Fertilizer application – spring 2017

Posted on May 19, 2017 by stef

Fertilizer applications have begun; it’s officially the growing season! The amount of fertilizer we apply to each bed is determined by variety, soil conditions, and past practices, requiring constant evaluation of current conditions, history, and trends. Nutritional needs are also different for young vines as opposed to established plantings.

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. “We’re at the roughneck stage right now for almost everything, and that means a lot of top growth as well as root growth, which in turn means the extra nutrition is necessary,” says manager Mike Haines. The three main elements usually added for nutrition are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, and the team based their decisions on tissue samples, and last year’s yield. 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.”

In addition to aerial methods (as always, expertly done by Downstown Aero Crop Service) our team has also tried “fertigation”: a uniform application via irrigation system.

However, our team has decided to discontinue the practice for now. “We first tried it two years ago and ramped it up last year,” Mike says. “But with our current irrigation layout, it’s just not a fit at this point.” Instead, we’ll also make our usual applications via the new buggy method introduced last year!

Our team was really pleased with the results last year. We looked at the ones our neighbors were all using, which all have hopper spreaders, and decided we wanted something even more precise. So we added an air system with individual nozzles, and made improvements over the winter based on last year’s performance as well as modifying it for liquid application as well as dry.

Our team is also making sure the conditions are optimal: “We’re going to irrigate tonight, because it’s been so hot and dry,” Mike says. “We want to get that water into the soil so the plants can access those nutrients.”

Frost – modernization

Posted on May 5, 2017 by stef

Thanks to a warm spring, our team only just had their first full night of frost this season. One of the toughest things cranberry growers do is managing springtime frost conditions. In the spring, there is a danger to the crop when the temperature drops. Typically, a cranberry bog is built at a lower level than the land immediately surrounding it and the bog temperature can drop ten to fifteen degrees lower than the uplands. These conditions make monitoring bog temperature a top priority once the winter water comes off. It’s no exaggeration to say there would be no crop if we didn’t watch for frost on the bogs.

“Mike [Haines] does the scouting and gauges each bog based on growth, and we base our temperature threshold on that growth,” says COO Bryan vonHahmann. Because many of the plants weren’t so far along, the threshold was a lot lower, so the team didn’t have to run frost much until two nights ago. “I think we got a little rusty, because we haven’t done it in so long. Matt [Giberson] took precautions, though, and started all the systems at 2 the night before to make sure they were still working and everything was good.”

The first step is monitoring the temperature. Each bog has a thermometer (usually located in the coldest section) that requires frequent checking throughout the first part of the night. Once the temperature drops to between 33 and 35 degrees Fahrenheit (depending on the stage of growth), it’s time to turn on the pumps. More than forty years ago we used to flood the bogs to prevent frost damage; we now use sprinklers instead. When the water from the sprinklers freezes on the vines, it controls the temperature well enough to keep them from harm. It’s also necessary to check the surrounding reservoirs and canals to make sure that the water supply is sufficient to supply the pumps. That can take some time, and doesn’t always need to be done all at once. Depending on location and conditions–is the bog surrounded by woods? Where is the wind coming from? Is the sky clear or overcast?–some will be started earlier than others.

Fortunately, our ongoing automation process is helping make this easier. “We have roughly 50 Joe Lord thermometers out there and probably 80 to 90 analog thermometers,” Bryan says. In some bogs, there is one of each type. “The automated thermometer gives us the initial indication that the temperature is dropping. When it hits the first threshold, it sends the notification, and Matt sends out 3 to 4 guys to look at the analog thermometers. When the 2nd alarm goes off he’s probably calling more people.” We haven’t maximized everything the new system can do for us yet, but as Bryan says, “We’re slowly walking into the technology.” The goal, of course, is to fully automate the system, and we’re getting there! Even with only partial automation we’re already increasing our efficiency as well as saving wear and tear on equipment.

Once the pumps all started, though, the work isn’t over. The next thing is making sure all the sprinklers are working correctly. This means driving around to check they’re running at full capacity. It may also sometimes be necessary to repair the sprinklers, as they won’t run at full capacity if something is blocking the line. This happens more frequently when the systems first start running, and becomes less of an issue after a few cold nights.

“The really interesting thing is seeing how air patterns and flow truly affect temperature,” Bryan says. “One end of a bog could be 34 and the other end at 39, so in some cases we might not start an adjacent system in order to limit water we put on beds to avoid rot. At the same time, though, the beds need the frost protection or we don’t get a crop at all.” It’s a delicate balance and takes some decision making. “Today people are out scouting to check damage; we did get some, but feel the plants will grow out of it. So we’ll work on refining our process, set the threshold at a higher temp as the plants grow and need more protection. A warm spring might have us out of practice, but it’s been good!”

Bog renovation 2017 – updates!

Posted on April 28, 2017 by stef

Bog renovation has been ongoing since last fall, with 80 acres as our goal for 2017 and 107 acres in 2018.

Our bog renovation team has made some changes to our process this year! “This time, what we’re trying to do is renovate one complete system at a time,” explains COO Bryan vonHahmann. “We’re going to complete a whole system, then go on to the next system, complete that one, and so on. We’re trying to structure our completion date with when Abbott can get us plants, as soon as possible.” That means the team should finish the first system, including planting, by mid-May. “We’re going to put the plants in early, see how they do, then we’re just going to keep going every month,” Bryan says. “During our last reno we planted 60 acres in a month, which is a lot of work. Planting in the heat is pretty stressful on the crew, as well, so trying to do it in one week intervals instead as well as moving the timing helps with that, too.”

There have also been some challenges with this year’s project! “Since we tried to do as much renovation through the wintertime as possible, we have problems with reservoirs being high and bogs being flooded around the ones we’re renovating,” Bryan says. “The water comes through dams and gets into bogs we’re trying to work on. We bought a new pump last year, which runs 24/7 just to keep bogs we’re working in drained.”

Another challenge was staffing: many team members take well-deserved time off in the winter, so between vacation schedules and our usual winter sanding going at full steam, our team just did what they could to keep the reno bogs dry. Our team is also building some new tools for renovation, which should help us improve how we install underdrain, “We designed and built a new plow to help us remove dirt and help put underdrain in, which should also help a lot,” Bryan says. “We’re trying to do more of our own stuff instead of using subcontractors.”

One of Pine Island’s strength is that our team doesn’t keep doing something just because that’s the way we’ve always done it, and we’re looking forward to seeing how this new approach to renovation works!

Current growth stages

Posted on April 21, 2017 by stef

Things have been a little quiet around Pine Island Cranberry this week, but as CEO Bill Haines says, “That’s the way we like it!”

The last of the water comes off today right on schedule, which means the sprinkler installation will also be done. We’ve also had very little frost so far, which is good, but: “It hasn’t been really warm or sunny either,” Bill says. “Mike [Haines] and his team are out scouting and we’ll start the roughneck fertilizer once the buds break, but nothing’s broken yet.”

“Vanessa, Jeremy, and I have just been walking a lot of the established bogs,” Mike Haines says. “There’s not much to see right now; in most of the beds the buds are just swelling a little bit. There hasn’t been too much growth since the water’s only come off recently.” The Boricua system has the plants that are farthest along: “It’s probably partly the variety–those beds are planted with Crimson Queen and they tend to go a little earlier–and partly that it was the first system where we took the water off.”

The weather has also been cooperative. “It hasn’t rained in a while and that’s okay; we’ve got plenty of water,” Bill says. “We’ve had very little frost so far, which is good. Once the beds start to grow, frost will get more intense, but so far it‘s been a good spring.”

Elsewhere things are also moving along. It’s not time yet for fertilizer, and the shop team is busy making adjustments to the buggy for use in liquid nutrition application. The team is also finding that sanding went well! Sometimes after the water comes off, we discover the sand’s too heavy in some areas, and team members have to use a rake to pull the vines through. But there’s very little of that this year. “It’s opened up the canopy a little, so we’re glad,” Bill says.

In the meantime, the team will continue to scout for growth and wait for the weather to warm up!

Winter flood removal – 2017

Posted on April 7, 2017 by stef

It’s finally time to start the water drawdown!

Once the harvest is over, the bogs are flooded in order to protect the cranberry vines from the winter weather. When the warmer weather sets in, the bogs are drained so that the dormant vines awaken for the growing season; while cranberries are most frequently harvested using the “wet pick” method, they do not actually grow under water and thus need to go through the same growing cycle as any other fruit crop. The process, which we call “dumping water” is deceptively simple: a team member takes a gate hook and removes the boards that have been placed across the gate in the bog. (The boards are usually removed in a specific pattern to work with gravity and the natural flow of the water.) Once the boards have been pulled and placed on top of the gate, the water moves to the next bog along the ditches. This water returns to the reservoirs and canals in order to be reused for the next part of the cycle, and takes about 24 hours to drain completely.

This year, the team has made some changes. “The timing plus the pattern is different this year,” says supervisor Gerardo Ortiz. “The final section we took off last year is the first one we removed this year because of the 2017 renovation.”

“Yeah, we’re doing things a little differently,” says Operations Manager Matt Giberson. “We’re trying to get a jump start on the reno, since planting a bog in spring gives us an additional year of growing time. So we started up at the top of the farm this time, just because there was so much water in there that usually comes into the bogs planned for this year’s reno. The sooner it dries out, the sooner Steve [Manning, Bog Renovation Manager] can things rolling.” The team’s goal is to finish five systems a day, to be done by the 21st.

As we prepare for the next process, which is frost protection, our reservoirs are keeping our most valuable resource safe and ready for use!

Storm water management

Posted on January 27, 2017 by stef

While the nor’easter that blew through this area over the weekend had nowhere near the effect that previous storms have, our team nonetheless had some work to do! Mike Haines and Jeremy Fenstermaker kept busy through the weekend and into Monday and Tuesday, as well.

“So far we’ve been flooding with only a small amount of water, since it’s been so dry for so long,” Mike says. “At the same time, though, getting this storm meant we had to be careful because we had a lot more water then we had before, and if you’re not careful you could have water coming over the dams. Matt Giberson saw it getting dangerously high at Young Upper, for example, so he and Matt Stiles worked on lowering the water there. I don’t know if we really prepared, per se, but were just vigilant during the whole time it was raining: riding around during the day seeing if the water was getting too high and adjusting accordingly, letting water into swamps and not into bogs. We also had to monitor Sim Place overnight; wind was blowing straight into gates at Big Reservoir, knocking boards off, and then cedar trees would come into the gates and knock boards off that way. So Jeremy tacked those boards at the top, which we don’t like to do. . .but it was necessary. It requires some extra work and attention but it was good in the end because it topped everything off and now the water is back at the level it was at last winter.

“Now we’re at our targets and have to let water go,” Jeremy says. “We got about 2.5, 3 inches of rain across the farm, but it’s the wind that really messes you up. Water might be at the right level but the wind gets some wave action going and it eats away at the dams, especially where you don’t have any erosion control. At the young bogs, we keep the water high to keep plants from getting pulled out if there’s ice or whatever, but those dams get torn up because erosion control such as grass growing on the side of dams, et cetera, just isn’t there yet.”

“It’s all about being vigilant,” he says. “We didn’t have that much water, but you’re reluctant to let it go in prep for a storm. Once you know what’s happening, then you can start getting rid of it and be extra vigilant to keep it from pushing it into the bog and overrunning dams.” Mike agrees: “You have to always be aware of what’s going on everywhere so you know what can go wrong in every instance.”

“Every bog is a learning experience because it’s situational,” says Jeremy. “Not everything is always set up the same way, so you can learn from it and find better and safer ways to set things up. This one I think we handled pretty well. It’s upsetting to see some of the dams in the shape they’re in but there’s not much you can do about it.” Mike adds: “Yeah, that’ll be a job for the spring when the water comes off.”

So while our team continues to monitor current conditions, we’re also constantly working on ways to establish erosion control on the dams!

Winter Flood 2016

Posted on December 16, 2016 by stef

The cranberry growing season lasts from April to November; the fruiting buds mature during the winter dormancy period. During the dormant season, severe winter weather could harm or even kill cranberry vines, which is why growers must take preventative measures to protect their crop. When harvest ends, cranberry growers everywhere start their winter flooding. Under normal conditions, the temperature steadily drops post-harvest; it is important to wait until the vines go dormant before starting to put the water on. When vines go dormant, they turn burgundy in color:

Our winter flood program starts with making sure the water in the reservoirs is at the necessary levels. If there has no been significant rain to get the reservoirs to flooding level, we start our wells. We will continue to use the wells to maintain the reservoirs and the stream needed to get the bogs flooded.

The next step is placing boards in the gates to start bringing the water level up in the bogs, much like we do to prep for the flooding at harvest in the fall. The late Bill Sr.’s favorite maxim about just about everything involving cranberries was, “Where is the water coming from, and where do you want it to go?” That can be one of the most challenging things to pick up when you are learning about Pine Island’s system. Manager of Operations Matt Giberson agrees: “There’s a lot to know. How the water works, how to move it the most efficient way. We don’t learn how to do this overnight; I’m still learning new things about it every year.” In practice, this means constant awareness and monitoring of where the water is coming from, where it is going, and how much stream is coming down.

Flooding starts by letting in streams from the reservoirs to canals and bogs. Strategic board placement (more boards in the southernmost bogs to catch the water) will get the ditches high and running down to start flooding from the bottom up.

As the water level in the bogs begins to rise, our team begins adjusting the water level in the bogs by adding boards where they are needed. Once the vines are covered and the stream has settled, we adjust the level of the reservoirs to maintain the stream and keep the bogs flooded for the winter. Wells are shut down once bogs are flooded, and only turned on again if it is dry and reservoir levels are dropping.

It is also necessary to make sure we are not losing water anywhere. “Sometimes you can hear the water coming through a gate that’s supposed to hold it,” Matt says. “It’s the same as running diesel fuel; it’s a big waste, and we need to try to stop it or slow it down.” He does this by adding sand or even grass in front of the leaking boards, as sometimes the sand can wash away too quickly.

Once we are flooded, our team needs to constantly monitor the bogs to make sure there are no leaks, that the water level remains steady, and that the stream remains constant. The weather is also a factor: no rain for a long period of time will shrink the reservoirs and wells may need to be started to maintain the water level in the bogs. Matt says, “If it gets cold enough for the water to freeze, I also need to check to see if I have to break any ice to keep the stream flowing, especially on the southeast gates.”

This year, Jeremy Fenstermaker is training Matt Stiles on the flood process, and Mike Haines continues to learn about it as well. “Both Matt and Mike are getting a handle on what we’re doing as well as understanding why we’re doing it,” Jeremy says. “Mike’s had a couple more years than Matt, but Matt’s learned a lot this year just from running a harvest crew.” He also says communication is everything, because “an action in one section will have a huge effect somewhere else. It’s important to learn the whole process but it’s even more important to know how it all ties together. But Matt and Mike are eager learners and pick things up fast.”

Once the winter flood is done, our team maintains reservoirs throughout the whole winter. The Ox Pasture reservoir, for example, has to stay high so our team doesn’t have to run the well. This is important because Ox Pasture, situated at the northernmost end of the property, is Pine Island’s largest reservoir and the primary source of water for the home farm.

Putting on the winter flood as quickly and efficiently as possible saves time, fuel, and most importantly, protects next year’s crop. It is this attention to the environment and continuous improvement of our processes that help us grow more acres and more fruit per acre with every successive year.

Sanding 2016

Posted on December 9, 2016 by stef

Winter tasks are well underway! The winter flooding has begun, which means that it’s once again time to start 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 a thin layer of sand on the bog surface every four years on a rotating basis: one inch for established bogs, a half-inch for young bogs. 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.

The routine usually remains the same every year. First, we check water levels: our team needs to make sure the water is the right depth so our sanding barge doesn’t get stuck on any vines or worse, tear them out. Also, 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. They also send 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.

The process itself is simple: a truck is loaded with sand, then heads over to the bog being sanded, backs up to the excavator, and drops the load into our specially built sandbox (designed to improve efficiency and reduce waste). 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. The process is repeated, with the excavator and tractor moving forward the length of the bog together.

This year we’ve targeted over 380 acres for sanding, and over the past year Equipment team members Ernie Waszkiewicz and Coco Mercado have made some modifications which should help the process tremendously. Long time team member Jorge Morales explains: “We made some adjustments so it will move faster; we can probably finish at least an hour to ninety minutes faster than we could last year. New motors, new hoses, new lever, bigger hydraulic tanks, everything brand new. So far, so good; I think we’re going to get a lot more done.”

We’re betting Jorge is right!

New Jersey Audubon: CSC meeting 2016

Posted on November 4, 2016 by stef

This week, it was once again time for the annual New Jersey Audubon Corporate Stewardship Council meeting. The Corporate Stewardship Council is a unique group of New Jersey companies united behind a common goal of environmental sustainability and responsibility in NJ and meets as a group annually with the NJ Audubon and representatives of the NJ DEP and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. This year’s meeting was held Thursday in Trenton, and while CEO Bill Haines was unable to attend, he sent his daughter Stefanie Haines as his representative. Most of the meeting consisted of summaries and updates of projects from the past year and an introduction to new projects. Of particular interest to Pine Island was speaker Andrew Johnson, director of the Watershed Protection Program, William Penn Foundation.

Good water management is not only the crucial part of our work here at Pine Island – it’s essential to the balance of agriculture production with the Pinelands environment. To that end, we have over the course of many years carefully crafted a system that works with both nature and gravity to best maintain and preserve the bounty of natural resources available to us. This makes the work that the William Penn Foundation does with the Delaware River Watershed Initiative particularly important to us, as one of the areas they have targeted as a subwatershed “cluster” is the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer, which provides so much of the water that our cranberries need.

One of the initiative’s goals include:

Permanently protecting more than 30,000 acres of forested headwaters in critical areas. . .These efforts will preserve essential habitats and mitigate climate change as well as sustain water quality in the more intact sub-watersheds.

One of Pine Island Cranberry’s core values has always been protecting the environment: caring for the place where we live, work, and grow. To that end, we have been working since 2001 with forester Bob Williams of Pine Creek Forestry to create and implement a forest stewardship plan. Creating a specific plan helps us protect and improve forest resources by doing practices such as prescribed burning, thinning, and replanting with improved trees. We are improving the forest habitat while at the same time conducting all the necessary work to have a thriving, profitable cranberry operation and protecting our water supply.

NJ Audubon Stewardship Project Director John Parke then gave the attendees an overview of several projects that council members have worked on over the past year. His genuine enthusiasm and joy with what he does, as always, made his energy contagious, and it was great to hear about some of the other ongoing projects that are happening statewide! It was especially exciting to hear about the work Atlantic City Electric is doing for the bobwhite quail:

[Their] project proposal aims to increase resources for for northern bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus)by creating and managing early successional habitat. Proposed restoration activities include planting native grasses and forbs to improve foraging habitat, retaining native shrubs for winter cover, and creating small canopy openings along the transmission lines to expand habitat.

It was wonderful to have some time to chat with people who share our commitment to resource conservation and are equally committed to putting in the hard work to make it happen, and we are grateful to New Jersey Audubon for giving us the opportunity!

Harvest challenges

Posted on October 7, 2016 by stef

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!

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“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!”

Pine Island Cranberry Co., Inc.

Haines & Haines, Inc.

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