Vegetable Growers News

Automated lettuce thinner might save growers money on labor

Labor is one of the biggest input costs for vegetable growers. With lettuce, the average cost for thinning and weeding in the fields is more than $120 an acre. A new automated lettuce thinner developed by the University of Arizona (UA), which could be available commercially within the next year or two, might change that. The thinner was demonstrated at a field day at the Yuma Agricultural Center in Yuma, Ariz., in March, and in Salinas, Calif., in May. In general, lettuce seed is sown at high rates due to poor germination rates in the fields. Two weeks after planting, farm workers weed out excess seedlings manually. "It's very common for the thinning to be done manually, by hoe," said Richard Smith, vegetable crop and weed science farm adviser for Monterey County, Calif."In 80-inch beds, human thinners can walk on the outside of the furrows…  » Read more

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Wishnatzki Farms rebrands to Wish Farms

Florida's Wishnatzki Farms had its humble beginnings on the streets of New York City in the 1920s, when Harris Wishnatzki sold produce from a pushcart. In the later part of that decade, he traveled to Plant City, Fla., to meet with strawberry buyers, fell in love with the area and decided to stay. Gary Wishnatzki runs the company these days, and it's now the largest shipper of strawberries in Florida. It has more than 2,000 acres of strawberries, with partners across the country and in Chile. The company packs for more than 100 growers across the United States and Chile, and ships about 3.5 million flats of strawberries, 6 million pounds of blueberries and 1 million packages of vegetables a year. In January 2010, Wishnatzki Farms debuted Wish Farms as the new brand for its fresh produce products. The consumer label, featuring Misty the Wish…  » Read more

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Greenhouse transplants for asparagus production

Asparagus production in the U.S. was valued at over $90 million in 2010. Although almost every state produces some fresh market asparagus, California, Michigan, and Washington dominate large-scale commercial production of both fresh and processed asparagus. Asparagus is one of the few perennial vegetables and fields are usually established for decades of production. Unfortunately long-term monoculture systems contribute to the buildup of pathogens and toxic compounds in the soil. For asparagus, this has resulted in replant suppression problems. Replant suppression is a phenomenon that prevents new plantings of asparagus from establishing successfully in a field that has previously been planted with asparagus. This can be avoided by moving the production to virgin fields, with no prior history of asparagus; that is currently the case for countries like Peru, where the industry is young and most of the production is on virgin grounds. In the U.S.,…  » Read more

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Invasive feral pigs can devastate crops

Feral pigs are a major problem for everyone, not just farmers. Due to a high reproductive rate and a lack of natural predators, feral pigs are quickly becoming a huge nuisance problem in the U.S., causing millions of dollars in damage to agricultural crops and posing a danger to people and animals. Control programs for feral pigs are expensive and time consuming, but essential to protecting valuable habitats and food sources. Origins and biology The feral pigs growers and others are dealing with today are non-native descendants of domestic stock brought to the Southeast centuries ago by Spanish explorers, according to USDA. Domestic hogs provided a major food source for early explorers and settlers. Hogs that escaped or were released adapted readily to the wild and prospered in a wide variety of habitats. Feral pigs are hoofed mammals, generally stocky, with short legs, long snouts,…  » Read more

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Educational sessions, special events on tap for EXPO

This year's Great Lakes Fruit, Vegetable and Farm Market EXPO will offer a variety of educational sessions and special events. There should be something of interest for everyone attending. The 2011 EXPO is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 6 through Thursday, Dec. 8. Here's just some of what is being planned. Education sessions As usual, a number of commodity sessions will be offered, including pumpkins and other Halloween crops on Tuesday, hoop houses and tunnels on Wednesday and biological pest control on Thursday morning. An organic vegetable production session is planned for Thursday as part of a full-day program for organic growers. A special session on soil fumigation and fumigation management plans will be offered on Thursday morning. Hear from EPA officials on what the current Phase Two plan is and its required buffer zones, and what is in their 'tool box' to help you comply.…  » Read more

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Mandatory E-Verify raises concerns

U.S. farmers employ about 1.6 million seasonal farm workers a year, but most of them are not authorized to work in the United States. With about 85 percent of farm laborers foreign born, it is estimated that 75 percent are working illegally. Yet agricultural employers have to walk a fine line between compliance and not being discriminatory - doing their due diligence to make sure employees are documented, but bound to take documentation at face value. That's where the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' E-verify program comes in. It offers a free, Internet-based verification service to see if employees are authorized to work in the United States. The program currently is voluntary, but two bills have been proposed in Congress - one in the House and one in the Senate - that would make it mandatory. A few states are considering mandating E-verify on their…  » Read more

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Trucking deal reached, Mexican tariffs lifted

On July 6, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and his Mexican counterpart signed agreements resolving the dispute over long-haul, cross-border trucking services between the United States and Mexico. The new deal goes back to March, when President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderón announced that the two countries had found a resolution to the trucking dispute. According to a White House press release, the deal will allow both Mexican and U.S. long-haul carriers to engage in cross-border operations under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The deal also will pave the way for Mexico to lift retaliatory tariffs it imposed more than two years ago, tariffs worth more than $2 billion in U.S. manufactured goods and agricultural products. Mexico agreed to suspend 50 percent of the retaliatory tariffs within 10 days of signing. The country will suspend the remainder of its tariffs within five…  » Read more

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