The Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (GFVGA) wants Ag workers protected during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. As vaccinations continue to be administered across the country, the GFVGA is emphasizing the importance of essential Ag workers.
This includes family, full-time employees and seasonal employees comprised of domestic, migrant and H-2A employees.
GFVGA is administering a survey that will help inform local Georgia health districts about the essential Ag worker presence they will have during the upcoming spring season.
The GFVGA wants vaccines available at the earliest possible date and needs help from producers and industry leaders.
Most of the decisions about how the vaccinations will be distributed will be made at the local level by the Georgia health department staff and district director as well as local hospitals and pharmacies.
Participation in this brief survey is critical. For more information, contact the GFVGA office at (706) 845-8200.
Photo by Bayer/Shows the new fruit and vegetable seed distribution center in Valdosta, Georgia.
A new fruit and vegetable seed distribution center will provide seed to Southeast produce farmers in a timely and efficient fashion.
Bayer Vegetable Seeds announced the opening of its new distribution center in Valdosta, Georgia, located about 10 minutes from the Georgia-Florida state line. It will provide access to its Seminis branded large seed portfolio.
Currently, the distribution center is offering large seed varieties for sweet corn and beans, says Logan Burkhart, U.S. and Canada Customer Operations and Distribution Manager.
“I think for our customers down in the Southeast, it’s a direct to grower market. Having this physical location in the region just shows our commitment to those customers, and having that local supply available to them really helps put their mind at ease,” Burkhart said. “I would say in our Southeast region, it’s interesting because with the large seed portfolio difficult to move around, but having that delivery available locally is something that our customers really need. They’re not able to store it themselves so we’re able to have that distribution center to really be able to get it to them when they need it.”
Facility Size and Location
The facility has a physical cooler space of 3,000 square feet where the seed is stored. It is situated in the heart of the Southeast region. Valdosta is also not far from Alabama.
“This is actually our second distribution center in the region. We do have one in South Florida. We noticed that we really wanted to get a physical location to service the more local Georgia area,” Burkhart said.
He added that seed can continued to be ordered through the company’s sales representatives, who work closely with the growers.
The facility is located at 615 James P Rodgers Drive, Valdosta, Georgia 31601.
To learn more about the new distribution center or place an order, growers can call Oxnard Customer Service at 1-866-334-1056. The distribution center is open for appointment only Monday – Friday.
If you’d like to learn more about Seminis, visit the website at Seminis-us.com.
Seminis is the Vegetable Seeds business of Bayer’s Crop Science division.
The Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (GFVGA) is actively working to be the voice of Georgia’s produce industry.
Agricultural workers are essential. The Georgia Department of Public Health is working to create a plan to get your agricultural workers vaccinated.
The GFVGA wants COVID-19 vaccines available to them at the earliest possible date and needs your help.
Most of the decisions about how the vaccinations will be distributed will be made at the local level by the Georgia health department staff and district director as well as local hospitals, pharmacies, etc. The information that the GFVGA hopes to gather via a survey will be used to help inform local Georgia health districts about the overall essential Ag worker presence they will have in their district during the Spring 2021 season. This should include family and full-time employees, as well as seasonal employees made up of domestic, migrant and H-2A employees.
When the plan is enacted in your community, the GFVGA wants to ensure that local officials have the information needed to prioritize vaccinations for Ag workers. Your participation in this brief survey will help GFVGA achieve this critical goal. If you have any questions about how GFVGA has been working for you or how this information will be used, please contact the GFVGA office at (706) 845-8200.
Production for the 26 estimated vegetable and melon crops totaled 720 million cwt, down slightly from 2019. Area harvested last year was 2.33 million acres, down 1% from 2019.
The top three vegetables, relating to harvested areas, were sweet corn, tomatoes and snap beans. The three largest crops in terms of total production were tomatoes, onions and sweet corn. They combined for 53% of all the vegetables.
Florida and Georgia ranked second and fourth respectively in value of utilized production nationally. They accounted for 13.4% of the total value of utilized production. The value of utilized production in Florida totaled $1.17 billion, down 4% from 2019. Tomatoes were the state’s leading crop with a $463 million value.
The value of utilized production in Georgia totaled $583 million, up 13% from 2019. Sweet corn was the state’s leading crop with $138 million.
Georgia vegetable growers have until March 2 to vote on a Georgia Vegetable Commission marketing order that allows the assessment of one cent per marketing unit of vegetables, which is described in the current marketing order.
Pictured are bell peppers.
The order is applicable only to growers who produce at least 50 acres of the following crops: beans, bell pepper, specialty pepper, broccoli, beets, cabbage, cantaloupe, carrots, cucumbers, eggplant, greens (including collards, turnip greens, mustard and kale), squash (including yellow, zucchini and winter squash), sweet potato and tomato.
If you are a qualified grower and have not received a ballot in the mail by Feb. 10, please contact Andy Harrison: Manager, Commodity Commissions, Georgia Department of Agriculture, Andy.harrison@agr.georgia.gov, (404) 710-1196
The Georgia Vegetable Commission was established by the Georgia General Assembly in 2006. The marketing order must be re-approved by eligible vegetable growers every three years by a two-thirds affirmative vote.
Data shared by UGA’s Greg Fonsah shows how much bell pepper imports have increased since 2000.
One vegetable commodity at the center of an investigation pertaining to its imports from other countries was highlighted during Georgia’s Ag Forecast meeting last Friday.
Greg Fonsah, University of Georgia Agribusiness Extension economist, pointed out how significantly bell pepper imports have increased over the past two decades.
Statistically Speaking
In 2019, 68% of bell peppers that were consumed in the U.S. were imported, amounting to 1.61 million pounds. Bell pepper imports have increased by 5% annually for the past five years. Most of the imports originate from Mexico, 75% in fact, with Canada contributing 18%.
“You can see how the fresh imports started growing from the year 2000 and has been growing steadily. It’s doubled, it’s tripled all the way to 2020. We think by 2021, it’s going to go all the way up here, it’s still going to increase, the same as the import share for the availability,” Fonsah said. “You can see how it’s increasing, increasing, increasing, and it keeps increasing. We expect to see the same thing in 2021.”
A sporadic blueberry disease caused significant problems for Georgia producers in 2020.
Though management options are non-existent with yeast rot, Jonathan Oliver, University of Georgia (UGA) assistant professor and small fruits pathologist, believes timely harvesting and handling of ripe fruit will help minimize instances in 2021.
Photo by Clint Thompson/Shows Jonathan Oliver talking about yeast rot during the virtual Southeast Regional Fruit and Vegetable Conference.
“It was a major problem for our rabbiteye growers. Kind of the last half, maybe the last three-quarters of the rabbiteye harvest, at least in southern Georgia, seemed to be affected by it significantly. It probably is weather and condition dependent,” Oliver said.
“We had a lot of warmer weather right before we had the problem, and we had a lot of rainfall. It seems to be something of a problem when fruit is already either overripe or damaged in some way. Some of the weather conditions I think led to some of those problems. That’s why it was kind of an issue last year.
“It sporadically can be an issue in other years as well. It was a real big issue right at that one critical time last year, unfortunately, for our growers.”
Environmental Conditions
Warm, wet or humid conditions likely favor the growth of the fungus. There was a rapid shift to warmer overnight temperatures in Georgia in mid-to-late May. It went from the mid-50s to mid-70s very quickly. Also, there was a huge rain event that contributed as well. Alma, Georgia received 2.3 inches on May 22.
It is a secondary or weak pathogen that colonizes fruit surfaces and wounds. This causes the fruit to collapse and take on a wet, slimy appearance. Soft, splitting rot were common, and samples that were sent to the diagnostic lab were infested with yeasts.
Economic losses were significant. Harvested fruit was rejected and packing lines shut down early.
According to the Southeastern U.S. 2021 Vegetable Crop Handbook, crop rotation is key in preventing the buildup of soil-borne pathogens. Specialists from universities across the Southeast implore producers to consider an effective rotation sequence that consists of crops from different families that are poor or non-hosts of these pathogens.
The longer the rotation the better the results will be. A 3-to-5-year rotation is recommended.
However, growers must weigh the practicality of rotating their crops on the availability of land, the markets, what alternate crops that are able to grow in the area, the pathogens and the purpose of the rotation.
Photo submitted by Stanley Culpepper/UGA: Shows a blend of yellow and purple nutsedge.
Weed management in vegetable crops across the Southeast remains a diverse and complicated practice that all producers need to be reminded of.
“There are so many components that a vegetable grower has to consider, especially when it comes to weed control. Some production systems you can use tillage. Some you can’t. Some you have plasticulture in a fumigant system. Some that you don’t,” University of Georgia Cooperative Extension weed specialist Stanley Culpepper said.
“Then when you start thinking about herbicides, we’ve been very fortunate over the last 10 years, getting our growers a lot of cool herbicide tools as a component to their management program, but when you’re a vegetable producer and going to have a crop and be in and out in 60, 80, 90 days, you’ve got to think about herbicide carry-over. I can or I can’t use herbicide ‘A’ because of what it could potentially do to the next crop, which means you’ve got to know what the next crop is going to be. You know vegetable guys as good as I do, a lot of times, they just don’t know.”
Producers have to implement the right herbicide and do so at the right rate. They have to use the right irrigation program. The tank also has to be perfectly clean.
“The complexity goes on and on for a vegetable farmer. A lot of decisions have to be made in a 12-month cycle because we could be producing three crops in a lot of our farms,” Culpepper said.
Weed Problems
Certain weed species are also problematic at different times of the year. Weeds that are normally a concern for producers in the spring are not the same as those that are plaguing producers right now. Different weeds require different management strategies.
“Lets start in the spring. In a fumigated plasticulture production system, nutsedge remains the baddest boy that there is. That’s the only weed that can penetrate through the mulch. Nutsedge is still a huge dominant player. In addition to nutsedge, what has really taken its foothold on a lot of my guys has been purslane species and a lot of ours is actually pink purslane; a bunch of different grasses that have always been here and then our amaranth species (not palmer amaranth),” Culpepper said.
“If you look at this time of year, wild raddish is the baddest boy that there is.”
Weed Management
Weed management remains key to successful vegetable production, whether you are talking about now or in the spring. Before plants are ever put in the ground, weed control needs to be a top consideration for producers. Weeds challenge and can overwhelm crops for water, sunlight and nutrients.
Culpepper said in most situations, the weeds are better competitors than the crop.
“Before you ever start a conversation, you say, ‘Look, vegetable weed control is really challenging. There can’t be any weed emerge at planting.’ It’s very likely that if we’re going to implement a herbicide program we’ve got to start it before we ever plant,” Culpepper said.
“In transplanted onion production, obviously, very important to Georgia, we have an excellent herbicide program that will be successful probably 95-plus% of the time, which is really, really good. If you wanted to grow seeded onion production in the state of Georgia, I don’t think you’ll have a chance because you can’t manage the weeds. Or if you do, you’ll spend a tremendous amount of money.
“There’s the same crop per se grown two different ways; one is very unlikely to be successful and the other is very likely to be successful with regards to weed management.”
“If you wanted to seed cabbage, because of wild raddish, you’re in trouble. But if you want to transplant cabbage, I have a herbicide you can put out before you transplant, and I’ll take the wild raddish out.
“There’s two examples, exact same crop, of how you want to process or implement your program will determine how successful you’ll be.”
Photo by Clint Thompson/Shows boxed produce being sold direct to consumers.
COVID-19 altered the marketing plans of Southeast vegetable and specialty crop producers in 2020. Restaurants closed, which crippled certain sectors of the fruit and vegetable industry.
Farmers must continue to adjust as a new season approaches while the pandemic continues. Jessie Boswell, Alabama Regional Extension agent, who specializes in commercial horticulture and farm and agribusiness management, believes the pandemic’s impact has forced farmers to realize their marketing options needed to expand and could expand in 2021.
“I think it made a lot of farmers realize how flexible they have to be and actually noticing these other marketing channels that they have, they may not have even noticed it before,” Boswell said.
“A lot of them may not even have realized how to do those different channels. Maybe they’ve been meaning to look into it later, and this just kind of made them realize they’d have to be more flexible in kind of looking ahead more so than they were in the past.”
Boxed Produce/CSA
Farmers like Bill Brim in Georgia boxed their produce and sold direct to consumers to offset decreased demand. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) was another option that paid off for some producers.
“I know of a farm and they were planning on transitioning to a CSA last spring, spring of 2020, and they were already planning that before the pandemic even happened. They had a way better year than they even could have imagined,” Boswell added. “They had already started setting up for direct to consumer or a CSA box. They sold an astronomical amount. They sold out, actually.
“That’s probably what I have seen most people do is switch to more of an online (option) or CSA. Even some of the ones that aren’t technology savvy started selling stuff on Facebook, trying to sell their greens or whatever they had because their other marketing channels were not open.”
Of course, encouraging some farmers to consider alternate marketing strategies is easier said than done.
“I know a lot of farmers that like to do things the way they’ve been doing it for the past decade. They’re not always the biggest fans of change,” Boswell said.
