As anybody who is a fan of cauliflower knows, the head of the vegetable when purchased in the supermarket is usually as white as snow.
That doesn't happen by accident. Cauliflower is very sensitive to sunlight, and too much will turn the head a yellow colour. While it remains safe to eat, the demands of the marketplace make it virtually worthless.
To guard against that happening, growers protect the head of the plant by wrapping it under the leaf when it begins to grow – a process known as banding. The conventional way of doing this work is to walk through the field stopping at every plant – obviously that is both time-consuming and back-breaking work.
After one season in the industry, David MacKenzie of Vernon Bridge was convinced he could come up with a better way. With funding help from the Prince Edward Island Adapt Council, which administers funding from the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada CARD Program, David worked out a design for a machine that would speed the process along. He then contracted a machine shop to make his concept a reality, and the "banding aid" made its debut in 2001 on the 45 acres of cauliflower grown at the MacKenzie Farm.
The machine is actually a modified wagon hauled with a conventional tractor. A series of "beds" hang over the wagon within easy reach of the rows of cauliflower. Workers are able to lie down on the bed and do the delicate task of covering up the plants, rather than walking through the field and bending down hundreds of times.
"We figured it out, and it cuts the time it takes to cover our crop by half," David said. "That is a pretty significant saving;" however, he said the machine does have its limitations. It works best when the leaf of the plant is well developed and broad. That wasn't the case in 2001 – the worst drought in 60 years in Prince Edward Island – and David said the early cauliflower last year was also very dry and the leaves were small. He is hoping conditions will be a more favourable for the machine's use this year.
"I estimate you can use it maybe half to three quarters of the time," he said.
Banding is usually done once when the head begins to grow, but David said the time saved with the machine does allow him to make an extra pass around the fields to make sure no heads have been left unprotected.
There are no parts to wear out on the machine, so David said it will last virtually a lifetime. He has shown the machine to several other growers, and it is his understanding one grower has ordered the same machine from the shop that built his.
This is one in a series of articles prepared for the Prince Edward Island Agricultural Awareness Committee to highlight new and innovative technology in the Island agricultural industry.
For more information, contact Phil Ferraro at ADAPT Council, (902) 368-2005.