Published: August 01, 2008 03:26 pm            

2008 may be a great canning crop year

Originally published in the July 25, 2008, print edition.

“We’re sitting in what I would almost call the garden zone of the Midwest right now,” said Aaron Skogen, referring to the mostly good to excellent condition of Minnesota’s pea and sweet corn crops in early July.

Timely rains and moderate temps created good growing conditions, and the pea harvest was already under way during a July 2 visit with Skogen, senior manager of the Birds Eye Foods facility in Waseca. “But who knows what Mother Nature will be offering the next 60 days. And for sweet corn, that’s the really critical portion of the growing season.”

“Right now we are seeing some exceptional yields off our peas, in excess of 4,000 pounds per acre; and these are the early varieties, which normally don’t yield quite as well. Some areas where soils got heavily saturated there is come concern about root rot, but at this point we are not downgrading our pack plan and we are now about seven days into harvest. Right now we’re holding 100 percent of plan,” Skogen said.

Birds Eye Foods is not technically a canning operation; its business is more properly called a “fresh frozen” facility. On average, all peas and sweet corn move from field to freezer in six hours or less. To the consumer, these products are known as Bird’s Eye, Freshlike, Voila and SteamFresh vegetables and meals.

Double-cropping with sweet corn fits for some growers with irrigation who start with the early peas, then immediately direct-plant into late sweet corn. The Waseca facility contracts with growers within a 75-mile radius. Sweet corn acres about double the acres planted to peas for Birds Eye growers.

Did “commodity futures” discourage vegetable crop farmers from their typical sweet corn and pea contracts? Skogen said Birds Eye restructured their contracts to be competitive with the corn-soybean commodity world. “This year’s contract was a fairly significant jump over last year.”

Sweet corn for Birds Eye covers eight different maturities ranging from early 72-day product (1,540 heat units) to 100-day maturities (1,900 heat units) for some late-season harvesting. Growers get paid during an October to November timeframe for peas and corn respectively.

Perhaps because of a growing consumer trend for “home grown” vegetables, Birds Eye has experienced significant annual growth. Strong marketing of the Bird’s Eye Steam Fresh product has been a significant factor, Skogen said.

In 2005, 143,500 acres of sweet corn were planted in Minnesota; in 2006 the figure dropped to 135,200. In 2007 it was 122,100 indicating that stronger commodity prices were, in fact, curtailing sweet corn acreage.

U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics indicated green peas jumped from 77,200 acres in 2005 to 83,300 acres in 2006 but dropped to 75,300 acres planted in 2007. Planted acres for 2008 were 74,300 with 72,800 intended for harvest and a projected yield of 1.64 tons per acre for total production of 119,390 tons of green peas.

        

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