From the Fields - Stephen Waldron

By Stephen Waldron, Santa Barbara County nursery operations manager

This time of the year is busy for us at the nursery. Farmers are ramping up their planting schedules that we service for the winter season. The Central Coast is at full production, and production is shifting to the desert region and in Yuma, Arizona, for the winter vegetable season for different row crops, primarily celery, broccoli and lettuces.

We do transplants. While our production is year-round, we have peaks and valleys in our production cycle. We’re in the middle of a peak, and we will stay busy until the end of November. From there, it will taper down and pick up again in January.

Our schedule to start the seedlings is starting to ramp down, but our nursery is at capacity, and the growing side is in full swing. We are shipping and delivering transplants to our customers. Demand is always fluctuating, but broccoli and celery alternate back and forth as our top commodity, and lettuce is a solid third, which doesn’t change.

Labor is close to our No. 1 issue. Labor costs keep increasing. Our county is proposing new minimum wage requirements, and we’re getting hit from every angle on that. Exploring automated options is essential for us to stay in business. The nursery is expanding and is installing new automated sowing operations.

There’s a lot of complexity with automation, including cost, practicality and staffing. A lot of the automation we’re seeing saves money in the long term but also addresses a shortage of labor. As we move toward more automation, we are looking to the younger generation that has the technological skills to operate computer-driven equipment, often with the use of an iPad or touch screen. Obviously, you have to look at payback and make sure it’s financially feasible. But the biggest reason for companies to look into this initially is the massive labor shortage and the higher cost of labor regulations, such as the increase in the California minimum wage.