Cool temperatures during the growing season have set Western Slope growers Brent and Brenton Hines back seven to 10 days on their sweet corn and possibly two weeks on their onions, according to Hines Farm owner Jerry Hines.

During the third week of June, Mr. Hines, father of Brent and grandfather of Brenton, said that he will continue to run the onion shed near Delta, CO, while the two younger generations handle the farming.

“We are also sorting outside onions,” Jerry Hines said.

Produce has been a family affair at Hungenberg Produce Co., located in Greeley, CO, for generations. What started as a small truck farm operation at the turn of the 20th century blossomed into a thriving Colorado business.

“We’ve been here in the produce business for a long, long, long time,” co-owner Paul Hungenberg told The Produce News June 27. Mr. Hungenberg and his three sons continue to carry the family banner.

Colorado residents interested in good, locally grown produce need look no further than Door to Door Organics of Colorado Inc. The company, headquartered in the Denver suburb of Lafayette, CO, has entered its third season of home delivery to residents in the Centennial State. The company employs 45 people in Colorado and manages its own logistics.

Although Olathe-area sweet corn handled by Ringer & Son brokerage in Commerce City, CO, will be reaching consumers somewhat later than normal this year as the result of a cool growing season, the summer treat remains one of Colorado’s more anticipated crops.

According to the sales staff at Ringer, a fruit and vegetable operation that handles a full variety of product from Colorado and other growing regions, shipments of yellow, white and bi-colored sweet corn from Delta, CO, grower Mike Ahlberg & Sons will likely begin the third week of July.

LASALLE, CO — In answer to increased demand for organic potatoes and onions, Strohauer Farms in LaSalle, CO, has increased acreage for those commodities at the same time it expands its specialty line and conventional production.

BRIGHTON, CO — Though he’s stopped short of retiring after more than six decades at the helm of Sakata Farms in Brighton, CO, Bob Sakata has passed the mantle of his operations to son Robert T. Sakata.

The elder Mr. Sakata, an icon in American farming, was born and raised in northern California, and because his parents came from Japan, he and his family were relocated — along with some 120,000 other Japanese Americans — to internment camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor. His internment was spent in Utah.