Nov 22, 2024

Hartung Brothers’ is a cucumber powerhouse that has been farming vegetables for 50 years

Marking its 50th year, Hartung Brothers has become a successful grower and shipper of pickling cucumbers through effective practices in disease and pest management, harvest equipment efficiencies and valuing its workers’ ideas.

The family-run company grows cucumbers in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Canada and recently expanded its operations into Yucatan, Mexico.

The vertically oriented company processes pickling cucumbers through brining facilities and is also involved in custom farming, growing seed corn and logistics.

“We pride ourselves in diversified portfolios,” said Joshua Duley, vice president of the cucumber division. “We’re always growing cucumbers in two or three regions at the same time, so if weather or adversity hits one area, there’s others that are still in production. Being able to be vertically integrated helps a lot so that we don’t have to share the value chain with logistics and trucking companies and growers. We can do it all ourselves and save a little bit along the way and be more efficient.”

In 1974, 17-year-old twin brothers Dan and Don Hartung rented 40 acres to grow corn using equipment borrowed or rented from local farmers. The two partnered with older brother Robert, younger brother Randy and sister Gayle Ann Noltner’s then-boyfriend, Jim Nolther. Later, younger brothers Steve and John helped by picking stones out of the field.

After a successful harvest in 1975, Hartung Brothers was incorporated by the siblings and their father Galen. Other siblings Steve, Tara and James later joined as shareholders.

Crop changes

For 30 years, Hartung grew green beans for a contractor — its first vegetable crop — and also grew other vegetables through agreements, including carrots, hot peppers and red beets. After canning company bankruptcies, buyer consolidations and the federal government ending vegetable purchases, the company used capital from the discontinued commodities to expand cucumber production in 1997. The lesson the Hartungs learned was to never grow anything without a deal.

While partners Don, Robert, Randy and Jim have retired, all remain shareholders. Dan is CEO, Steve is executive vice president, Tara is custom compliance and food safety manager, James is IT manager, John is vice president of H&N Logistics and Gayle Ann is in accounting. Other family members, including Ryan Noltner, Joe, Nicole and David Hartung and Steven McDonald work in roles including field and harvest operations, farm management, logistics and computer systems.

To grow cucumbers in the different regions, Hartung conducts variety research and participates in seed company trials. Its top cucumber varieties are Lennon, Speed, Henley, Expedition and Vlaspik.

Hartung was an early adopter of seedless cucumbers, which allows growers to harvest higher yields per acre and gain larger per-acre recoveries compared to the older female seeded varieties. The parthenocarpic varieties, in which plants produce fruit without fertilization, resulted in seedless fruit and boosted yields from 540 bushels an acre to 1,200 bushels an acre in Hartung’s Canadian fields.

The production increases in hand- harvested varieties help efficiencies, particularly with high labor costs.

Disease worries

“If it wasn’t for the seed companies developing these varieties, the costs of growing cucumbers would have gone up a lot, and North America would not have been competitive against India and Mexico and other places with lower labor rates had it not been for these parthenocarpic varieties coming in,” Duley said.

Aside from weather, phytophthora or fruit rot remains the biggest worry for cucumber growers. “It’s the biggest worry of the industry and is where the bulk of our research funding is going towards,” Duley said.

Cucumber’s biggest pathogenic threat, downy mildew, severely damages plants. In 2006, a new resistant downy mildew version appeared and destroyed many Midwest and Southeast crops. As the pathogen doesn’t overwinter in the Midwest, growers track the disease’s northward movement. Hartung employs scouting services and relies on Michigan State University spore trapping.

Cucumber beetles have been a historical threat, but FarMore FI400 seed treatment helps keep pests in check. Duley worries about the future availability of neonicotinoid seed treatment insecticides. The Midwest’s hard freezes prevent overwintering of pickle worms, which threaten Southern growers.

For weed control, Curbit and Command are applied with planters.

Drone, harvest tech

Utilizing the latest in technology, Hartung cooperates with a University of Minnesota drone spraying initiative.

Autosteer tech for planting, cultivating, spraying and harvesting is being added to Hartung’s harvesting machinery. The tech can prevent issues including equipment running over cucumbers. Tests showed a half percentage improvement compared to harvesters not using the tech. Considering the millions of bushels harvested, the small percentage is significant, Duley said.

Hartung purchased Vogel Engineering cucumber harvesting machinery that harvests with eight row heads. Because the machines make fewer passes through the fields, adding eight row heads to the older six row machines increased labor and fuel efficiencies as well as reduced soil compaction.

Hartung tasks its management employees to bring cost-cutting ideas to the company’s annual meetings.

One manager used an old corn detachment power unit to install conveyors so harvesting machines pulling gravity wagons eliminated employees lugging baskets, which improved hand harvesting efficiencies 20%. Employees ride on the machines and place product into the conveyor.

“With labor costs going up so much, gaining efficiencies in the hand harvest side of things was a critical innovation,” Duley said.

Hartung’s capacity to store a million bushels of fermented cucumbers in brine tanks later sold to processors throughout the winter and spring helps the grower work through the crop’s ebbs in the weather and satisfy fresh-packed customers throughout the season.

The biggest tip Duley offers growers is to be proactive in spraying to control disease.“If you wait until you see diseases present or see drought stress on the plants before you spray or irrigate, you’re going to pay for it in yields,” he said. “The more you’re able to be proactive and stay on a 7-day spray program and irrigate your inch of water per week, you give yourself the best fighting chance to have success.”

Written by Doug Ohlemeier, Asistant Editor