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Homicide Charge Changed to Misdemeanor in Jackson Co. ATV Accident
Found: 3 Weeks 2 Days 15 Hours 43 Minutes ago
WKBT 8 News - DA says evidence shows the fatal crash would have happened even if Warrens man wasn't intoxicated....
The Bog will close this weekend
Found: 3 Weeks 6 Days 15 Hours 10 Minutes ago
Tomah Journal - Closing of Three Bears Resort hurt Warrens restaurant...
Homicide charge amended in fatal crash
Found: Minutes ago
WBAY 2 News - Associated Press - November 6, 2008 10:05 AM ET BLACK RIVER FALLS, Wis. (AP) - A homicide charge has been amended to a misdemeanor for a Warrens man accused in a collision that killed a woman......
DA drops vehicular homicide charge
Found: 4 Weeks 1 Hour 15 Minutes ago
La Cross Tribune - BLACK RIVER FALLS - A vehicular homicide charge filed against a man accused of driving drunk when he struck and killed a woman riding on an all-terrain vehicle has been dropped because evidence indicates the crash would have occurred even if the driver was not intoxicated....
Steve Cahalan: Indoor game center will reopen in Warrens
Found: 1 Month 1 Week 14 Hours 18 Minutes ago
La Cross Tribune - GAMECRAZE will reopen at the end of the week at 23056 Aspen Ave. in Warrens, across from the Three Bears Resort....
Boofest scares up fun for all
Found: 1 Month 1 Week 1 Day 21 Hours 21 Minutes ago
Kenosha News - Boofest scares up fun for all...
Assembly forum: Health care, business climate
Found: 1 Month 3 Weeks 2 Days 19 Hours 7 Minutes ago
Tomah Journal - On a day when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted by 5 percent, economic issues dominated a forum between the two candidates for Wisconsin?s 92nd Assembly District....
Married to the marsh
Found: 1 Month 3 Weeks 2 Days 23 Hours 41 Minutes ago
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Warrens - When Jim Van Wychen proposed marriage to Nodji Olson 35 years ago, she said yes - but with one condition: ...
Modernizing A Cranberry Farm
Found: 1 Month 3 Weeks 3 Days 3 Hours 17 Minutes ago
WEAU 13 News - A Cranberry farm near Warrens that?s been around since 1905, has been making some huge changes this year to bring harvesting into the 21st century....
High-tech
harvestingCranberry farmers tap technology
Found: 1 Month 4 Weeks 1 Day 9 Hours 29 Minutes ago
Leader-Telegram - WARRENS - Until this fall, workers at Nodji Van Wychen's cranberry farm sorted fruit with the wooden Bailey mills used by her grandfather.Firm berries bounced through the mills' seven wooden slats before 15 workers scrutinized them for color and imperfections. Today, the mills have been replaced by $500,000 worth of computerized scanners that need only one or two people to do a final visual check before the berries are bagged.Wisconsin already produces nearly 60 percent of the nation's cranberries, but with food companies calling for more fruit to meet growing worldwide demand, farmers here are making improvements in nearly all aspects of their operations to increase their efficiency and harvest.The common goal is expanding Wisconsin's dominance in an industry where it is already No. 1. Failure could mean the loss of millions of dollars of business to eastern Canadian provinces eagerly building their cranberry industry.Some Wisconsin growers are renovating marshes and developing heartier hybrids that produce more berries. Others, such as Van Wychen, are investing in high-tech equipment to more quickly harvest, sort and package fruit."When we took them out this year for the final time, I almost had a tear in my eye because it was one thing that I still used in the industry that my grandfather used when he was on the marsh," Van Wychen said of the 85-year-old Bailey mills.But she and her husband, Jim, both 60, said their new equipment will help them keep their farm outside Warrens in western Wisconsin going for future generations.They were already having difficulty finding seasonal workers to sort their cranberries when they decided to invest in three scanners that use touch pads, ultraviolet light and lasers to check the fruit for firmness, color and small dents and imperfections."These machines, they don't take coffee breaks, they don't go to the bathroom, they don't have to eat, they never get tired," Jim Van Wychen said.The couple spent $250,000 automating their packaging room before they began buying the scanners four years ago. This year they became the first fresh cranberry growers to install a vacuum tubing system made by Reyco Systems of Meridian, Idaho, to quickly and cleanly move their fruit from the warehouse cooler to the sorting room.By adapting equipment already used by other types of farmers, the Van Wychens can sort and package about 10,000 pounds of fruit per hour."I just knew, especially when the computers came along, that somewhere along the line, there was some technology that would basically replace the hand sorting," Jim Van Wychen said. "And it all came on in the last four, five years: The technology has been available, and now they're adapting it to cranberries."While the Van Wychens invested in efficiency, the Grygleski family a dozen miles down the road in Tomah is focused on increasing production with the development of new cranberry vines.Ed Grygleski Sr., 69, began breeding cranberry vines to create new hybrids in the 1970s and developed one, called GH1, used by growers in Wisconsin and along the Eastern seaboard from Canada to New Jersey. A successful hybrid needs a strong red color, good sugar content, large berry and resistance to disease and injury, he said.But mostly, he and his family are looking to increase their plants' yield, said his son, Ed Grygleski Jr., 39. A GH1 cranberry vine generally produces 350 to 400 barrels per acre, on average about 30 barrels more than the Stevens cranberry, which has been the industry standard, he said.A newer hybrid the family is testing and could release in the next few years has been averaging 600 barrels per acre, said Ed Grygleski Jr. That means it has the potential to greatly increase growers' production in a time of high demand."The cranberry industry is in a large growth cycle right now," Ed Grygleski, Jr. said. "The industry is looking to add at least 5,000 acres in Ocean Spray and beyond that in the independent market. A lot of growers are planting new varieties and looking at the highest yielding varieties which are available."His father also is working with Ocean Spray Cranberries, a cooperative owned by the farmers who supply it, and UW-Madison to develop other hybrids. In the meantime, the family planted 32 new acres of cranberries this year, adding to the 100 acres they already had in the ground.Ocean Spray, which dominates the cranberry industry, has encouraged other Wisconsin growers to do the same because it would like to see more fruit grown close to plants it has here. It recently opened an expansion in its now 440,000-square-foot plant in Wisconsin Rapids to provide Craisins to food companies that make trail mix, muffins and other products.Wisconsin has about 18,000 acres planted in cranberries, and the harvest that started Monday is expected to be its second largest on record with 3.85 million barrels, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Nationally cranberry growers are expected to harvest nearly 6.9 million barrels this year, but that's not nearly enough to meet the worldwide demand for juice and sweetened dried cranberries, said Randy Papadellis, Ocean Spray chief executive officer."We could add a million barrels of fruit tomorrow, and we would still be just where we need to be," Papadellis said.Wisconsin farmers say expansion is difficult because most of their property is wetlands, requiring them to get permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Natural Resources, which are reluctant to see the environmentally sensitive areas disturbed.Industry representatives have been talking to the two agencies about ways to speed up the permit process while still addressing environmental concerns, and Bruce Baker, DNR deputy water division administrator, said a new streamlined procedure should be in place within a month.It takes about five years to get a new cranberry bed into full production, and if Wisconsin can't meet food processors' demands in the next decade, they likely will look to Canada, which has been courting growers with lower land prices, financial incentives and an easier permit process, said Tom Lochner, executive director of the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association. That could mean a loss of as much as $75 million a year in additional revenue for the state, according to a study done for the association by UW-Madison....
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