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Heads Roll By The Millions,
Lettuce Heads, That Is
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Article by Chris Granstromt
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It takes a small
army to havest 25 million heads of lettuce a year...and on this
Quebec farm, it is done at the rate of 300,000 heads a day.
On an early August morning south of Montreal, 275 workers head
out to the lettuce and carrot fields. Four crews of 22 workers
each actually harvest the head lettuce. Two crews of 50 each hoe,
thin, and weed growing plants. Another 25 sort and pack carrots.
Then there are the tractor drivers who till, spray, and cultivate.
Another 10 drivers move pallets of lettuce onto trucks, while
still another crew, at desks, keeps the entire operation moving.
With 1,300 acres of lettuce and 300 acres of carrots under cultivation,
this farm in Ste-Clotilde, Quebec, known as Centre Maraicher,
has annual sales of $16 million (about $10.75 million US) and
is Canada’s largest lettuce producer.
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Eugene Guinois, President of the Centre Maraicher
Guinois.
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Gigantic harvesters, each with a crew of 22 people, are at the heart
of an efficient system that moves this massive amount of lettuce from
the field to grocery stores in less than 24 hours. These huge machines,
made on the farm, lumber through the fields, processing 40 rows of lettuce
at one time. Workers walking just ahead of the harvester cut off the
heads by hand.
The newly-cut lettuce is placed directly into shipping boxes on the
harvester and moved by conveyor to the center of the machine. There,
boxes are closed and loaded onto pallets for movement to a cold warehouse
and shipment before the day is over.
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Daniel Guinois, Sales Manager, in a field of Iceberg
lettuce.
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The origin of this farm goes back more than 100 years to 16-year-old
Pierre Guinois, who left France in 1888 and sought a better life
in Canada. Trained as a market gardener and carrying a supply
of celery seeds, he started growing vegetables on a small plot
of land near Montreal.
Four generations later, the Guinois family is still growing vegetables.
The original farm was overrun by the growth of Montreal, but the
family has moved only a short distance away to farm the black
muck soils about 45 miles south of the city.
Pierre’s grandson, Eugene Guinois, Jr., and his wife, Denise,
now oversee the family business. Their son, Daniel, is responsible
for sales while daughters Jocelyne and Nicole manage the farm’s
accounting aspects. Another daughter, Sylvie, manages the harvest
crews. Her husband, Jocelyn, is in charge of crop seeding, and
Nicole’s husband, Maurice, handles farm tractor and truck
traffic at the coolers and loading docks.
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Greens coming off this farm include Romaine, Boston, Iceberg, Green
Leaf, Red Leaf, Napa, Escarole, and Chinese lettuces as well as Endive.
Outdoor work begins in April with tilling and fertilizing the soil and
sowing the first lettuce seeds.
Pelleted lettuce seed is put into the ground at two-inch spacings in
rows 18-inches apart. Young plants are later thinned to stand 12 inches
apart. Daniel Guinois explained how they used to seed every six inches
and thin every other plant. But an 80 percent germination rate and the
occasional plant taken out by accidental hoeing left too many gaps in
the rows. The present system produces a near 100 percent plant stand.
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As the weather warms in early May, farm crews set out lettuce
transplants grown under contract in a nearby greenhouse. They
will be the first lettuce harvested. This is done by an eight-row
tractor-pulled transplanter with a crew of 12.
Three crews of transplanters put out about 10 acres of lettuce
a day during the first two weeks in May. Direct-seeding also continues
at this same time. By the time transplanting is completed, the
first direct-seeded lettuce has started to grow, and for the rest
of the summer, all lettuce is seeded directly in the field.
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Denise and Eugene Guinois surrounded by their children
and grandchildren.
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Fields with the earliest lettuce plantings are harvested in time for
a second crop to be planted on the same ground for a fall harvest. With
seeding continuing into late July, nearly half the land can be double-cropped
each season.
A major effort must be made to prevent damage to the young plant while
keeping the fields weed-free. Because every part of a lettuce plant
is edible, extra care is taken to keep soil off the leaves. Herbicides
are never used directly on or around the lettuce plants, but only on
strips of ground between the rows.
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Eugene’s daughter, Sylvie Primeau, manages the
harvest crews: her husband, Jocelyn, is in charge of crop
seeding.
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The clean strips of each row where the lettuce grows must be
hand hoed three times while the crop is growing. Two crews of
50 weeders each, walking the fields, can thin the lettuce plants
and clean up nearly 10 acres a day.
Cultivators are used only rarely and then only in moist soil
in the lettuce fields. When the land is dry, the soil, almost
like peat moss, is so light that once disturbed by a cultivator
it may blow onto the leaves of the plants.
Daniel Guinois explained that they are attempting to develop
a cultivator that uses a computer image to distinguish a weed
from a lettuce plant, so the weed can be removed without disturbing
the lettuce. That machine is still in the experimental stages,
he said.
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The muck fields at Centre Maraicher are underlain by drain tiles the
Guinoises have installed in lines 25 feet apart. Fields are surrounded
by deep ditches. In wet weather excess water drains into the ditches.
But when the soil is dry, water is pumped out of ponds into the same
ditches from where it is used to irrigate the lettuce.
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When growing lettuce plants reach their ideal eating maturity, they have a
harvest window of no more than three days. That’s when the
huge harvesters take to the fields, and Centre Maraicher becomes
a beehive of activity. During this time, Daniel, as sales manager,
spends his mornings on the telephone with regular chain store
buyers, lining up the next day’s deliveries. In the afternoon
he works to sell excess lettuce on the open wholesale market.
A normal work day for harvest crews is from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
If rain is forecast for the next day, they may be asked to put
in an extra hour or two the evening before.
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Spraying lettuce for insects.
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Carrots are harvested July through October. The farm produces 250,000
bags of carrots, each bag weighing fifty pounds. About 85 percent of
the carrot crop goes to the New York City market.
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Denise Guinois spraying herbicide between rows of
lettuce. Note how the plants are protected from the spray.
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The farm has three full-time mechanics in its own shop. During
the harvest season much of their work is after-hours when the
machinery is idle. In the off-season they fabricate equipment
for the farm. All seven lettuce harvesters used on the farm were
homemade in the on-farm shop.
The black muck soils of this region were built up over thousands
of years in what used to be forested swamps. When the trees were
cleared and the swamps drained, the soil proved to be ideal for
leafy vegetables.
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But there is a problem with the soil. Rich in organic matter, it decomposes
and slowly dissipates into the air in a gaseous form. Daniel said the
soil here is 40 to 60 inches deep, and every year about one inch is
lost into the air.
With its soil disappearing at a measurable rate, these fields clearly
have a limited life as farmland. Looking to the future, Daniel said
the family has purchased additional acreage of undeveloped muck soil
so the next generation of the family will be able continue the operation.
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Guinois family members in front of a lettuce harvester
with the machine’s entire crew.
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