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Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?
- From: "stonecirclefarm tds.net" <stonecirclefarm AT tds.net>
- To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?
- Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:33:17 -0600
Great to see this topic being discussed. Given that labor is a vegetable grower's largest input/expense, we all need to do a far better job tracking and understanding labor...and developing more efficient systems (whether that involves better organization, improved techniques, better training of employees, new tools, or whatever).
We developed some record keeping systems to aid the process and provided labor data collection forms to our collaborating farms. These were pads of pre-printed, farm-specific forms and there were two types offered for growers to choose from. The first was a "short form" which were 4.25" by 5.5". These allowed a grower (or their employees) to quickly report labor hours after a task was finished by circling the crop, circling the activity (field growing or harvest and pack for the purposes of Veggie Compass) and reporting the total person hours. On a given day, many of these "short forms" would be completed, ripped off the pad, and tossed into a box for later tabulation (in this case by a student hired under the grant we received to develop Veggie Compass). "The "long form" was a full sized sheet of paper with a farm's crops listed in one column and two columns to record either field growing hours or harvest and pack hours.
Hour per Row Foot
http://www.cias.wisc.edu/
http://www.veggiecompass.com/
I am looking for something which maybe doesn’t exist. A table of estimated or averaged manhours required for different kinds of veggie crops. For instance, something which would list the approximate manhours required to take tomatoes from seeding through harvest, on a per-plant or per-row-foot or per-square-foot basis. I know there are a lot of variables, such as whether stuff is direct-seeded vs transplanted, whether each step is done manually or via machinery, and probably a lot of stuff I haven’t even thought of. But maybe something like this exists? I’ve been doing Google searches on phrases like “time budget for vegetable crops” but keep coming up with hits for enterprise budgets, ie, how much money was spent on seeds and fertilizer and so on. Not what I’m looking for.
I’m asking for several related reasons. First, we’re trying to decide whether to add any additional crops to our existing work schedule for the year. Also, we’re wondering if there is some kind of comparison between crops, such that if we wanted to add a few more, we could choose based (in part) on how much manpower they’d require, versus how much time we can give that new crop. Maybe tomatoes would be too time-intensive, but perhaps onions wouldn’t. I also would like to compare the limited manhours info I have for crops we’ve done in the past, versus how much manhours those same crops required other farms. See if we’re taking more time than is really needed, on X crop. If we’re spending five times more man hours in the field on squash, compared to some kind of national average, it would be nice to learn that so we can figure out why.
Anyone have any resources they could point me towards? Thanks all………….
Kathryn Kerby
Frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA
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Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?
, (continued)
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Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?,
Kathryn Kerby, 01/12/2014
- Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?, Aaron Brower, 01/12/2014
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Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?,
Shoemaker, William H, 01/12/2014
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Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?,
Robert G. Hadad, 01/13/2014
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[Market-farming] Cross country trip planned. Like to connect w/other market farmers.,
Marlin Burkholder, 01/22/2014
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Re: [Market-farming] Cross country trip planned. Like to connectw/other market farmers.,
Beverly Henkel, 01/22/2014
- Re: [Market-farming] Cross country trip planned. Like to connect w/other market farmers., Marlin Burkholder, 01/24/2014
- Re: [Market-farming] Cross country trip planned. Like to connect w/other market farmers., Roots Farm, 01/23/2014
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Re: [Market-farming] Cross country trip planned. Like to connect w/other market farmers.,
Thomas P Hurtgen, 01/23/2014
- Re: [Market-farming] Cross country trip planned. Like to connect w/other market farmers., Marlin Burkholder, 01/24/2014
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Re: [Market-farming] Cross country trip planned. Like to connectw/other market farmers.,
Beverly Henkel, 01/22/2014
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[Market-farming] Cross country trip planned. Like to connect w/other market farmers.,
Marlin Burkholder, 01/22/2014
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Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?,
Robert G. Hadad, 01/13/2014
- Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?, stonecirclefarm tds.net, 01/13/2014
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Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?,
Kathryn Kerby, 01/12/2014
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