A24-Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, May 4, 1991
Farmer Considers Details Throughout Tomato Growing Season
(Continued from Page A 1)
les, a full-time employee; and
Cliffs father, Abram. The farm
also manages a 200-sow farrow
lo-fmish operation.
But this time of year the family
concentrates on growing, trans
planting, and caring for the big
cash crop, which Charles began
four years ago.
“I started when I saw an ad in
Lancaster Farming for tomato
growers, and I called,” he said. “I
had thought about it over the years,
something on the side to do.”
The first year, he purchased
plants out of the South and planted
35 acres. But some of the plants
were bad and the harvest wasn’t up
to expectations. The next year,
Charles erected a greenhouse and
seeded his own plants, transplant
ing them into 40 acres. This year,
another greenhouse was con
structed and 80 acres were planted.
Class 3 competition
Charles won the award for the
Crystal Charles, 11, left and brother Eric, 10 hold up flats
containing plants that are ready to transplant.
Mark Charles examines the placement of seed on a spe
cial vacuum tray at planting. The tray is dropped into posi
tion at right, bottom, where tubes lead into the seed holders
in the flat.
highest tomato yield in class 3
machine harvest competition for
growers with 74 to 50 acres.
According to information supplied
by the Pennsylvania Vegetable
Growers Association, Charles
harvested 1,652 tons of usable fruit
for Furman Foods, Northumber
land, Pa., in addition to Violet
Packing and Jordan Packing on 70
acres for a 23.6 tons per acre aver
age yield.
Charles raises his own green
house transplants, which include
Early Pear, US 68, Ohio 8245,
Ohio 1810, Heinz 7151, and Heinz
1784. The varieties are mainly
Italian-type, which are smaller
than garden types and more solid
to aid in transportation and
canning.
Charles starts seeding in mid-
March. A vacuum seeder drops the
seeds through individual tubes into
a flat that can hold 288 plants.
When the plants reach 5 to 6 inches
in height, they are transplanted.
Last year, transplanting occured
Cliff Charles waters half a million tomato transplants in one of the greenhouses on
the farm. Charles was honored with a special tomato grower award recently at the
Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Conference in Hershey.
on April 23 this year, Charles
began transplanting on April 25.
Charles made improvements to
a 3-row planter, which reduced the
number of people needed to trans
plant the crop. Eight acres of toma
toes were transplanted on twin
rows with 15-inch spacing
between each, and 60-inch spacing
between twins. Sixty-two acres
were planted on 60-inch spacing
between single rows with a
10-inch plant spacing.
Crop rotation
Charles used a three-year crop
rotation which included com, year
1; com or barley and beans, year 2;
and tomatoes, year 3.
Charles spread liquid hog man
ure from his swine operation in the
fall at 15 tons per acre. At trans
planting, liquid fertilizer was
installed with the plant After
transplanting, Charles applied a
liquid nitrogen sidedressing on the
crop up to four weeks.
Weeds were controlled by culti
vation and a preplant application
of Tillam at 2.75 quarters per acre
and Devrinol at 3 pounds per acre
prior to transplanting. An applica
tion of Sencor at 0.5 pounds per
acre was applied as needed to con
trol escape weeds.
Diseases were controlled with a
Massachusetts Lifts Barriers
SYRACUSE, N.Y. The
Commonwealth of Masschusetts
recently announced it is amending
a milk law that required inspection
by Massachusetts officials of out
of-state dairy farms shipping milk
into the commonwealth.
This change is the direct result
of a complaint filed three years ago
against the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts by Dairylea
Cooperative Inc.
“We are extremely pleased by
the outcome of this matter,” said
Clyde E Rutherford, president of
Dairylea. ‘The New York State
Attorney General's Office and the
New York State Department of
Agriculture and Markets have
worked diligently on behalf of
New York dairy farmers to ease
restrictions on the flow of milk into
Massachusetts.”
In filing the 1988 complaint
with the Department of Agricul
ture and Markets, Dairylea
charged that, at the time, both Con-
7-10 day scheduled application of
Bravo at 2 to 3 pints per acre. A fol
iar fertilizer went on with the fun
gicide. Insects, particularly the
Colorado potato beetle, were con
trolled with Kryocide at 10 pounds
per acre. Ethrel was applied at 4
pints per acre early. Charles said
the beetles prefer the potato crops,
and migrate off his land. “There’s
enough potatoes around, I think
they head to the potato fields,” he
said.
Charles harvested from August
9 to September 5 of last year. He
said he determines when to harvest
by looking at the crop, and when
“you can get the maximum red,
that’s when you harvest,” he said.
The machine harvest technique
uproots the plants and vibrates the
tomatoes free. About 10-11 work
ers hand-sort the ripe from the
green tomatoes.
Although Charles obtained rec
ognition for the yield, he said, “it
wasn’t that high of a yield. The
yield we had this past year was our
average yield the last four years,”
he said. “It’s just that nobody else
had as high a yield, I guess.”
Last year, said Charles, they had
higher tonnage laying in the field.
To Interstate Milk
necticut and Massachusetts had
unfair regulatory practices that
hindered the marketing of milk
produced in New York.
The complaint centered around
regulations that prohibit New York
dairy farmers from selling milk in
either of the two states unless their
farms pass inspections by Connec
ticut or Massachusetts officials,
even though the farms are fully
inspected by New York officials.
As a result of the complaint,
Connecticut announced in late
1990 it had amended its milk laws
to remove barriers to the sale of
out-of-state milk in that state. All
other states in the Northeast honor
inspections performed by officials
in the farmer's own state.
“Complying with Massa
chusetts regulations was not only
burdensome to our members, but
also represented a significant cost
to Dairylea in terms of field per
sonnel time and test expenses,”
Rutherford said.
Maximum red
but with the wet weather late in the
summer, they lost quite a few tons
from decay. But it was growing
and transplanting his own plants
that helped increase the yield.
“If you start with a bad plant,
you don’t have a lot of potential
there,” he said.
Under contract
Charles said most tomatoes are
grown under contract because of
the risks involved.
“You don’t have to go under
contract, but it’s sort of risky not
to,” he said. “If everyone has a
good yield, you have an open
market for tomatoes, and nobody
wants them.”
Charles said he enjoys the chal
lenge of tomato farming. “It’s a
crop that, if you take care of detail
s, it pays dividends,” he said. “It’s
a high-management crop. After
you do something for a number of
years, you want to try something
else to see if you can do it It’s a
high risk crop... you don’t just put
it out and forget about it”
Charles said, “I think it’s a total
of everything. You can’t work on
one thing and forget another part
And then, even though we do
everything right we are still at the
mercy of the weather.”
Sales
Dairylea members repeatedly
voiced their concerns about these
additional inspections and
expenses in the form of resolutions
approved at the cooperative’s past
annual meetings. The cooperative
responded by exploring channels
for alleviating the problem.
“Dairylea believes that a
cooperative has the responsibility
to be a strong and effective voice
for its members,” Rutherford said.
Dairylea, a Syracuse-based
dairy cooperative with 2,300 far
mer members throughout the
Northeast, participates in a milk
marketing network stretching from
Maine to Maryland to Ohio.
MILK.
nr does a
BODY GOOD;