Sweet corn, green beans ready for summer at Papen Farms in Delaware
Sweet corn, green beans ready for summer at Papen Farms in Delaware
The Delaware sweet corn crop is on track to hit its post-July 4 harvest date, following a cool early season that slowed growth.
A warm, but very dry period spurred growth but forced growers to heavily rely on irrigation to keep the sweet corn on track, and harvest is set to begin at the normal time, around July 10-12.
“The sweet corn has really picked up — I think earlier in the week it was in the mid-90s for three days, which is unusual for mid-May,” said Chris Cunningham, sales manager for Papen Farms, Dover, DE.
Temperatures dropped soon after, followed by much-needed rain for the area. Cunningham said the Delaware sweet corn deal hits its peak to supply Labor Day weekend celebrations and cookouts and ends soon after in mid-September.
Green bean harvest in the area will start in late June, and shipping will last through the end of July. August is typically too hot for a green bean crop on the Delmarva Peninsula, Cunningham said, so the fall crop will start in September. The company’s fall crop typically ends by the end of October.
Papen Farms is in its third year without a spring cabbage crop, which along with sweet corn and green beans, was a longtime crop for the company, going back generations of the family farming business. The company cited labor concerns as the primary factor driving the decision. Unlike sweet corn and green beans, fresh-market cabbage is hand harvested. Most of the farm’s labor now is in the packing shed, sorting and packing sweet corn and green beans.
Two years ago, Papen Farms enrolled in the H-2A labor program to ensure skilled workers would be available to handle the sweet corn and green beans.
Cunningham, however, said Papen Farms is considering growing a small fall cabbage crop again. Unlike the spring cabbage crop, which has produced an overabundance too early when heat speeds growth, a smaller fall crop is easier to manage.
“We have flirted with the idea of putting in a small patch in the fall, possibly to ship out with our green beans, and to just have another crop at that time,” he said. “We’re very familiar with that crop.”
The company’s fall cabbage crop generally ends by early November, with the first freeze.
Papen Farms packs both sweet corn and green beans in wire bound crates and Eco-Crates, depending on customer preference. Both crates contain about 32-pounds of green beans, and corn is packed about four dozen to a crate. The crates/cartons are palletized and sent to the batch hydrocooler to remove field heat and lower the temperature of the corn to 36-38 degrees, Cunningham said. Green beans are carried through the packing process via a flume of cold water, and they are packed and moved to the cooler after grading.
Although Papen Farms grows white, yellow and bi-color sweet corn, Cunningham said demand for white corn lags behind the other varieties.
The company’s customers run the spectrum from retailers, foodservice operators, wholesalers and facilities that process and tray pack the ears. Papen Farms has two trucks to cover Delaware, the Baltimore/Philadelphia area, New Jersey and New York.
“We are close to a lot of the markets in the Northeast, and that really helps us with freight in the peak season,” Cunningham said. “Retail displays are a big mover for Labor Day sales.”
