Welcome, everybody, to Midday Magazine for this Thursday, November 21st, 2024.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here.
And today we're welcoming in our good friend, Cranberry Outreach Specialist with UW-Madison
Extension Wood County.
We have Alison John Jack with us.
Alison, how you doing?
Doing wonderful.
Doing real great.
Having wrapped up a nice harvest and moving into the swing of the winter planning and preparation
season.
Alison, I don't have to tell you if we're talking Cranberries.
This is the place to bring it.
We love talking Cranberries in this area.
And I want to get right into that successful harvest, if you don't mind.
When you say a successful harvest to city boys like me, to people that may not know exactly
what that means.
What do you specifically mean by that?
A lot of things lined up really well this year.
This is, we had very questionable growing conditions early in the season with an unpredictable
winter and a very wet spring.
But we were able to rally and come up with indeed yields that in most cases and especially
in Wood County even outperformed last year.
And so this makes our 30th consecutive year as the top Cranberry producer in the world,
as the state of Wisconsin.
Very successful.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
That's just very impressive to hear.
I didn't know that it was 30 years in a row.
I thought I did my homework on this.
I did not know that.
That's cool.
We have now surpassed Massachusetts 30 years ago and Wisconsin is kind of undeniably
the top in the world right now.
In addition to having very good yields, weather was good for harvest so people weren't
needing to wait on even though there were some very windy days.
There were no days that kind of forced labor to a standstill.
We had a very kind of productive smooth.
Even though the lack of water was unusual, it was easy to work through.
So also a very pleasant harvest for those who were out in the fields and out in the trucks
helping people out.
You mentioned that this was in comparison to last year, a successful one, not to say last
years wasn't, but last year's maybe this was just a little bit better than last year's.
Correct.
So last year was actually also, I believe, a record in its time and our forecast models
had thought that, and by forecast models, I mainly mean growers, both, you know, some
of the satellite overview imagery, but also growers taking hand samples with their hand
rakes and extrapolating had expected that yields would be a little bit below last year's,
but when we actually finished up the harvest, it turns out that we did surpass last year's
at least in the Wood County area.
So we were feeling a little bit like we need to improve our sampling method so that the
seeding stations can do a better job staffing for when we're going to bring it up on
for crop.
It's an interesting side part of this to here, and it certainly helps us hold onto that
crown of being the champions of cranberries around here, right?
What about the color development, Alice, and how about that?
That was one thing, and largely because, well, I guess I shouldn't say definitely because,
but one thing that made this harvest more challenging than last year was that not all
of the varieties had fully put on their harvestable color all at the same time.
Usually we have early varieties, a couple of mid varieties, and then some late varieties
in terms of their ripening, and so growers will harvest the early varieties first, we'll
harvest the mid varieties next, and then go into their late varieties.
Usually, by the time you've finished your early varieties, the growers will see that their
late varieties have also turned red.
This year, there was a little bit of a gap between the early varieties being ready and
the later varieties having their full color on.
So some growers had to wait a day or two or even a week to let that color catch up so that
we would be sending in good bright red fruit to the handlers, so that was a little unusual
this year.
Do we know what caused that?
We have a few hypotheses.
One possibility is that the cranberries turn red kind of in contact with the sun, and so
cranberries that are lower in the canopy will turn red slower than the cranberries that are
growing right up on top, and so one possibility is with that really early rainy spring that
we had, if we had a little extra vegetative growth, some of the berries might have been
lower down in that canopy and not catching as much sunlight as they usually had.
That's one thing that is a possibility, it's definitely not proven at this point, but
that's one thing that people are kind of thinking of as one thing that might have possibly
caused it.
It's certainly interesting to figure out what might cause these things, but certainly
more important for our growers and our ag industry to be able to find those things out and
be able to find tune stuff from year to year like they do.
You mentioned this as it was, this did not happen last year, it sounds like.
Correct.
Yep, that was unique to this year, and actually in my memory, I don't have other than
this year, I don't have in my memory people needing to wait for more than one day ever
on color development, and this year it was fairly common to chat with growers and hear
that they were waiting for color.
Our favorite part about the cranberry season and talking about these things of course
is eating cranberries, especially this time of year, but it's just as interesting, I think,
to hear about that stuff and to kind of, again, collect this data and see where we are
next year with this and when we're talking again about this next year, Allison.
What about the research round table?
I wanted to get into that with you a little bit and find out some more about that.
Definitely.
So, one of my, in my role as the cranberry outreach specialist for UW, my role is to help
provide research back information to growers to help them be better growers, and one really
big part of that is helping researchers do research that is answering questions that
growers really have and that growers are actively facing in their marshes day in and day out.
And so, one of the, I think, probably the most important meeting that we have throughout
the year is in early November, after everyone may be, except for a few fresh fruit growers,
after nearly everyone has finished their harvest, we bring everyone together and have little
small group discussions that discuss what, what questions do you have that research could
answer for you?
And we do that every year on a kind of one to five year time frame, and then every, every
three or four years will also do a 20 year time frame and kind of a who's not in the room
who needs to be.
So, this year, we had breakout discussions on soil and water quality, on horticulture
and plant physiology, on plant pathology, on entomology, and then on general management,
and had growers discuss where they see their growing trends changing in the last five years,
what new information they need, and these discussions are all attended by all the researchers
that UW-Madison listening and asking questions and trying to understand best how they can form
research that's going to give growers answers to these questions.
Very interesting.
You know, one of the things that I always admire is when in industry, because the cranberry
industry is doing well, it is performing well, there's a growing market, there's a lot
of increase in awareness of the health benefits of cranberries, and the diverse of things
you can do with them, cranberries are doing well, but I admire an industry that sees this
in like, well, what can we do more?
How can we be better at it?
How can we even make cranberries even more accessible, or what more can we do with them?
I find that whenever the industry, whatever kind of business we're talking about, the
ones that do well are industries that look at things like this and see it that way.
Having a round table, having a group of like-minded people that can share information and help
this industry grow and even be even stronger.
I really deeply agree with that.
I think that everyone coming together to discuss what would give us the next best cutting
edge, what would help, you know, hey, I've never dealt with heat stress before, but I think
I might have dealt with heat stress in the last two years.
Has anyone else seen that?
What can we do if we're going to have to deal with heat stress more frequently?
Let's ask a researcher what they think about it, and let's ask a researcher if they can
come up with best management practices to help manage this new stressor.
That is how we are able to kind of roll with the punches that Mother Nature might send
us.
That's how we're able to have an informed group of growers.
That's how we're able to meet all of the challenges that reality offers up to us and come
out on top of your after-year.
It's certainly not as we've heard over the years of different things coming up in the
cranberry industry that have been difficult, but it continues to thrive, it continues to
do well, and I think in major part because of things like this that they're always looking
at what we can do more in thinking ahead, and sharing of information, I think communication
and sharing of information is so vital for our ag industry in general, as I've been learning
more and more from talking with you all from extension, whether it's Matt or talking
with you or some others about how important that is.
So that part of this is really unique and cool, too, to see.
Is this the first research roundtable that has taken place?
No, we have been having research roundtables for a good several years.
They had actually even begun before I started in my role as outreach specialist, but I have
really kind of taken them on and brought them forward since I started.
There is a group of growers that has always known that connection with research, connection
with people who can leverage our questions and do functional field research with them.
It's always, and of course, every farmer is always trying to do better on his own as
well, and she's going out and she's doing a little experiment on her own, but when
we can have big enough experiments that have statistical significance when we can bring
in the leverage of all the extra labor that computing power that grad students can bring,
and these sorts of things were able to have more meaningful research things that come
and bear the full rate of, yes, we've tried this on all the different soil types, and
here's the answer for each of the soil types or the answers the same across all the
soil types, so we needed to find that out, and so the Wisconsin cranberry growers have
really been working together with their research partners at UW for a good long time, and
I'm proud to have pushed that forward and moved it in an even more positive direction,
but we've been aware of how good that partnership is for many years.
You're speaking with Alison John Jack cranberry outreach specialist with UW-Madison Extension
Wood County.
Alison during these meetings are just in general talking about this, for those of us that
aren't inside the industry, are there some major headlines, major issues that you guys
are discussing as far as the cranberry industry or the things that you're working on specifically,
or just in general kind of going over the practices and marketing and some of that?
There's less to do with marketing at these meetings in particular because a lot of the
marketing is done either by the handlers or the growers co-ops or the people who are buying
the fruit or an institute called the cranberry institute, which is kind of a separate
ballgame.
So at this research round table, it's a lot more about growing and about farm management.
So if I could just give one quick hit from each of the main groups we discussed in terms
of the plant pathology, one of the major questions this year was whether people feel that they
have enough tools to manage rot without developing resistance.
So that was a major question.
There's also a lot of discussion when people do new plantings if we could have some health
screenings of those vines prior to planting to make sure that we're planting healthy stock.
So that's another major question that feels like there should be some good answers able
to feed on forward from it.
When we talk about the general management question, there was a lot about labor and there was
also a lot of interest in laser wheaters since so many of cranberries weeds are perennial
woody perennials that are really difficult to get and basically rely on hand weeding that
maybe laser wheaters might be a better solution for that.
And so we talked a lot with the Ag engineering department in the physiology realm.
There were questions I had kind of mentioned earlier about heat stress.
And then also we had questions given how mild last year's winter was one of the major
ways that we protect against disease and against, against disease against pests because
it kind of buries eggs.
And then also we kind of shore up our plant health is by a standing every four years when
we have a good thick layer of ice and we can take a dump truck out and put a layer of
sand down and no one could sand last year because we didn't have our good 18 inches of
ice that we're used to.
And so a lot of discussion came about saying all right that happened one year and we can
probably roll with the punches one year but what if we have half of our years we don't
have ice that we can drive on.
And so discussion there said well New Jersey and Massachusetts have already had about 20
years of not being able to drive on their ice.
So and I'm kind of segueing into the next topic here but the coming from that the next
brown bag we have you know virtual brown bag lunches that growers can come and listen
to the next virtual brown bag that I'll be hosting is going to be a grower panel with
a Massachusetts grower, a New Jersey grower and an Oregon grower discussing how they manage
to manage disease pressure, manage insect pressure, manage plant health in a regime where
they're not able to stand on ice and whether they're standing with barges or whether
they're pruning or what other tactics they're using to be able to keep their vines healthy
in the absence of our usual standing practice.
So that's one of the things that's coming up next month that I'm pretty excited for.
And you're you're speaking about the grower panel for sanding yeah that does sound really
interesting and really important too as we're going along here just in a bit of research
that I was able to find this this sounds like one of those topics so again it's great
to be ahead on yes absolutely and if if we need to devise new equipment for sanding if
we need to come up with barges it's definitely going to be good for local fabricators and local
welders to have two years heads up have about like hey could you try making me an experimental
barge and I can see how it works versus having you know 200 farmers show up in November
and say by the way we all want seven barges a piece so hopefully letting people think
about an advance will help us make those partnerships with fabricators if we need to make
new equipment right now that seems like one of the possibilities but I'm looking forward
I was as we discussed with our our coastal growers in in two weeks here I'll I'll know more.
It's going to be really interesting looking forward to the next time we talk and hearing
how that went and I do want to apologize to you in the audience a little bit else and
I got completely sidetracked when you talked about laser weeding like that sounded really
interesting it's not a pretty cool it might defense lasers are cool so but it is you know
you know it is really fascinating to hear how technology in our ag industry are working
together more and more and and really benefiting our farmers and helping our our customers
out there it's pretty cool as we're wrapping up the the planning of the winter summit just
wanted to touch on that with you a little bit. Yeah just one of the things that is kind
of a keystone of our our year in terms of you know researchers do all the research and then
of course the important the research roundtable helps them inform what research to do but then
after having gone through all the projects and come up with answers we have a cranberry
school which is kind of gradually adopting the new name of a Wisconsin cranberry summit is going
to be held in January and that is where all of our researchers can come back to the growers and say
here's what we've learned as far as best management practices here's the new understanding that we've
gained about how plants experience about excess and here's how you can keep your plants from
experiencing a bad excess on the farm and so that will be in the middle part of January the 15th
and 16th and are just looking forward to having all of our growers and all of our researchers with
us at that at that summit and give everyone an opportunity to reap all the benefits that we
started sowing maybe two years ago at the research roundtable because there is always kind of a two
year to your process so you get enough data but we are looking forward to being able to share back
directly with the growers everything that they wanted to know. I saw what you did there with a
growing by the way that was really good. It's one of those things too where again going back to what
we talked about with the communication and sharing of information and how important that is and helps
everybody but it's also really cool to kind of hear this how there's there's kind of this
couple of year advancement to this and where we're going with that and whether it's looking
ahead two years or or rewinding and seeing the data from the past and how that compares to what's
going forward. And farmers are good at that I think especially cranberry growers when every
August you have two crops on the vine you have the current your berries on the next year's bud
and I think we're used to understanding the the long-term nature of any question and long-term
nature of you know the outcomes of every decision you make and also of course these long-term
natures of of relationships with our researchers and the researchers' relationships with the growers
so everything everything you know we're in it for the long haul as farmers yeah yeah and we appreciate
that and appreciate the conversations so very much else and it's always great to talk with you we
learned so much more and I think we get so much more of a better insight into our cranberry industry
which only makes us want cranberries all the more and of course that we always encourage you to buy
local support local and support Wisconsin cranberries look for that made in Wisconsin red label and
support your local ag industry everybody and else and if people want to learn more about some of
the things we talked about today maybe even take part in some of the things that we have been
discussing how can they reach you how can they find out more yeah um we have a lot of published
articles at fruit.wisk.edu and then navigate to the cranberries pane or backslash cranberries you
can also email me allyson.johnjack a-l-l-i-s-o-n dot j-o-n-j-a-k at w-i-s-c for Wisconsin dot edu
and um if you're yeah I guess there are there's always lots of opportunities to you know connect
with extension um in addition to connect with cranberries there's of course the you know warns
cranberry festival there's the rapids cranberry blossom festival there's lots of ways to dig in but
go ahead and drop me an email if you have any questions about anything and I'm happy to connect
and share resources appreciate that Ellison remember you can find out more is at their website
extension.wisk.edu extension.wisk.edu be sure to follow you w extension on social media as well
share their events on your pages you never know who might see it that would otherwise
Ellison already looking forward to the next time we get together thank you so much for joining us
today safe travels out there we'll talk again soon thank you James take care
well and more midday magazine coming up for you right here at 97-5 FM 13-20 AM WFHR we are
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