Hello world. Welcome to WFHR's rapid support. Probably brought you by Cracket Sceptic for
this August 21st, 2025. Have your host James here. We're joined right now by our good friend
from UW Extension, Wood County, Allison John Jacks with us. Allison, how you doing?
I'm doing real well. Happily looking forward to nice weather as we move on toward the
harvest season. How about yourself James?
I'm doing all right. Thanks for asking. I also am looking forward to harvest season, but
I will be honest with you. It's I love fall. I love fall. So I always look forward to it.
But I like this time of year. It's a fun part of the year. And we will be getting into harvest
time and harvest prep. And I want to talk to you if you don't mind about this recent trip
that you're around. But if we could start with the cranberry field day, I want to hear
more about that.
Absolutely. Last Friday, we had the annual Wisconsin cranberry summer field day. And we
had north of 700 growers primarily from Wisconsin, but we had had some guests from New Jersey
joining us out at the Hableman Brothers Marsh just over in Jackson County. And we had
support from vendors. We had the University of Wisconsin Madison team to talk about weed
management and all sorts of other things and a really lovely day getting together with all
the growers. I guess feel free to ask more specific questions too.
And it comes to that else. And one of the things that I have learned and talking with so
many of you members of extension and everything is how important these kind of events are for
farmers to be able to share information. And certainly with social media and email and
all these different things, it doesn't seem like that, you know, there be any any lack of
opportunities for that. But I know that I've heard over and over again, one of the bigger
headlines coming out of these kind of meetings or events, I should say, is the opportunity
to be face-to-face and just kind of having a conversation and organically, no pun intended,
the way that information is shared and everything. That seems to be a big part of it. Is that
something you notice too?
Absolutely. One of the major highlights of these summer field days is marsh tours. And so
each, each marsh, we've got more than 200 country marshes in Wisconsin, but each marsh does
everything a little bit differently and largely the same, but everyone has their own personal
strengths. And so when the growers can get out and see what other growers do, they are
able to bring ideas home. They're able to ask questions. They hadn't thought about asking
before. And then also when we have the university researchers presenting as well. So, Jed
Kuhun spoke on his current weed management research this summer, Lesley Holland spoke about
Protoventria leaf spot. And Amaya Atucha gave a lot of overviews of several of her projects
from everything from calcium uptake to heat stress. And that gives growers these seeds
to ask questions of the researchers of each other, of kind of everyone there and really
gets ideas commonly shared and commonly discussed, which I think is really great for the growing
culture for cranberries. And I assume everyone in every other realm can kind of take that
same lesson of getting people together to talk about what's going on and what your current
challenges are. And members up and down the state do an amazing job at extension and other
organizations of bringing awareness and talking about what's going on with our farmers and
having the backs of our farmers. But there's nobody who can do it like other farmers. There's
just, you know, it's just the way that it works. They know things and they understand the
industry better than anybody that's, you know, unless they're doing it. When you have
that opportunity to be around other people that get it, you know, when you can talk to
somebody that just gets what you're saying, you don't have to over explain something, they
get it right away. That's just a great resource as well. Yes, the passing out of information
or being able to share different seed types or any of these things. But in this world
where we need to have our farmers back, our ag industries back better, it's great for
them to have these events as well to even just share camaraderie, let alone the great
information that's being able to share back and forth. Absolutely. Yes. So all the information
and then there are also food trucks and cranberry milkshakes. Nice. Oh, yeah. Don't get me
wrong there. Absolutely. You had me a cranberry. I've never had a cranberry milkshake. I've
never heard of that. I have to have that. I have to try that. Absolutely. God, that sounds
amazing. That's my recipe for today. Make a cranberry milkshake. I honestly like vanilla ice cream
milk and cranberry sauce. I'm glad you did. Oh, my God. That sounds good. I was going to ask
you what your headline from the event was. I think I just got it. I think. Was there something
that really stood out to you about the event as far as information that was shared or anything
in particular that was? I heard a lot of great feedback. I know that we are newer in the world
of facing heat stress compared to places like New Jersey have been for a long time. And so a lot
of our growers were, it feels like this, this year has maybe been the first normal year in the
last 20 years in terms of weather. And everyone has been concerned about, okay, what do we do with
a mild winter? What do we do with a mild winter? What do we do with a really hot summer? So there
was a lot of information shared about, okay, at what point is shading worth it versus not worth it?
At what point is irrigating worth it versus not worth it? And certain to ask questions that
haven't been asked before. So I think that got a lot of good, good feedback. And then also since
the Hablemons are a fresh fruit operation across Wisconsin, Wisconsin is, this is going to be our 31st
year leading the nation in cranberry production in barrels and in acres. But only 5% of Wisconsin's
crop is fresh fruit. Wisconsin also grows the most fresh fruit. But only 5% of our whole crop is
fresh fruit. So for a lot of growers, this is a unique opportunity to see how the fresh fruit
producers grow their crops a little bit differently. And they usually keep a shorter canopy
because being gentle on the fruit is the biggest priority. So it's neat for everyone to get
to see something a little different. Yeah, and it really, really appreciate you sharing that
information with us, Alison. I look forward to next year's and hearing more about it and
covering it more with you that appreciate the information. One of the dive into a little bit of
this time of year and what are our industry out there is doing the prep for it. Harvest prep,
if you could, if you can give us a little look into this world, I'd really appreciate that.
Absolutely. People are first making sure that they have harvest crews put together. So a lot of
people will need extra drivers, whether that's tractor drivers or extra support staff, extra people
when you say, oh wow, we've got to be right there to have people to be there. So if you know
if anyone looking for a job to do this fall, feel free to reach out to the Growers Association and
they can connect you with some growers that are looking for extra people. But then once you have
your people in order, making sure all the harvest machinery is put together and established and
going to work well, you know, oil everything and we've of course got good food safe oil for all of
our harvest equipment. You are also doing some last minute checks if there are any weed
bitters still there. You can string trim those so you've got good clearance for your harvest
equipment. You have got opportunities to start watching a color come up. And then the last thing
you'll do before you start harvesting is you'll take a color sample and you'll send that to your
handler and have your handler say, you know, yep, you're good to go. And once you get that go
ahead from your color standpoint, then then you're off to the races. I admit that, you know, I learn
more and more every time I get together with extension and talk to some of the people from over
there about this industry. I'm a city boy and I'm learning more and more all the time. But spending,
you know, the second half of my life here in Wisconsin, specifically in Central Wisconsin,
I've learned a lot about cranberries and cranberry growing. Went to a couple on a couple field trips
to marshes, fell in love with it right away. I say this as somebody who is weird. There are,
of all the ag industry, cranberry growing seems like the weirdest to me. The most, like if you don't
know anything about it, as you learn about it, it's like, wow, that's how they do it. That's how they
grow. It makes sense that the prep wouldn't need to be the way what you're saying there. Yep.
No, it really is this industry. It's the cranberries are a weird plant. They have so many nutrients.
They grow in such a acidic soil. Everything that we do as cranberry growers is tailored and
evolved to our really weird little, you know, post-agglacier, crazy, low pH fruit. And it is
different than just about everything else, but we love it. Same. Yeah, well said. Love cranberries
and love the story of them and everything too. If you don't know the history of cranberries,
look into it, everybody. It's really interesting. Maybe we'll talk about that next time, Allison, or
something. But for now, I don't want to keep you too long. If you don't mind, though, I really
did want to hear a little bit more about this recent trip that you were on. Right. So I am actually
calling in. I pulled over on a side road this morning. I had gone out to take some samples of
daughter, which is spelled D-O-D-D-E-R. And if cranberries are weird, daughter is even
weirder. It's a weed. But it's hardly a plant. It doesn't photosynthesize. It doesn't have roots.
It just crawls over the top of other happily thriving plants and kind of slurps their nutrients
away. And it's been one that we haven't got great weed management tactics for. The seeds float
there. They're good for a long time so it can spread. There's really no good control for it.
And so it's actually some of our partners over at the University of Penn State over in
Pennsylvania there. I took samples and put them on silica packets and I'm drying them out so
that they can run DNA analysis of the daughter so that we can figure out how we might be able to
manage it in the future. That's really interesting and very cool. Good work on you and certainly the
knitting lines over there at Penn State on this one. Could I admit something to you, Alison,
and keep it just between you and I? At 48 years old, I just...
You and I, and whoever you've got tuned in.
Ah, yeah, yeah. I'm 40 years old, but just learned that there are plants that don't photosynthesize.
I had to, as soon as you said that I had to throw it in the dogoogler. Ghost pipes are another
one that doesn't. I didn't even know that there were plants that didn't photosynthesize. That's
amazing. Yeah. I mean, we're being generous when we call them plants. They're really weird,
little guys, but yeah, they're closer to plants than anything else and it is there...
If you can see ghost pipes when you go on a hike, luckily daughter is not very common, but I had to,
I had to call fiber-ten growers before I found somebody that was able to say, oh, I've got a patch,
though luckily it's not everywhere since it is so hard to control.
Well, and good on you for making the trip and to do this for the research, for the data,
who knows what great information we'll be able to get out of that. Good on you and for doing it.
And thank you so much for sharing that information with us.
Absolutely.
Always good talking with you. Safe travels out there. Thank you so much for taking the time to be
able to join us else. And if people have follow up questions, they'd like to know more.
Is there a way to contact you? Absolutely. fruit.wisk.edu have a lot of our most recent publications.
If you want to get in touch with me in particular, alison.johnjackatwisk.edu,
ALLISON.JONJAK at WISC.edu. And of course anytime you see cranberry events,
you'll have, you know, whether it's cranberry growers or myself or we'll have people there to
be able to answer your questions. Appreciate that, Alison. Also,
encourage you to check out the website extension.wisk.edu. Be sure to follow them on social media as well.
Again, safe travels and we'll talk again real soon. Thank you. Take care.
You too. And thank you, everybody, for joining us for another edition of The Rapids Report,
brought to you by Crock Acceptic.
