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CapitalPress.com
October 9, 2015
People & Places
Taking the guesswork out of harvest
Kevin Oldenburg
uses expertise to
develop weigh-pay
system for harvest
Western
Innovator
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
SPOKANE — Growers
would be able to more accu-
rately pay workers for what
they pick, if Kevin Oldenburg
has his way.
Oldenburg is CEO of
2nd Sight BioScience. The
company recently complet-
ed summer trials for Fair-
Pick, a weighing system de-
signed to take the guesswork
out of paying pickers for
hand-harvesting fruits and
vegetables.
The system measures
weight instead of volume.
Pickers wear a radio-frequen-
cy identification bracelet or
card. They scan their card on
a FairPick scale, weigh the
fruit or vegetables they have
harvested and get a receipt.
“The grower is paying for
exactly what the picker is
picking, and the picker is be-
ing paid for exactly what he or
she picks,” Oldenburg said.
Currently, field managers
typically use punch cards to
record pickers’ information.
The information is entered
manually to create payroll,
with the grower sending the
data to accounting, which has
to count it again, Oldenburg
said.
“The grower hopes they’re
on the positive side, they’re
not overpaying, and the pick-
Kevin Oldenburg
Age: 5.
Title: President and CEO,
2nd Sight BioScience
Current location: Spokane
Education: Bachelor’s
degree from University
of Wisconsin-Madison in
biochemistry, Ph.D. in bio-
chemistry from University of
California-Los Angeles
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
2nd Sight BioScience president and CEO Kevin Oldenburg talks about his company’s FairPick elec-
tronic weighing system in Spokane. The system helps pay workers based on the weight of the crop
they harvest and digitally tracks the information for growers.
er hopes they’re not being un-
derpaid,” Oldenburg said.
FairPick records the data
electronically, sends it to a
website and turns it into a
payroll report, taking the vari-
ables out of the process.
The system also tracks the
time pickers work.
“The growers can prove
they gave the person a half-
hour lunch break,” Oldenburg
said. “They can also prove
that to meet state law, they’ve
given the person two 10-min-
ute breaks, and that those two
breaks were paid at their aver-
age hourly piece rate. It’s re-
ally got a lot of sophistication
behind it, to make sure the
grower has good documen-
tation. Any time they get au-
dited, they can prove they’ve
met all the requirements for
state law.”
The system can be set up
in any state, said Oldenburg,
who relied on his background
in science and technology —
he has a Ph.D. in biochem-
istry from the University of
California-Los Angeles — to
develop the device.
“It’s an area that’s really
ripe for automation and tech-
nology,” Oldenburg said.
The company is taking
orders. Oldenburg expects to
produce 150 units before har-
vest next year.
Harley Stoltes tested Fair-
Pick on his 6-acre blueberry
farm in Bow, Wash., after see-
ing a demonstration at a trade
show.
Stoltes said his pickers
liked the system. They re-
ceived a printed receipt every
time they weighed their ber-
ries.
“It gives you a real-time
estimate of what each picker
is making per hour,” he said.
“We want our pickers to make
enough money so we have
good, stable staff and keep
track of what we’re paying. It
gives us a really good handle
on our costs as we go.”
Stoltes liked Oldenburg’s
technical understanding and
willingness to listen to feed-
back.
“To have a device that al-
lows us to actually pay for
exactly the mass of what
we’re picking is new. This
scale gives us that opportuni-
ty,” said Robin Graham, who
Family: Wife, two children.
Website: http://www.
2ndsightbio.com/
tested FairPick on cherries in
Mattawa, Wash.
“I would imagine any
company would want to be
able to increase the accuracy
of paying their employees,”
he said.
Oldenburg’s farming back-
ground gives him a better un-
derstanding of how growers’
businesses operate than other
technical companies, Graham
said.
Oldenburg’s career has
come full circle. He grew up
in a Rhinelander, Wis., dairy
family, went to college and
graduate school and was look-
ing to get back into agriculture
after a career as a scientist.
“It’s just a lot more fun
working with farmers,” he
said.
Bigger is better for this pumpkin grower
By SPENSER HEAPS
The Daily Herald
PROVO, Utah (AP) — Ed
Dennis is not your typical gar-
dener.
The 750-square-foot plot in
his backyard in Highland was
dedicated to just one plant this
year: a pumpkin.
On Saturday, Dennis saw
the culmination of nearly six
months of toiling in the dirt as
his prized pumpkin was hoist-
ed by a fork lift and gently
placed on a digital scale at this
year’s Utah Giant Pumpkin
Growers Weigh Off.
Calculations based on the
size of the pumpkin indicat-
ed it would be somewhere in
the mid-900-pound range, but
whether Dennis could break
the 1,000-pound mark was up
in the air.
“You just never know until
you put it on the scale,” Dennis
said.
This was Dennis’ fifth year
growing giant pumpkins, and
each year he’s steadily im-
proved. He’s about doubled
the size of his pumpkins every
year, growing one in 2014 that
weighed in at 432 pounds.
“Obviously the first few
years we really didn’t know
what we were doing,” he said.
While growing vegetables
of any kind requires a bit of at-
tention to detail, growing a gi-
ant pumpkin takes the science
to another level.
This year’s adventure be-
gan with soil preparation in
March. In mid-April, Dennis
began germinating a pumpkin
seed from the Atlantic Giant
variety. Soaked in a mix of
water, seaweed and hydrogen
peroxide, the seed was placed
on a hot pad and kept at 85 de-
grees for a couple days until it
sprouted.
The seed was then placed in
high-quality potting soil, along
with special bacteria and sea-
weed to stimulate root growth.
A grow light illuminated the
sprout for 16 to 18 hours a day.
Once the sprout’s first true leaf
showed, it was transferred to
a hoop house in the garden,
where heating coils keep the
soil at exactly 75 degrees.
Dennis said there’s not
much visible action for the first
month while the plant spreads
and the root system develops.
A mix of soil, fungicide and
fertilizer is used to bury the
vines to help grow more roots.
On May 17, Dennis cross
pollinated one of his plant’s
female blossoms with pellet
from another grower’s male
blossom. About 15 days later
was when the pumpkin began
to grow quite aggressively,
Dennis said. From days 25
through 40, the pumpkin really
started to explode.
“Over that 15- to 16-day
window it gained over 500
pounds,” Dennis said. “So it
was averaging a little over
32 pounds per day. And there
were a few days where it
gained over 40 pounds.”
Dennis, who works as a
CPA in Salt Lake City, would
get home from work and mar-
vel at how much bigger the
pumpkin had gotten since he
left that morning.
“It’s just unbelievable how
fast it can grow,” he said.
After work, Dennis would
strap a headlamp on his head
and go spend some time tend-
ing to the plant.
“You’re with it just about
every day. In fact, it was dif-
ficult even to go on vacation,”
he said.
Dennis and his wife,
Laurel, did take a four-day va-
cation in August, but they had
a friend come over and fertil-
ize and spray insecticide and
fungicide every day while they
were gone.
Insects and fungus are big
problems for giant pumpkins,
Dennis said, so they use in-
secticide and fungicide ag-
gressively. There’s no effort
to grow the plants organically
because they wouldn’t be good
to eat at that size anyway.
On the day before the
Weigh Off, Dennis enlisted the
help of a friend and his fork lift
to remove the pumpkin from
the garden.
“We’ve never had one big
enough that we had to have a
piece of equipment to lift it,”
Dennis said.
His stress was apparent as
the giant pumpkin was slowly
lifted off the ground using a
specially made pumpkin lift-
ing ring and straps.
The next morning, Den-
nis towed his giant pumpkin
on a trailer to the 11th annual
Utah Giant Pumpkin Growers
Weigh Off at Thanksgiving
Point in Lehi. There it sat next
to other giant pumpkins, ready
for its turn on the scales.
When the time came,
Dennis stood with his wife,
daughter and grandchildren
and waited for the pumpkin’s
number to be revealed.
It weighed in at 953
pounds. Dennis threw a fist in
the air, but his celebration was
restrained.
“We’re pleased that it was
that big. It was a little lighter
than we’d hoped, but that’s
still really good,” he said.
Dennis said hitting 1,000
pounds is the mark of a good
grower, and he would really
like to crest that mark.
“I’m relieved,” he said. “I
really can’t be disappointed
with a 950-pound pumpkin.”
Dennis acknowledged not
everybody would want to sink
the kind of time, energy and
money he spent on his pump-
kin to grow something that you
can’t eat in the end.
He said the reward is not
only the satisfaction of having
refined the skills necessary to
grow such a huge plant, it’s
also the camaraderie between
growers and the time he gets to
spend with his family.
Farmer finds woolly mammoth bones in soybean field
LIMA
TOWNSHIP,
Mich. (AP) — An eastern
Michigan farmer has made
a mammoth find while dig-
ging in a field.
The Ann Arbor News re-
ports the bones of a wool-
ly mammoth were found
by James Bristle in a soy-
bean field Monday night in
Washtenaw County’s Lima
Township. Bristle says he
and a friend were digging
when they found what they
thought was a mud-covered,
bent fence post.
In this photo taken Oct.
1, University of Michigan
professor Dan Fisher,
top left, leads a team of
students and volunteers
as they excavate woolly
mammoth bones found
on a farm near Chelsea,
Mich.
University of Michigan
professor Dan Fisher con-
firmed the remains were a
woolly mammoth Thurs-
day morning. He and others
worked to dig out the skull
and a huge tusk.
Fisher says there are only
10 similar sites in Michigan
in recorded history where
such a significant portion of
a woolly mammoth skeleton
was found. He says this one
was likely 40 years old and
was probably killed by hu-
mans.
Melanie Maxwell
The Ann Arbor News via AP
Calendar
Saturday, Oct. 10
Oregon Ag in the Classroom
Fall Harvest Dinner, 5-9 p.m.,
$50 in advance, $65 at the door,
CH2M Hill Alumni Center on the
Oregon State University campus in
Corvallis.
Saturday-Sunday
Oct. 10-11
Oregon Hemp Convention, 10
a.m.-7 p.m., Portland Expo Center,
$10 plus a suggested donation of
canned food for the Oregon Food
Bank.
Saturday-Sunday
Oct. 17-18
The All About Fruit Show,
10 a.m.-4 p.m., Clackamas County
Fairplex, Canby, Ore., http: //www.
homeorchardsociety.org/events/
Thursday, Oct. 22
Columbia County, Ore., Farm Bu-
reau Annual Meeting, 6: .0-9 p.m.,
Fultano’s Pizza, 770 E. Columbia
River Highway, Clatskania, Ore.
Livestock grazing water quality
seminar, 10 a.m.-. p.m., Wash-
ington State University Extension
rangeland and livestock manage-
ment specialist Tip Hudson, retired
Oregon State University rangeland
ecology and management exten-
sion specialist John Buckhouse
and University of California-Davis
rangeland watershed specialist
Kenneth Tate will address ranchers
during a livestock grazing water
quality seminar. Fairfield Com-
munity Center, 218 E. Main St.,
Fairfield, Wash.
Rufus LaLone of the Weather Cafe,
5: .0-9 p.m. Creekside Golf Club,
Marion County Soil and Water
Conservation District annual
Meeting, guest speaker will be
Northwest Farmers Union Con-
vention, Northern Quest Casino,
Airway Heights, Wash.
Salem, Ore.
Friday-Saturday
Oct. 23-24
Montana Farmers Union Conven-
tion, Mansfield Convention Center,
Great Falls
Friday-Saturday
Oct. 30-31
Tuesday-Wednesday
Nov. 3-4
Practical Food Safety & HAC-
CP, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Idaho Water
Center, Boise, Idaho, http: //www.
techhelp.org/events/197/practi-
cal-food-safety-and-haccp/
Wednesday-Friday,
Nov. 4-6
2015 Weed Conference, Wash-
ington State Weed Association,
Wenatchee Convention Center,
Wenatchee, Wash., www.weed
conference.org
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