Tag Archives: PIICM

Downstown fertilizer trials

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This week some Pine Island team members went to Downstown Aero Crop Service for an application clinic. This clinic is recommended for aviation crop services in order to give the operators and their pilots the opportunity to test their equipment with a trained analyst to help interpret the information and to recommend changes to improve performance.

The main intent of this program, which was sponsored in part by the National Agricultural Aviation Association, is to improve “economy of operation and application, as well as an increase in safety and reduced health and environmental concerns.” As we are in the middle of our growing season and thus concerned with applying the correct amount of nutrients via fertilizer application, this is highly beneficial to Pine Island’s Integrated Crop Management program: one of the keys to our PIICM program is giving vines the nutrients they need, when they need it. The amount of fertilizer to be applied is determined by variety, soil conditions, and past practices, requiring constant evaluation of current conditions, history, and trends, and we are always searching for ways to become even better.

The morning was spent testing calibration for both accuracy and drift. “The control of the droplet size is the best thing we have to combat drift,” says Dennis Gardisser of WRK Services of Arkansas. “In the workshops, we show applicators how to configure aircrafts so they develop precise droplet sizes.” Droplets that are too fine can drift or evaporate, and droplets that are too large may reduce the coverage, in turn reducing crop yields by a significant amount.

Downstown is a great outfit to work with, and our team was impressed by their willingness to basically audit themselves in front of an audience mainly composed of their clients. “They put themselves under review to show us how they can do things even better,” says COO Bryan vonHahmann. “It’s ultimately about efficiency. When they’re more efficient, we’re more efficient, and ultimately that helps us to become better growers.”

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ICM building

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In keeping with our core value of continuous improvement, our Integrated Crop Management team moved into their new office this week! Previously, our ICM team did not have a central area to store equipment or hold meetings, but the old office space turned out to be a perfect location to consolidate. Facilities/Equipment manager Louis Cantafio explains: “We don’t like to leave anything unused. As one of the original farm buildings, it has some sentimental value as well as plenty of office and storage space for anything the team might need.” As part of the renovation, the building was re-sided with Pine Island cedar that we had cut here and milled for us.

The interior was also redone to increase efficiency. There is now room to spread out and one central location for research, storage, and records. It also acts as the control center for the many tasks the team needs to perform during the growing season. The building was also added onto the fiber line that connects the shop to the main office server as well as set up for WiFi in order to make the most out of the team’s new tech.

One of the team’s current top priorities is scouting. ICM team members Matt Giberson and Michael Haines spent the week looking at stages of growth and making determination for when to add fertilizer, roughneck fertilizer, or both. “We have to get down in the bog and look at everything,” Matt says. “It’s quick, only about five or ten minutes, but we get out in the middle and check for growth stages and later, bugs. It’s a little too early for pest damage right now; that’ll be later.” A lot of fertilizer application is a waiting game, he says. “We could apply tomorrow, but we want to see what Mother Nature brings us first; we don’t want it washing out.”

Our team is also using new technology to assist with other issues. A big problem in New Jersey cranberry beds is fairy ring, a disease that leads to root rot and fruit rot and remains difficult to control. Dr. Peter Oudemans of Rutgers University has spent the past few days testing fairy ring treatments on some of our cranberry beds, and his team is mapping the beds using aerial photos obtained by a drone. “Previously, it was done by satellite, which was time-consuming in many ways,” he says. “But now we’ll just launch the drone and land it in the bogs, using remote control. It will map out where the fairy rings are; we’ll do it a few times through the season.We’re trying different treatments for each section. After they get treated we can remap, see what plots are working, what plots aren’t.”

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.”

Nutrition decisions

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This week we once again hosted Dr. Joan Davenport of Washington State University. Joan, a former researcher for Ocean Spray, works with Pine Island Cranberry to provide guidance on fertilizer, water, and nutrients, as well as general PIICM management. Joan comes to see us in the spring during the bloom period and again in the height of summer to discuss fertilizer needs for bud set (defined below).

Additional nutrition is necessary because while cranberries have adapted (and thrive) in their native sandy soil, nutrients are taken from the bog through the harvest of fruit. The three main elements usually added for nutrition are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. According to cranberries.org: “Cranberry plant demand for nitrogen is highest during three stages of the lifecycle critical to cranberry development–early growth, fruit set and bud set. Early growth is when the plant grows vegetatively through vining and root growth and produces a flush of new leaves. Fruit set is when the flower becomes pollinated and fruit begin to form. Soon after fruit set comes bud set when nitrogen is needed for both fruit development and production of the next year’s flower bud.”

Joan and our PIICM team visit several bogs to check growth and fruit set in order to best determine nutritional needs. They also take into account the sanding schedule, as sanding 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 reducing insects (by burying insect eggs) and improving soil drainage. This lowers the need for additional plant nutrition.

“This late in the growing season, we are assessing the new plantings for nutritional needs but also for when to stop fertilizing, so that the plants will enter dormancy,” Joan says. “For established beds, we are evaluating the plants for how much crop they are holding and the bud potential for next year to develop recommendations for applications for the remainder of the growing season, including post-harvest and some guidance for roughneck in the spring of next year.” (The roughneck stage is when the stem elongates significantly and all flower buds are visible, being held tight to the stem.) To do this, Joan and the PIICM team look at the amount and size of fruit, the length and color of both new and upright growth, and the amount of buds already set.

Once Joan and the team tour the bogs, she makes specific recommendations based on their findings, such as the sand level needed in certain beds or where to adjust for deficiencies.

“It’s going to take eyes on the beds,” Joan says. “But here, there are always eyes on the beds.” And as always, our PIICM team is out doing whatever it takes to make sure our growing season gives us good results.

Sources:
1. Fertilizer Use in Cranberry Production: http://www.cranberries.org/pdf/soil_fertility.pdf
2. Workmaster, Beth Ann A., Jiwan P. Palta, and Teryl R. Roper, “Terminology for Cranberry Bud Development and Growth”, http://longbeach.wsu.edu/cranberries/documents/terminologyforcranberrybuddevelopmentandgrowth.pdf

Fungicide application

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Last week we talked about the effect of New Jersey humidity on our growing season and how we set our treatment targets. While we always keep in mind that we are growers first and foremost, one of Pine Island Cranberry’s core values is protecting the environment: caring for the place where we live, work and grow. We do everything we possibly can to limit applications of fungicides.

The first line of defense is maintaining adequate drainage. Per Dr. Peter Oudemans of Rutgers University, uniform drainage helps minimize infection. Puddles or standing water are the first places fungi such as Phytophthora cinnamomi or Phyllosticta occur, and drainage methods that remove standing water (such as installing new underdrain, below) are very useful in controlling root rot.

Over-watering can also increase likelihood of root and fruit rot. In the hot summer months our team works to achieve the delicate balance of cooling off vines while not over-saturating the soil. This requires constant monitoring of tensiometers (pictured below) and lampinenometers to determine soil moisture in the root zone and the distance from the plants to the water table. These readings vary across the farm, making it necessary to use different irrigation regimens from system to system.

When fungicide use is needed, Peter says, “We’ve figured out that if we can treat the disease during the bloom period, we’ve got it seventy to ninety percent controlled. Once the bloom period is over, treatment gives us diminishing returns. Some of our new research is to discover just how much.” He says researchers have been seeing good results with the standard applications discussed by PIICM manager Cristina Tassone last week. “The fungicides used have a narrow spectrum of actions separately, but we’ve found that if they’re combined they can work very well protecting the plants from infection.”

Jeremy Fenstermaker and his team have been up early all week finishing the final application. “It’s usually done early because that’s when it’s calmest,” he says. “It prevents drift and helps give us a more uniform application. The weather’s made it tricky in other ways this year; timing is important so the fungicide has time to dry, which makes it more effective.” Timing is also crucial for running everything through the system. “It varies based on size,” says team member Tim Haines. “Most of them average eight to ten minutes, but some can be as low as four. But as long as the pressure is constant it will be the same every time we run the system.”

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Sources:
Oudemans, Peter V. and Anne DeMarsay, Management of Phytophthora Root and Runner Rot in Cranberry, May 2013.

Irrigating young bogs

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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. As it turns out, a study by Bruce Lampinen showed that for many weeks during the growing season, most cranberry beds were too wet. This can especially be a problem in the humid climate of southern New Jersey, and if not dealt with, can cause conditions favorable to fruit rot and root rot. Cranberry beds usually receive up to one inch of water per week from either rain, capillary action from the ground water, irrigation, or a combination of all three. But as conditions can vary from bog to bog, this does not always result in ideal soil conditions.

We have mentioned before our use of tensiometers in monitoring soil moisture. (From UMass: “A tensiometer is a sealed, water-filled tube with a vacuum gauge on the upper end and a porous ceramic tip on the lower end. A tensiometer measures the soil water potential in the soil. As the soil around the tensiometer dries out, water is drawn from the tube through the ceramic tip. This creates a vacuum in the tube that can be read on the vacuum gauge. When the soil water is increased, through rainfall or irrigation, water enters the tube through the porous tip, lowering the gauge reading.”)

How we measure soil moisture

Lampinen’s study showed that maintaining a water table beneath the bed a sufficient depth to provide water to the root zone by capillary rise while avoiding oversaturation in the root zone, irrigation needs can be met. In order to best measure this, he designed a water level float, or lampinometer, which can be easily assembled using parts from various hardware, plumbing, or garden supply stores, making it an economical choice for growers. The lampinometer is not only less expensive, it also requires less maintenance and is more sensitive to water table fluctuations. (Study.)

Vanessa DeJesus and Casey Koehler started working on the tensiometers two weeks ago. “I basically just make sure the plants have enough water,” Vanessa says. “If they’re looking a little dry, I notify Fred [Torres] and then they decide if they need to start the pumps.” The tensiometers are not infallible, she adds. “They’re mechanical; like everything else, you need to double check things yourself. Just in case.” She’s also training other team members how to do the readings: “I do a little bit of everything. So if I’m not available, someone else can step in. The more you know, the better.” Casey worked with Matt Giberson on measuring and installation and says the physical installation was a lot easier than the prep! (“It’s a lot of math,” Matt says. “Peter Oudemans helped us with the set-up, but once we learned it things went well.”)

Team members Kylie Naylor and Kelvin Colon have also been hard at work heading up this new project, which is currently focused on the young bogs. Young bogs have different needs than older ones, Kelvin says. “They tend to lose more water during the day because there’s no vine canopy.” It’s been a learning process for both of them as well. “We know all about tensiometers, but we’ve never tried anything like this before.”

Kylie explains that they’re looking at the wet and dry numbers and the range in between. “You also need to feel the soil, check the root ball and its moisture level. That will determine if we need to irrigate.”

Once the team began the lampinometer installation (“Matt and I spent two days learning about it,” Kelvin says. “It seemed complicated at first but once we got the hang of it things went smoothly.”) they set up a daily routine to monitor the young bogs. “We’re still putting them in,” says Matt. “But it’s going to be cool to see how they work.”

Kylie agrees: “Figuring it out helps build confidence, I think. Since you have to come at the [irrigation] problem from a different angle, you have to pool your knowledge and make judgment calls. It comes down to having your feet in the bog to know what you need to do.” And with Kylie and Kelvin heading up such a hard-working team, Pine Island Cranberry will continue to improve upon planning and performance!

Sanding

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Now that the bogs are flooded for the winter, we have started our next big project at Pine Island Cranberry: sanding. Sanding is a fundamental component of our Pine Island Integrated Crop Management (PIICM) program, helping us manage the relationship between water, soil, weather, disease, insects, weeds, and nutrition.

Sanding is a process where we apply 1/2″ to 1″ of sand on the bog surface every five years on a rotating basis. This year we are scheduled to sand 232 acres. This procedure 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.

In New Jersey, it doesn’t always get cold enough for ice sanding (the preferred method for growers at more northern latitudes), so our team usually works with a sanding barge. This process starts as you might expect: checking on water levels. Our team needs to make sure the water is the right depth, so that Jorge Morales, our barge operator, doesn’t get stuck on any vines or worse, tear them out. “This weekend, the water levels dropped a little bit,” sanding team member Matt Giberson says. “We ended up having to let some water in.”

When barge sanding, it is particularly important to check for debris. The sand needs to be as pure as possible in order to prevent soil compaction (which can restrict water and limit growth) so we screen our sand before using it on the barge to take out any clay, stones, or other debris which could cause problems.

Our team begins to prep a couple of days beforehand by checking to see how much the water level needs to come up. The day before the crew arrives, a supervisor will get the water to sanding level (high enough to cover all vines) and measure out the distance the sander will travel. The crew will begin to sand on the deepest side. The water level can then be adjusted if necessary, which helps with dam conservation.

Our team also prepares by sending the necessary equipment out to the sanding location. A tractor with a winch is on one side of the bog, ready to move the length of the bog; an excavator is on the opposite side of the bog. The cable from the winch is stretched across the bog, through the sander (which has been lifted and put in the bog next to the excavator), and connected to the excavator.

On Wednesday, the sanding team was out at Harrison. “This one’s a little easier to do because it’s pretty square,” Matt says. “Oddly shaped bogs can be tough. But here Jorge just has to work his way to the middle and back and keep marking with stakes. It’s a simpler pattern.”

Harrison should also respond well to the sanding process. “Some varieties do better with sanding than others,” says PIICM manager Cristina Tassone. “With a Stevens bog our preliminary analysis shows that production can go down slightly, but Harrison is a Ben Lear bog, and Ben Lear seems to respond very well to sanding. So we’re experimenting a little with that.” Our PIICM program is also experimenting with how sanding affects the growth and spread of fairy ring, a fungus which works to kill cranberry vines in the root system. “Our suspicion is that it helps to spread the disease,” Cristina says, “so we’re skipping some bogs in the rotation where fairy ring has appeared. We’ll see what happens.”

The process itself is simple: a dump truck is loaded with two or three loader buckets of sand.

The dump truck then heads over to the bog being sanded, backs up to the excavator, and drops the load. The excavator operator then loads the hopper of the sander, while the sander operator moves along the cable, adjusting the opening for the sand to fall. Jorge is sanding at 1″ for this particular bog. The process is repeated, with the excavator and tractor moving forward the length of the bog together.

“It’s especially important to clean out the machines every night in case the temperature drops below freezing,” Matt says. “We clean out the sander, the trucks, the dams…everything. It’s all about efficiency.”

The start of harvest

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Our team is still working hard on the post storm cleanup, and two of the bogs that were hardest hit (Otter and Fishhead) are back on track: the debris has been removed, the holes have been filled in, and the dams have been repaired. Also, the damage to the vines may not be as terminal as we feared. Next growing season will be a true test of their resiliency.

While harvest will not officially begin until Monday, the Pine Island team picked our first bog of the season on Tuesday. Ocean Spray’s Chatsworth Receiving Station wanted to test their new equipment, so we were able to help them and at the same time give ourselves an idea of how the flooding affected our crop. It worked out well for everyone.

Ocean Spray is placing particular emphasis on TAcy this year (as mentioned in our entry on varieties, TAcy is an acronym for “total anthocyanin concentration” and is a unit of color measurement used in a cranberry), so we chose Savannah #4, a bog planted with the Demoranville variety, which is specifically grown for early fruit color development and high TAcy in addition to size, quality, and vigor. This makes it a perfect control bog for all of the various extenuating circumstances.

After the bog was harvested, General Manager Fred Torres held a harvest meeting with the supervisors and foremen out at Savannah #4 to go over our expectations and priorities for the coming season. ICM manager Cristina Tassone brought up the emphasis on TAcy this season; we want to place higher priority on harvesting the bogs that were under water the longest period of time, and at the same time test the TAcy to ensure we have the color.

Harvest is what we spend all year working toward. We focus on efficiency, quality, and growth, which will be measured by size, color, brix, and soundness. We never stop striving for quality fruit until the last bog is harvested. The proof is in the way our team responded after the storm to get us to harvest on time. This is what we do and who we are.

Fred emphasized in the meeting that establishing a chain of command is important, and above all, communication is key. Our supervisors need to be able to communicate to both their crew and to management what their daily plan is and be able to deal with anything that goes wrong…and something will always go wrong. Machines will break, a truck won’t start, a boom reel will get stuck: any number of things can happen, and that’s why communication and teamwork are so important. Fred continues, “Communication and teamwork are what makes us efficient and that’s how we get things done. We don’t want to be wasting time at harvest.” Our supervisors are also instructed to take care of the water every day; they need to have the bogs flooded and ready to go at the start of the work day, whatever it takes. It is crucial to keep the lines of communication open between the the people in the bogs and the people in the packing house, so that the packing house can keep the Receiving Station apprised of any changes.

The harvest meeting also included a reminder from Louis Cantafio to review the maintenance of the harvesting machines. Louis and his crew ran everything prior to Wednesday to make sure all was in order. He wanted to ensure everyone paid attention to the tension on the chains: too-tight chains on the harvesters is too much work for the engine; it will wear out the chain and the sprockets and then will need to be replaced between seasons, which gets expensive.

All in all, we had a challenging two weeks to get to this point: prepared for harvest. Communication and continued training is key to keep us on our mission. One thing Bill has always liked about farming is that when it’s time to do something, you do it, and our team proved we will do whatever it takes to get there.

New planting: updates

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One of our April blog entries was on planting bogs at Sim Place. Planting was completed in May, but continuing care for the young bogs is under the supervision of Tug Haines, the fifth generation of the Haines family working at Pine Island and currently serving as a foreman in our PIICM program.


Once the plants are in, it is important to monitor the young bogs frequently to ensure that they are rooting well and remain healthy. Last week, Tug met with Bill, PIICM manager Cristina Tassone, and Dan Schiffhauer of Ocean Spray to check the bogs and discuss their nutritional needs.

The consensus was “so far, so good”; we’re not getting much leaf drop and the plants seem to be thriving. We’re not seeing many runners yet, but according to Schiffhauer, that’s just fine. “You don’t want kudzu,” he says. “The important thing the first year is for the roots to establish before they start running, and that’s what we’re seeing.” The PIICM team will continue to watch color and leaf size on the new growth in order to determine fertilizer needs and then modifying the plan if necessary. As soil and nutrition consultant Dr. Joan Davenport always reminds us: “It is ineffective to put fertilizer onto the beds until the root mass around the [new plants] is at least the diameter of a standard #2 pencil.”

As with the established bogs, heat is also a consideration. A ride with Tug overseeing the young bogs is very much like a night monitoring for frost; we check for the bog temperature (the thermometer is protected by a shade canopy for more accurate readings) and soil moisture before deciding if running the water is necessary.

You cannot always rely on tensiometer readings, however; you also need to get out in the bog and check for yourself. On her last visit, Joan also noted that “when leaves are young and tender, relying strictly on the tensiometers could result in a false sense of security about what the plant water demand is.” Yesterday the soil seemed particularly hardened and dry, so Tug decided to run the water for a couple of hours. Again, as with frost, it’s not just as simple as turning on some sprinklers. Once the irrigation is going, it may also be necessary to let more water in from the reservoirs to keep the pump supplied.

Then, of course, we ride around to monitor both the soil and the equipment in order to fix any possible sprinkler malfunctions. “You have a little more margin for error than you do with frost,” Tug says. “It’s urgent, but you don’t need to move quite as fast.” He needs to make sure the sprinklers are both running at capacity and rotating completely in order to get the best cooling effect.

Even on young bogs, however, maintaining a balance is crucial in order to avoid phytophthora. If it infects and damages the root system, it could take more than one growing season for the bogs to recover.

signs of phytophthora in established bed

effects of phytophthora on roots

One of the strategic drivers to achieve our mission is increasing production over time through bog renovation and decreasing the time to achieve full production, which is essential to accomplish our growth objectives. And, like everything else we do here at Pine Island Cranberry, the key to achieving our goals is attention to detail. All of the things on this week’s tour shows our drive to be the very best and the amount of attention to detail that implementing our strategy takes.

Heat

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As we have mentioned here before, the key to growing cranberries is water.

Cranberries need about an inch of water each week during the growing season (either via rain or irrigation), preferably early in the morning or at night, in order to avoid losing it to evaporation. We irrigate for two reasons: first, to keep the vines healthy and productive, and second, to protect them from the heat. Keeping them cool helps protect the bloom, the fruit, and the vines themselves. And while it’s crucial in the hot summer days, cooling may also be necessary in May, before the uprights (short vertical branches) acquire their protective waxy coating.

Once the fruit is formed, it’s important to keep them from what we term “scalding”. Scald occurs when the temperature is high but the dew point (humidity) is low; as Dr. Peter Oudemans likes to say, “When people are comfortable, the cranberries are in trouble.”

When humidity is low, the applied water will readily evaporate and cool the fruit. During the day, if temperatures get up to around 95 degrees, we will turn on the irrigation in order to cool the bog down to the 80s. We’ll run the pumps for about an hour or two, depending on variables such as wind, temperature, and humidity.

How we measure soil moisture

There is also a distinct difference between sending water through the root system and keeping the bog cool. The trick is avoiding complications from too much moisture, which can cause conditions that are welcoming to fungi such as phytophthora, which causes root rot. Vines shouldn’t be damp all the time; it’s a balancing act to keep the fruit at optimum growth conditions while avoiding oversaturation. The key to walking the tightrope is constant evaluation and always being aware of bog conditions.

As always, the bottom line is that we are growers: maintaining a successful balance of heat protection and soil moisture allows us to achieve our core values of growing more acres and more fruit per acre. It’s what we do and who we are.