Vegetable Growers News

Custom Harvester Aids Carrot Farmer

Glenn Vogel’s carrot harvester is the only one of its kind. On a good field with plenty of trucks, it can cover 18 to 20 acres per day, pumping out a 22-ton load of carrots every 20 minutes and filling 25 semi-loads. Usually, a shortage of trucks is the only limitation. Glenn, 48, runs Vogel Produce in Fremont, Mich. The farm’s main emphasis is carrots – between 500 and 600 acres of them – but it also grows about 500 acres of corn, 300 acres of soybeans and 170 acres of butternut squash. The farm is venturing into green beans and onions, Glenn said. Glenn’s father, Andy Vogel, started farming in 1948 with 10 acres of celery, onions and potatoes. Vogel Produce is now a 1,700-acre operation. Glenn’s son, Scott, helps his dad run the farm and will take over some day. But back to the carrot harvester.…  » Read more

---

Extension Seeks to Offset Shrinking Federal Funding

This is the second story in a series about the future of Extension. Since its creation nearly a century ago, the Cooperative Extension Service (CES) has held the same guiding principle: a commitment to quality programming, backed by the best research available and delivered to have significant impact on local, regional and national needs. The system’s guiding principle hasn’t changed in a century, and neither has its funding model. For a long time, it was a workable situation, but – especially in the last decade – the funding model has been stretched to its limits by increasing demands for information and programs without a concurrent increase in funding from the public sector. The guiding principle won’t change, but the funding model has to, according to a report that analyzed CES funding from 1970 to 2004. “In an era where public financing for Extension is, at best, stagnant, while…  » Read more

---

Penn State Taps Into School Pride With Blue and White Potato Chips

For years, William Lamont, vegetable crops professor at Penn State University (PSU), visualized a line of potato chips sporting the university’s colors. Utz Quality Foods in Hanover, Pa., has wanted to partner with Penn State to expand its grower base for gourmet potatoes. Fourth-generation Schuylkill County potato grower John Terwilliger has been interested in projects beneficial to the potato industry. Now, coordinating these interests in a research project, Lamont is seeing blue and white potato chips. After considerable research and trials, the blue and white potato chip test marketing kicked off during Penn State’s football season. The 4-pound big box showcased at PSU’s Cellar Market enticed blue and white fans on their way to the home games. Several Cellar Market patrons surmised that the blue chips were dyed. Quickly informed that they were natural, from Adirondack Blue potatoes, they became more enthusiastic. A few noted the…  » Read more

---

Will the Guest Worker Arrive Here Via Donkey or Elephant?

The ads have finally ended and the people have exercised their right to have their say in who will lead the nation for at least the next two years. Those who took the effort to vote wanted something different done, or perhaps, more importantly, they simply wanted something done! The months of debate and endless television critics rehashing the inaction of the last Congress eventually wore down the patience of the people. Time has now delivered a new set of players to attempt to do what the last Congress could not do: find a common package of legislation that all can agree on to send to the president. So, where does this leave those of us in agriculture? The first reality that will face this new Congress is that nothing has changed. We still have 10 to 12 million people in our country illegally. We are…  » Read more

---