This week, PIICM manager Cristina Tassone and team member Matt Giberson, a graduate of Delaware Valley College, were pleased to give a tour of Pine Island Cranberry to Robert Solly’s Small Fruit Culture course, which covers blueberries, strawberries, grapes, brambles, and, of course, cranberries. Mr. Solly, a full-time farmer himself, has already taken the class to a vineyard and was thrilled to have the opportunity to spend a day at Pine Island. “It opens the doors to getting people on the farm,” he says. “And it’s fun; it’s actually really cool to see all the behind the scenes stuff and get a lot of the details the public just doesn’t get to see.”
Their day started with a talk by Cristina telling them a little about who we are, what we do, and an outline of both the rewards and challenges of growing cranberries in the pines. They got to hear about our business plan and our corporate structure, as well; while this doesn’t sound exciting on the surface, Mr. Solly thought it made an impression. “A lot of people think farming is just gardening on a large scale, and this widens their horizons.”
Then, the class was able to tour the operation and get a feel for the scale of things. Cristina and Matt started with a visit to our sanding teams, where they spoke about some of our recent experiments on different varieties. For example, the bogs we visited are planted with Early Blacks, an older variety where an inch of sand was recommended. Due to the weather this year, the new plan is to drop half an inch of sand on some of the Early Blacks, and then compare results.
The next brief stop was to our packing house. It’s a bit different when not extremely busy at harvest time, but it’s definitely something people don’t get to see every day! They were able to get a brief overview of how the packing house works during the harvest and also got to see some newly built pipe gates, waiting for installation.
They also got a hands-on demonstration from both Matt and Cristina on how the sprinklers and an irrigation system work.
The class also got to tour our new shop and were impressed with Equipment/Facilities manager Louis Cantafio’s explanation of our shop’s dedication to both efficiency and the environment. Pine Island’s dedication to sustainability is something that we are all very proud of, and Louis is always thinking of new ways to make it work.
Once the shop tour was concluded, the group stopped by Integrity Propagation, where planting supervisor Kylie Naylor (DelVal Class of 2010), foreman Kelvin Colon, and Integrity’s Michael Haines walked everybody through some of the procedures involved in growing the rooted cuttings that we use in our bog renovation plan.
Our next stop was at the renovation site at Oswego. Cristina and Matt gave some more information about harvesting patterns as well as common pests and diseases. There were some particular questions about fairy ring, the treatment of which can cost us many team hours.
Mr. Solly and his students were highly appreciative of the time Cristina and Matt took to show them around. “They learned even more than they realize today,” he says. “We’ve seen equipment today that we’d never see over in PA. Everyone knows about the fall harvest, but to see what goes into making that happen? That’s something you don’t see every day. It’s fascinating.” Cristina and Matt were thrilled to do this as well. “Education is always ongoing,” she says. “This business has been around since the 19th century and we’re still learning different ways to do things. And that’s what we look for in our team members; we want people willing to learn new things that have the drive to develop new skills, no matter what their major.”