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ACGA Winter Meeting 2021

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This week the American Cranberry Growers Association once again held its annual winter meeting. The ACGA winter meeting is always a good opportunity for growers to listen to research findings from experiments during the previous growing season and the researchers’ recommendations for the 2021 growing season.

Usually it’s also a great chance for the local cranberry community to catch up to each other after the busy harvest season, but this week’s meeting, like so many over the past few months, needed to be held virtually. However, this also meant that in addition to our own researchers we were able to chat with Michelle Hogan from the Cranberry Marketing Committee (CMC) and Bill Frantz from the Cranberry Institute (CI) as well as researchers from other growing areas like Shawn Steffan from the University of Wisconsin.

Bill Haines, Bryan vonHahmann, and Mike Haines were the only three team members in attendance from Pine Island this time, as we wanted to keep some of our focus on sanding before we freeze up. “The format was tough, but that couldn’t be helped,” says Bryan. “Watching the presentations from the office was good as opposed to sitting in a meeting room. It was great to get updates on the various projects that are being worked on. And it also gave us a lot to discuss here on how we may experiment with our IPM and nutrition programs.” The main thing he missed, he said, was the lack of opportunity to talk to fellow growers.

“I thought that the presentations were well done and interesting and had a lot of substance,” Bill says. But like Bryan, he can’t wait to get back to in-person meetings. “The conversation between audience and presenter flows better in person, and you can speak with other growers on breaks to get their perspective and ideas.”

Mike Haines had a slightly different take: “I do miss seeing everyone in person; I always enjoy when all the NJ growers get together. But I gotta say I actually do like the Zoom meetings for learning purposes. It’s easier to take notes, and actually I find it easier for Q & A. I might be in the minority on that, I don’t know!” Like Bill and Bryan, he found all the talks very interesting. “Nick’s stuck out to me, because the proper nutrition of the Rutgers hybrids has been something I’ve really been working and focusing on. So that was good; I’ve had a lot of good conversations with Nick on that topic. Shawn Steffan’s presentation was really great too. They’re raising their own nematodes to use as a sort of biological insecticide. So cool! We’ve used some commercial nematodes before, but honestly I have no clue if they even worked or not. In this case, Shawn and his lab crew are raising nematodes native to that environment, so they’ve evolved to thrive there, I guess meaning they’ll be more effective. Even if we don’t end up messing around with anything like that, it was still so interesting to learn about. And that’s actually another benefit of Zoom meetings – a lot of barriers between regions have been knocked down. So we got to hear from Shawn in Wisconsin. And I’ve been able to attend various other Massachusetts and Wisconsin meetings this past year, since they’ve all been online. That’s been a really neat opportunity.”

All in all, it was another productive day for our Pine Island team as well another excellent program put together by Dr. Cesar Rodriguez-Saona. Thank you, Cesar!

ACGA Winter Meeting 2020

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This week the American Cranberry Growers Association once again held its annual winter meeting. The ACGA winter meeting is always a good opportunity for growers to listen to research findings from experiments during the previous growing season and the researchers’ recommendations for the 2020 growing season. In addition, it’s a great chance for the local cranberry community to catch up to each other after the busy harvest season.

Matt Giberson was particularly interested in Dr. Nick Vorsa’s talk on hybrids: “I thought the cross breeding with the hybrid varieties that have the powderlike skin similar to blueberries is an interesting approach to help with fruit quality.” He also liked the presentation on machine learnin by Joe Kawash. “I also think the machine thinking process of fruit quality is something that would not just benefit Ocean Spray, but also the grower. If we had the ability to screen fruit on site to give instant results, it would be able to allow us to plan better for harvest.”

Our team was also pleased to get an update from Dr. Thierry Besançon on one of our most persistent weed issues. “It was good to get a recommendation, with data to support it, on how to better control red root,” says COO Bryan vonHahmann.

Mike Haines agrees: “I really enjoyed both talks on weed control at the meeting. I’m looking forward to trying out Thierry’s suggestions this coming growing season, because it sounds like that could be a big step in attacking our red root problem. And Katie Ghantous’ presentation was really interesting, as well. She came down from Massachusetts and talked about the growing problem of moss in cranberry bogs, and that’s something I’ve started to see here and there in New Jersey. It’s always interesting to hear different perspectives and hear what’s new in the other growing regions.”

Mike Scullion was also fascinated by the machine learning discussion. “It really sounds like a promising method for developing new varieties for the future,” he says. “And I like how he simplified the algorithm for us to better understand how it works. I’m excited to see what they come up with!”

All in all, it was another productive day for our Pine Island team as well another excellent program put together by Dr. Cesar Rodriguez-Saona. Thank you, Cesar!