SWEDESBORO, NJ — The third harvest of peppers, pickles and cucumbers — three major items at Sun Valley Orchards — was expected to be ready around the first week in September, according to Joe Marino, one of the owners of the company, located here in southern New Jersey.

That would represent fairly normal timing, a change in New Jersey where a mild winter and spring led to early harvests of most produce items as the season progressed.

One new item for the fall that Mr. Marino is especially excited Joe Marino, Harry Marino and Russell Marino Sr. of Sun Valley Orchards. (Photo by Gordon M. Hochberg)about is sweet corn. The company planted 40 acres in sweet corn this year, “and so far it looks nice and tastes good,” Mr. Marino told The Produce News Monday, Aug. 20. “I just had some for lunch.”

The company had planted the corn with an eye toward harvesting just before Labor Day, a holiday when many people like to enjoy fresh corn at their family barbecues as they mark the traditional end of summer and get ready for school to begin. With the recent hot, dry weather in the state, Mr. Marino expected to begin harvesting his sweet corn the day after this interview, but noted, “I have enough planted in stages that we’ll still have corn for Labor Day.”

The new sweet corn “fits in our operations because we have the cold storage” plus a hydrocooler that is already utilized for peaches as well as a repacking area at the facility to properly handle the corn, said Mr. Marino.

Peaches have long been a key item at Sun Valley Orchards. Like most spring and summer items this year, they were early.

“Peaches were three weeks early — easy,” he stated. “And we’re going to finish three weeks early,” probably around the end of August. “Sales will be done here by the week of Labor Day.”

While the final numbers were not in by late August, the peach season “went well,” said Mr. Marino, who turned 40 in April. “It was a good market — probably the strongest peach market here in the East in several years that I can remember.”

As to the peaches themselves, “Quality was excellent, color was high, sugar was up,” he said. Volume was “pretty comparable” to a normal year. “Sizing was slightly off,” however, because of the dry weather. “We have the ability to irrigate, but there’s only so much water you can pump,” he added.

On the personnel front, Benny Marino (Joe’s uncle and a partner at Sun Valley) retired in December 2011. Russell M. Marino Jr. (Joe’s brother and also a partner at Sun Valley) took over Benny’s responsibilities. Dick Mills, formerly with Georgia Pacific, joined Sun Valley in March primarily to take over Russell’s responsibilities to run and manage the packinghouse.

But throughout this year and looking ahead, Mr. Marino expressed concern for one aspect of farming that continues to loom large: labor.

“There’s a shorter and shorter supply every year,” he said in a worried voice. “This season in the spring was probably the worst labor drought I’ve ever seen. We were short on help getting our asparagus harvested. Then our crew leaders had trouble finding labor for the summer vegetables,” such as cucumbers, pickles and squash. “We needed a crew of at least 280, and we were working with a crew of 140.”

He continued, “So you’re forced with a tough decision. We upped our hourly wage by $2 an hour. That got us enough help to get by for the rest of the season. But that doesn’t mean I can pass that cost onto my customers. This is produce — the market is the market.”

Looking at the broader issue, he stated, “Anyone in agriculture that depends on labor is in trouble if we can’t get a workable solution out of Washington. They [lawmakers] need to not confuse this issue with immigration. This is not an immigration issue. We need a guest-worker program that works.”

A concerned Mr. Marino added, “I’m fourth generation, and if I don’t know that [they] have a solvable labor situation, then I don’t want this for my kids. We have things like the weather to worry about” that are beyond control. “Labor is the last thing we should have to worry about. It shouldn’t even be on my radar.”