[Market-farming] cooler
John Hendrickson
jhendric at wisc.edu
Mon Mar 30 15:13:55 EDT 2009
I am guessing most of the people on this list realize that hydro-cooling
usually refers to submerging crops in cold water rather than "gently
spraying" but cannot stop myself from posting a clarification. For
example, only by dunking lettuce heads are you going to effectively
remove field heat. There are certainly many crops for which
hydro-cooling/submersion is a bad idea (onions, basil, tomatoes...). -John
> "Some crops are “hydro-cooled” which for us means they are gently
> sprayed off with cold well-water. If you have helpers, it’s really
> important to alert them to how much damage they can do directing a
> high pressure stream of water at your crops! Stronger crops like
> heartier Kale and collards… turnips, carrots, and beets might get
> sprayed down, but we don’t do that for lighter greens, lettuce, basil,
> cilantro, or other crops that might hold the water, causing other
> types of decay problems.
>
> Instead, we make sure they are packed lightly into harvest crates, and
> we spread the crates out only one layer deep on the cooler floor to
> maximize their access to the cold air. They stay like that for the 30
> minutes it takes us to come up with the next trailer load of veggies –
> then they are stacked up or placed on wire mesh shelves and the new
> load of veggies are spread out on the cooler floor."
>
--
John Hendrickson
Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1535 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
608-265-3704
www.cias.wisc.edu
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