A year ago this week, we walked you through the process of planting out at Sim Place. This spring, Pine Island Cranberry is focused on the Rainbow bogs at Oswego that we started renovating early last year.

Much like with our fall planting on the High Bridge bog, the bogs at Rainbow (formerly planted with Early Blacks) will be planted with Crimson Queen, a variety chosen for higher yield potential. A major focus for Pine Island is increasing yield while lowering production costs, and renovation is a driving force behind our growth strategy: young bogs are redesigned for efficiency as well as yield.

The process remains as it was for fall and last spring: the planter is loaded with the rooted cuttings, which drop onto a carousel. Other team members follow the planter to make sure the cuttings have been placed correctly.

Bog Renovations manager Joe Colon thinks it’s looking great. “The conditions were bad for a while,” he says. “Every weekend we’d start getting ready, and then it would rain. Or snow. The soil would soak that right up. But this week has been a really good week. The underdrains are working really well. We disced the bog and now Ivan’s land-leveling to get Rainbow #1 ready to go after #2 is finished; by tomorrow it should be drained enough to make planting easier. These are nice bogs to work on; really good soil. But they were cranberry bogs in the first place; we’d already been taking good care of them!” He’s hoping to be finished this bog by the end of the week, if the weather cooperates; in total we’ll be planting about 25 acres. Weather is always a concern, as effective bed drainage is critical; the humid climate can provide a favorable environment for Phytophthora cinnamomi, a known cause of root rot.

As it was the first day, the teams were working out logistics. Both our four-seater and six-seater planters used in tandem can speed up the process considerably by starting at opposite ends of the new bed and meeting in the middle. Kelvin Colon, one of our foremen and a planting veteran, spent some time making sure everything was straightened out in order to do as little hand planting as possible.

Our planting crews have mastered the art of team work. It started a couple of weeks back, building the carts we use to haul the plants on the bog.

Planting supervisor Kylie Naylor has been hard at work since well before this week. Based on our fall average numbers, she set up a spreadsheet to calculate how many plants we would need over how many acres in order set targets for both number of trays per day and number of acres planted per day. But it’s not just about numbers, she says. “Communication is what’s really important. I have to keep in constant contact with Integrity Propagation so that they always know how many trays we need and when we’ll be picking them up. But it’s even more important to communicate with the team in the bog. A lot of the work is between Kelvin and me; we both have to know what’s going on with both planters. If one of us has to walk away, we both need to be aware of spacing and what everyone is doing on each crew while still keeping our targets in mind.”

Kylie and Kelvin have done so well that the team has actually exceeded their target on both Wednesday and Thursday. It’s a great start for a great season!