try something, I’ll always see if it’s doable.” He especially relies on the assistance of Emmanuel Colon. Emmanuel, a seasonal team member for seven years, moved up to full-time to assist Mike Guest with our Facilities team. While every day during harvest time is busy, some days are especially hectic, and that’s when Mike relies on Emmanuel the most.

“He’s a hard worker,” Mike says. “Not only is he willing to do anything, he’s also willing to stop and ask questions if it’s something he’s not sure about; he won’t just bluff his way through it. I never have to worry if I have to go somewhere; when Emmanuel is left in charge, things get done and they get done right.”

A devoted husband and father of three, Emmanuel is also highly versatile with excellent technical skills. In his time here, he has helped build the new well at Caley, assisted with the new irrigation lines at Boricua, and done numerous carpentry jobs, both large and small.

“Emmanuel’s very flexible, with a great work ethic,” GM Fred Torres says. “I know he’s busy this time of year, but if I ask him to do something, he’ll get it done. And I don’t have to go back and check; if it’s on his list, it’ll get done. He’s organized. He writes it down, he keeps track.” We’re proud to have a team member like Emmanuel, who is always willing to do “whatever it takes” to help Pine Island Cranberry keep growing!

Green Team – Gathering

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Pine Island Cranberry’s harvest teams kicked into high gear this week, and our Green Team was out at our Warehouse bogs for the last time before their upcoming 2015 renovation! CEO Bill Haines outlined the upcoming renovation plans back in August: “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. “In 2013, we had nearly 218 barrels to the acre in Panama #6. This year, we had 493 barrels to the acre. That’s the direction we want to be going.”

In the meantime, our team was doing whatever it takes to make sure the final Warehouse harvest was completed quickly and efficiently, just as they always do!

Team member Bob Heritage was hauling to the packing house for the Green Team this week, one of the many tasks he has performed over the last thirty-four years he’s been with us. A former dairy farmer, Bob says, “I told Bill when I started, I don’t know anything about cranberries…but if there’s a cow in the bog I can get her out!” Fortunately, we’ve never had to deal with that issue, but Bob has proven over and over again his drive to learn and his willingness to do what he has to do when it’s time to do it. “I’ve done just about everything,” Bob says. “I’ve worked frost, renovation…but cranberry season is my favorite part. You get to see what you’ve been working toward all year, and it’s beautiful to look at, besides.”

Bog renovation manager Joe Colon has nothing but good things to say about Bob. “He’s a hard worker,” Joe says. “And he never complains. If you tell him he needs to do something that he’s never done before, he’s not afraid or worried. He learns it, and tries to figure out ways to make it even better.”

While Bob is pondering retirement, he’s not quite ready to go yet: “When I first started here, we were building the bogs at Black Rock. Now [along with Warehouse] they’re on the schedule to be renovated next year. I’ll get to see the entire cycle. There’s not many people who can say that.”

Gates Harrow

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We mentioned a few weeks ago that our equipment team was working on a new machine for our harvest season. The Gates Harrow is the latest addition to our equipment program and everyone is very excited to try it come harvest time. “It’s much less labor intensive,” said manager Louis Cantafio at the time. “We typically run a six man picking crew and their target is about 12.5 acres per day. On a more level set of bogs, they can do more than that, but with a Gates Harrow we’ve seen a two-man crew get through 40 acres. It’s a lot more efficient.”

The Gates Harrow is a simple machine set up to cover more ground. At the front is a rod which holds vines down to the ground; as the tractor moves forward, the berries pop off the stems and roll up over the tines on the rake.

It’s not as hard on the plants as our usual method, and our renovation program is geared for increased efficiency by being user-friendly for equipment like this. Team supervisor Jeremy Fenstermaker thinks there are several advantages to the new equipment: “The biggest advantage is labor. It also picks a lot cleaner; it knocks almost everything off the vines. With the standard reels you’ll still find some berries left here and there. There’s also some fuel savings with just one tractor running.” While the machine uses less water for picking than the reels, the bogs still require additonal flooding for gathering, which is still done in the usual way. “Adding water isn’t a problem,” Jeremy says. “If you figure out timing it works out fine. As long as Rick [Zapata] is ahead it’s not that big a deal.” Another advantage: “The fruit is ‘cleaner’ as far as debris: fewer weeds, vines, twigs, all that kind of thing. Which means Mike can get fruit out faster at the packing house because his crew can process it faster.”

CEO Bill Haines is pleased with how things are turning out: “It’s been a steep learning curve, but I’m encouraged by the outcome,” he says. “Jeremy, Rick, and Mickey [Mercado] have done a great job learning the best way to use it. Every day is going a little better; I’m very pleased with the results.”

Interested in seeing the machine in action up close? Watch as team leader Rick Zapata takes us on a brief tour around the bog:

GoPro Gates Harrow from Pine Island Cranberry on Vimeo.

Kay Breitzman, 1940-2014

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It’s a sad week for us here at Pine Island Cranberry as we say goodbye to Bill, Holly, and Betty Ann’s sister Kay Breitzman, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 73.

Kay lived here for almost her entire life, and will be enormously missed. Everyone on the farm has a story about Kay, who was a wonderful, loving mother and grandmother, an amazing aunt, a generous friend, and a welcoming neighbor. A graduate of Egg Harbor City High School, Class of 1959, Kay became an x-ray technician before starting her family in 1963. After raising her children, she returned to the medical field and worked in Burlington County as a home health aide. Kay loved helping people and was the most giving and kindhearted person, always putting her family and friends before herself until the very end. She retired in 2008 to Hutchinson Island, Fort Pierce, Florida, making a wonderful group of new friends there in addition to life-long friends she had in New Jersey. The life of every party, Kay was loved wherever she went…and no matter where she went, she always made you feel at home.

Kay and Betty Ann.

She was preceded in death by her husband of 47 years, Bob, and parents Bill and Sara Haines and Richard Paul Norcross. She always said she was lucky to have two great men for fathers.

Kay is survived by four children, Sharon Bailey of North Carolina, Robert Breitzman of Franklinville, Jennifer Romeo of Laureldale, and Don Breitzman of Nesco, and her grandson, Robert Karl Breitzman of Shamong. She is also survived by her siblings, Betty Ann McCoy, Holly Haines, and Bill Haines Jr.

Kay and Betty Ann during the harvest!

2014 Fall Planting

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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.”

Equipment program: Hydrema

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Pine Island Cranberry prides itself on efficiency, and both our hard-working team and our equipment program reflect that. To that end, our equipment program recently started test-driving a Hydrema for hauling.

“We got the Hydrema about a week ago and we’ve been running it hard ever since,” says equipment team member Coco Mercado. “Joe [Colon, Bog Renovations Manager] has been out there on it just about every day.” He was working yesterday to remove the hitch, as it’s heavy enough to do some of our major towing as well. “We used it to bring the sand screener out and I got to drive it back; it handles like a Cadillac!”

Equipment supervisor Carlos Baez is impressed as well. “There are a lot of tight turns on the bogs,” he says. “In a regular dump truck, you really have to work it. But the Hydrema is articulated, so it’s easier to make turns or back up to the sandbox. And the tires are big enough to keep it from wearing deep ruts in the dams or getting stuck in soft sand.”

The Hydrema can also take double the load that a dump truck can carry. “It moves a little slower, but we can load seven buckets as opposed to the 3.5 we can get in the regular dump truck,” Carlos says. “That’s still the equivalent of two loads, even taking the slower speed into account.” Our demo model also has the “multi-tip option”, which means we can drop sand from the right side or the left side in addition to the back. This is an highly useful option in many of our typical tasks, such as sanding and bog renovation.

But the ultimate review might be from our bog renovation manager. Though he was working on another project and was unavailable to comment, he’s been keeping the equipment team updated. “Joe loves it,” Carlos says. “And you know Joe doesn’t hold back.” COO Bryan vonHahmann concurs: “Joe was skeptical at first, but he’s been the primary driver ever since!”