Tag Archives: TAcy

Harvest prep – 2020

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September means harvest is getting closer every day, and our team is making sure everything gets done in plenty of time.

A few years ago, we began using bogside cleaners during the gathering process to help improve efficiency. Before that, during the harvest, berries were placed on a truck via an elevator. The truck then went to our packing house to unload and prep the berries for the receiving station by removing as much bog debris as possible. The bogside cleaner improved this process by removing the packing house step entirely and removing debris as the berries come out of the bog. This is better on fuel and easier on the team, as it requires fewer people in the water. As with any new equipment, there was a learning curve, but our team made modifications as they became necessary and took notes for subsequent harvests.

The experiment was successful and now we have four! “It was a long process,” says COO Bryan vonHahmann. “When we first started considering a berry pump, we went out to Wisconsin and looked at three or four makes of cleaners as well as looking at one owned by [our neighboring growers] the Lees. We ended up going with Paul’s Machine & Tool because they’d already done quite a bit to accommodate the user interface to make it more intuitive, and they were also very willing to customize it however we wanted.” The real test was during harvest itself, of course, and as expected, the team found that the machine would need some modifications based on practical use. (As Bryan says: “When we placed the order, we didn’t know what we didn’t know.”) One of the issues the team discovered was finding a lot of bog debris in the final product, as well as a diminished ability to remove the wastewater fast enough. “We wanted it to be as efficient as possible,” Bryan says, “so we made some minor changes during the season to remove vines and trash. But it became more labor intensive than it was worth.” So for subsequent orders, we asked Paul’s to make some design changes. The new berry pump added extra row of cleaning grates to the cleaning box and changed spacing on the box. At the same time, we sent the old cleaning box back and they sent us the 5 grate design in return. The combo of the new spray boom and an additional cleaning grate provides better quality fruit for the trailer to take directly to the Chatsworth receiving station.

The team is also looking at the fruit itself. In order to take advantage of the higher TAcy levels, they’re testing color to determine what beds we expect to pick first. Some varieties color earlier than others, and that is a factor we consider when planning our harvest strategy. Ocean Spray likes a consistent color, so we will take samples to the receiving station to check the TAcy number (an acronym for “total anthocyanin concentration” and is a unit of color measurement used in a cranberry) before harvesting. While the humidity gets worse in late summer, the nights tend to get cooler, and this actually improves the color.

Harvest time means being prepared for anything, and our team is well on its way.

Harvest challenges

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Water was a big concern going into the autumn this year, as we hadn’t had any rain and were running the wells off and on every day. But our team remained optimistic, and in fact, the weather ended up cooperating for a bit!

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“It’s been a very challenging year for water,” says CEO Bill Haines. “We had a very dry August and not much rain in July either. We were short on water and running wells constantly when the season started. Fortunately, we got four inches of rain on the first day of harvest, so that’s given us some relief, but we still don’t have a lot. So we’ve had to be very inventive about how we get the water, but conservative in its use. And because we’ve been waiting on color and the color’s been slow coming, we’ve had to be flexible about which bogs to start picking. Often they’re not the most logical place/sequence for flooding, so we had to get creative by moving water mechanically instead of by gravity, and just using our imagination to get stuff done. Jeremy [Fenstermaker], Matt [Giberson] and Gerardo [Ortiz] have all done a good job with it. They’ve been flexible and willing to try new stuff. So far it’s worked.”

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Some varieties color earlier than others, and that is a factor we consider when planning our picking strategy. Ocean Spray likes a consistent color, so we will take samples to the receiving station to check the TAcy number (an acronym for “total anthocyanin concentration” and is a unit of color measurement used in a cranberry) before harvesting. Unfortunately, we haven’t really been getting cooler evenings until recently, but things are finally cooling down and the past couple nights have helped a lot with color.

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“With the TAcy considerations, we don’t want to go into high production beds and have low TAcy,” says Matt Giberson. “We’d rather go into the Early Black beds and get those out of the way first. We also worry about rot; we don’t want fruit to get bad, so we have to get it out of there. We’re taking our time with the later varieties until we get the required color level. Cooler days and the cloudiness last week were pretty good for the fruit. We could use another one to two inches of rain, but we’re better off than we were a month ago.”

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“In past years, we’ve been done by November 7th,” Matt says, “which means we have about one month left now with over 900 acres left to go. But we’re about to kick things into high gear, acreage-wise. Today we started all three crews at once for the first time this season, and once we get that color where we want it, we’re going to really start rolling!”

Harvest prep – 2016

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Harvest is getting closer every day, and our team is working steadily to make sure everything is ready!

“Everything now becomes more critical because we have the pre-harvest interval that we need to be sensitive to,” says COO Bryan vonHahmann. “We also apply fertilizer this time of year, which helps the plants through the winter. Those are the big things. We’re going through and looking at the sequence for TAcy, for what beds we expect to pick first. We want to take advantage of the higher TAcy levels.” Some varieties color earlier than others, and that is a factor we consider when planning our picking strategy. Ocean Spray likes a consistent color, so we will take samples to the receiving station to check the TAcy number (an acronym for “total anthocyanin concentration” and is a unit of color measurement used in a cranberry) before harvesting. While the humidity gets worse in late summer, the nights tend to get cooler, and this actually improves the color.

“Equipment is also a big part of prep,” Bryan says, “so we’re designing new stuff for equipment to make us a little more efficient, and we’re looking forward to experimenting with that.” To that end, manager Louis Cantafio walked us a through a little bit of what the Facilties/Equipment team has been working on.

“Most of the equipment that we already own has already been serviced and put away ready to go,” he says. “We knew we were going to be jammed up late in the summer and coming into harvest to do the regular maintenance work, so a lot of it’s done.” Many of the projects the team has in the pipeline are also harvest-related, however. “We’re fabricating a lot of new equipment we didn’t have before, and modifying a lot of equipment we got last season. So we’re making improvements to the berry pump, which is a lot of work! We also have a new trash truck design, so we’re working on the ones we have already as well as building a fourth.”

The biggest modification is going to be for the gathering crew. Gathering is always a teamwork-intensive task: when it’s time to put the boom in, you need at least one person in the water as well as on the tractor, and sometimes more depending on the bog layout (trees, heavy grasses, etc.). Each end of the boom is then attached to a tractor, which slowly moves along the dam, corralling the berries. Some members of the gathering crew follow alongside, “sweeping” the berries and making sure they stay within bounds. Once that is done, both ends of the boom are connected to the boom reel, which is wound ever tighter as the berries are brought up the elevator onto the truck. This year, though, our team is making some changes: “We have two blueberry tractors we’re customizing for this,” Louis says. “With the current system we have a blower on the back of the tractor, which means someone has to drive the tractor, someone else works the blower nozzle, and when the berries are really thick and the grass is thick on the edge of the dam, we have the guys sweeping. That’s a lot of manpower. But we’re modifying these tractors with really high powered blowers; much higher than we have already. On the front will the hookup for the boom, and a single operator should be able to run one end of it. This means two guys should be able to boom up a bog on their own, whereas as before it was easily eight.” The idea, he says, is to have the driver hydraulically operate the boom so that when he comes up to a pipe gate or a corner, he can run it out from the cab and will no longer need to rely on extra crew to change it manually. “We’ll have one guy doing the work of four or five,” Louis says. “We’re not only going from eight to ten guys down to two, but they should be able to do it faster; they’ll be in the tractor instead of muscling hose/boom around edge of dam. It will improve safety and efficiency.”

As for the rest of the Pine Island team? “We’re doing everything we can to keep the fruit healthy until harvest!” says Bryan.

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.

Waiting game

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As we move into the late summer, we are continuing to implement our PIICM program with late fertilizer applications (or, bud set fertilizer), finishing cleaning the ditches for improved water flow, and maintaining the balancing act of keeping vines cool while avoiding oversaturation. At this time of year, we need to be careful for next year’s bud set (initiation of next year’s flower growth). During bud set, we’re more concerned with keeping the vines healthy; nitrogen is needed for both fruit development and production of the next year’s flower bud.

The berries themselves are beginning to size up and attain color. Some varieties color earlier than others, and that is a factor we consider when planning our picking strategy. Ocean Spray likes a consistent color, so we will take samples to the receiving station to check the TAcy number (an acronym for “total anthocyanin concentration” and is a unit of color measurement used in a cranberry) before harvesting. While the humidity gets worse in late summer, the nights tend to get cooler, and this actually improves the color.

While we’ve talked a lot about the new Rutgers varieties when discussing planting and bog renovation, they are not the only varieties we grow at Pine Island. Many of our bogs still contain the industry stand-bys: Stevens, Early Blacks, and Ben Lear.

The Stevens variety accounts for 20% of the berries grown in New Jersey, according to the Cranberry Marketing Committee. A later variety (meaning they attain their full color later in the season), Stevens are usually the last to be harvested and are thus more susceptible to scald and rot, so we need to monitor bogs such as Roundhouse (one of our Stevens bogs at the northern end of the farm) carefully. Another interesting fact about Stevens: the majority of the crop in a Stevens bog is located under the canopy (or surface) of the vines.

The next stop on our tour was 28 Acre, one of our Early Black producers. Early Blacks are one of the oldest and the smallest varieties, but have the most intense color. (Jeremy Fenstermaker, a Pine Island foreman and harvest supervisor, likes to think that Early Blacks are the berries appearing in most commercials due to their photogenic quality.) When we harvest an Early Black bog we like to see as many berries as possible; the greater the weight, the greater the yield (one barrel = 100 pounds of cranberries).

Ben Lears are an early variety noted for its size and distinctive shape, with a deep red color about midway between Stevens and Early Blacks. We will usually start our harvest with Ben Lear bogs.

Our primary focus as we continue to monitor and scout the bogs is weed control. Dewberry is a very persistent plant that competes with cranberries for light and interferes with harvest, so removing it is a high priority task.

As always, we continuously monitor weather conditions, especially as hurricane season reaches its peak. And, all of our efforts throughout the growing season are bringing us toward our ultimate goal: a successful harvest.