‘Next-level’ planning, new capacity have G&R Farms ready for banner Vidalia season
‘Next-level’ planning, new capacity have G&R Farms ready for banner Vidalia season
After 70 years in the Vidalia onion deal, G&R Farms in Glennville, GA, changed things up during the offseason.
G&R always makes some improvements in the offseason but the last few months have represented a significant change.
Storage and drying capacity have been increased dramatically, and for the second season in a row new boxing and bagging lines were added. But more importantly, the company brought a next-level approach to planning its Vidalia season.
“I don’t want to give people the idea that we never planned before — we certainly did,” said Walt Dasher, whose family has been farming in Vidalia since 1945. “But we really planned this year, we sat down and looked at last year and a calendar and just really planned out our season from start to finish very thoroughly, where we wanted to be come May, come June, come July, and we put a lot more time and effort and thought into it than before. We tried to do better on what varieties we planted when and to try to help us with our staging so we don’t have them all ready at one time and have more flexibility to harvest them at the peak time.”
The new approach to planning was necessary due to offseason acquisitions that will double storage capacity and increase drying capacity by 20,000 bushels.
“We were able to pick up some other sheds that people weren’t using and do some long-term rental agreements, and hopefully that will take us a lot longer into the summer than before,” Dasher said.
And the new approach to planning was made possible by some personnel realignment within the company.
“We’ve taken things to the next level — we’ve got the right people on the bus,” Dasher said. “We’ve got a great staff and we’ve basically got the same people, but we’ve juggled some around into different roles and really streamlined it and everybody’s clicking together. We’ve got a couple of guys that used to be farmers who’ve gotten out of it and have come into the picture and are helping us from a consulting standpoint in the fields, which has made a huge difference in doing our plant calendar and keeping track.”
Mother Nature has cooperated with G&R’s new approach and Dasher expects at least a normal Vidalia season for the first time in three years, and the crop has potential for even better performance.
“The doom and gloom we were seeing in the beginning with the weather problems is pretty much over with, we’re going to be par for the course to be set for a very good crop,” Dasher said. “We have to get through the month of March — it’s like March Madness for us. We can’t count anything until we get a harvest. But unless something changes, the quality is going to be outstanding and the harvest is going to be good and we’re going to have a very good season.”
