On The Move

Jerry Muldoon and Pat Collins often kid each other about who has the harder job, which is kind of funny, because each holds the same title, regional ag manager, at the same company: Dole Fresh Vegetables, Inc. The one very big difference is while Muldoon handles the southern region, primarily Yuma, AZ, Collins spearheads the northern region, notably Salinas, CA.

The two men help coordinate what Muldoon jokingly terms the "orchestrated circus" — the planting and harvesting of a number of fresh vegetables, especially iceberg lettuce, to guarantee retailers a consistent year-round supply. Here's a brief look at a year on the PLG "Professional Lettuce Growers" Tour.

The Start Of The Season

September 10: Planting begins in the desert around Yuma, an Arizona town on the California border just north of Mexico. The first crop takes just 60 days, and harvest will begin in mid-November. As the days shorten, the time to harvest will gradually lengthen, and the later crops will take 120 days.

The reason Muldoon says his job is more difficult is that while not as much lettuce — the term lettuce means iceberg lettuce in the growers' lingo — is produced in Yuma as Salinas, the season is more concentrated. In Yuma, Dole will plant or help coordinate the planting of 70% of the acreage in just seven weeks. They grow 90% of the lettuce in partnership with local growers and the rest with a Dole-owned subsidiary, Royal Packing.

Dole Fresh Vegetables' Food Safety Programs

Most of the grower/shippers on the PLG Tour have a similar set-up, working with numerous growers in the large production areas, says Muldoon. "First, we want to work with the best growers, the growers who really know the area," he says. "But it's also because we don't want to put all our eggs in one basket. The larger growers do much the same thing, growing for several shippers."

Harvesting In Huron

March 15: Harvest begins in Huron, CA, a small town in the San Joaquin Valley about 150 miles southeast of Salinas. If all goes according to plan, harvest will wind up four days later in Yuma. "Our goal is four days of overlap, and it would be perfect if we were harvesting half the total in Huron and half in Yuma," says Muldoon. "There's always about a week there we want to be sourcing out of two areas in case there are any problems, especially with Mother Nature. It takes a lot of planning to get that overlap just right."

Both Muldoon and Collins speak of Mother Nature quite a bit. As it is with most growers, weather is perhaps their chief concern, but it's even more so for them, trying to juggle planting and harvesting schedules in different areas. "Getting planting done in time is tough, mostly because of weather and the turn, but harvest is, if anything, even tougher," says Collins. "With lettuce there's not a light switch you can turn off and on."

That concept, that lettuce is a living thing that waits for no one — old-timers often refer to their crops in terms of how most describe people — can be difficult to get across to buyers or even people in their own company. "We have a lot of people across the organization that have come from other industries," says Collins. "The perishable nature of lettuce limits our ability to store or build inventory as compared to some other commodities."

Salinas Vs. Yuma

April 15: Harvest begins in Salinas, where Dole has some growers they've been working with for 50 years. It's very different from Yuma, says Collins, in that a lot of the older operations are more family types. In Yuma, being a younger industry, lettuce growing follows more of a corporate model. Though in recent years, what with consolidation, Salinas growers are getting larger and moving away from the traditional family model.

In Salinas, unlike the other areas, they will do two back-to-back crops and perhaps even three. (While Huron does produce a second crop, it is a separate fall season, with harvest from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15, ending about five days after Yuma's harvest begins.) The period between the Salinas crops is called "The Turn," says Collins, and it's the reason his job is tougher than Muldoon's, he says with a laugh. "Yuma's more intense, but he only does it one time and the season's over," says Collins. "We grow one crop, then it's time for The Turn. Say your crop is late by a week or so. That can really put a hurt on Your Turn."

Collins and Muldoon do agree on one thing, the toughest part of each of their jobs is getting the transitions right. "That's what we talk most about. Some years it works and some years it doesn't, because a lot of it's up to Mother Nature," says Muldoon. "It's a game — every year — and the transition is the key."

This is the story of how one of the largest growers/shippers provides lettuce year-round.