A couple of weeks ago we harvested Warehouse #1 and were impressed with the results. This week, our team returned to finish picking the rest of Warehouse, which we first replanted back in 2015.
The Warehouse renovation plan was highly influenced by Bill’s and Bryan’s trip to Wisconsin a few years back. At the time, Bill said:
We had made the trip because of their incredible increase in production per acre. They have some advantages with regard to location and climate, but each growing area has advantages and disadvantages. The biggest reason we saw was growers in Wisconsin have been very aggressive in the last fifteen years in renovating bogs and making sure they had the best varieties. They improved the way they built their bogs, and they’re still looking for ways to improve every single thing they do.”
And, as predicted, the Warehouse bogs have indeed been among the first to reap those benefits, when a couple of weeks ago the first one alone sent eleven trailer loads to Chatsworth for a yield of 493 barrels per acre.
The rest of them were looking just as good this week, although the numbers aren’t all in yet!
Our team will continue to move down the line from the top of the farm, where more young beds are now ready for their first or second harvest; so far we are optimistic.
A lot of things have changed since we harvested those bogs in 2014: in addition to the beds themselves, we’ve improved on almost every aspect of the process, from picking to gathering to hauling. Remember this?
And, of course, none of this would be possible without the great team we have, who are out there doing everything they do better every day!