Feb 3, 2025

Cucumber powerhouse tests organics

Organic cucumber trials are part of Hartung Brothers growing pickling cucumbers.

Marking its 50th year, the Madison, Wisconsin, family-run company grows cucumbers in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, along Lake Erie in Ontario, Canada, and recently added Yucatan, Mexico. 

The vertically oriented company has become a successful grower and shipper of pickling cucumbers through effective practices in disease and pest management, harvest equipment efficiencies. It processes pickling cucumbers through brining facilities and is also involved in custom farming, growing seed corn and logistics.

“We pride ourselves in diversified portfolios,” said Joshua Duley, vice president of the cucumber division. “We’re always growing cucumbers in two or three regions at the same time, so if weather or adversity hits one area, there’s others that are still in production. Being able to be vertically integrated helps a lot so that we don’t have to share the value chain with logistics and trucking companies and growers. We can do it all ourselves and save a little bit along the way and be more efficient.”

To grow cucumbers in the different regions, Hartung conducts variety research and participates in seed company trials. Its top cucumber varieties are Lennon, Speed, Henley, Expedition and Vlaspik.

Organic challenges

Since 2020, Hartung has grown organics. The experience, however, is not without frustration.

“To say that it’s been anything above a break-even adventure would be a lie,” Duley said. “Thus far, we have not been able to turn a profit in our organic cucumber operation”

The surplus of rain Hartung’s fields received in 2024 made for its worst organic crop.

“Between areas of the field getting drowned out and just when you have a lot of cool and wet weather, the grasses and the weeds grow twice as fast as the cucumbers, so we spent an exorbitant amount on cultivating and hand-hoeing to try to get what we could get.”

That manual labor added to headaches incurred in sourcing adequate labor for hand harvesting. 

“It’s difficult to make it with the amount of labor hours that are spent controlling weeds,” Duley said.

Four years in, Hartung continues to learn and make improvements in its organic crop. 

“As there’s still a lot of demand out there for organic cucumbers, we look to ways to cut costs in that operation to make organic production profitable,” Duley said.

Disease worries

Hartung was an early adopter of seedless cucumbers, which allows growers to harvest higher yields per acre and gain larger per-acre recoveries compared to the older female seeded varieties. The parthenocarpic varieties, in which plants produce fruit without fertilization, resulted in seedless fruit and boosted yields.

The production increases in hand-harvested varieties help efficiencies, particularly with high labor costs.

Aside from weather, phytophthora or fruit rot remains the biggest worry for cucumber growers. “It’s the biggest worry of the industry and is where the bulk of our research funding is going towards,” Duley said.

Cucumber’s biggest pathogenic threat, downy mildew, severely damages plants. In 2006, a new resistant downy mildew version appeared and destroyed many Midwest and Southeast crops. As the pathogen doesn’t overwinter in the Midwest, growers track the disease’s northward movement. Hartung employs scouting services and relies on Michigan State University spore trapping.

Drone, harvest tech

Utilizing the latest in technology, Hartung cooperates with a University of Minnesota drone spraying initiative.

Autosteer tech for planting, cultivating, spraying and harvesting is being added to Hartung’s harvesting machinery. The tech can prevent issues including equipment running over cucumbers. Tests showed a half percentage improvement compared to harvesters not using the tech. Considering the millions of bushels harvested, the small percentage is significant, Duley said.

Family history

In 1974, 17-year-old twin brothers Dan and Don Hartung rented 40 acres to grow corn using equipment borrowed or rented from local farmers. The two partnered with older brother Robert, younger brother Randy and sister Gayle Ann Noltner’s then-boyfriend, Jim Nolther. Later, younger brothers Steve and John helped by picking stones out of the field.

After a successful harvest in 1975, Hartung Brothers was incorporated by the siblings and their father Galen. Other siblings Steve, Tara and James later joined as shareholders.

For 30 years, Hartung grew green beans for a contractor — its first vegetable crop  — and also grew other vegetables through agreements, including carrots, hot peppers and red beets. After canning company bankruptcies, buyer consolidations and the federal government ending vegetable purchases, the company used capital from the discontinued commodities to expand cucumber production in 1997. The lesson the Hartungs learned was to never grow anything without a deal. 

While partners Don, Robert, Randy and Jim have retired, all remain shareholders. Dan is CEO, Steve is executive vice president, Tara is custom compliance and food safety manager, James is IT manager, John is vice president of H&N Logistics and Gayle Ann is in accounting. Other family members, including Ryan Noltner, Joe, Nicole and David Hartung and Steven McDonald work in roles including field and harvest operations, farm management, logistics and computer systems.

The biggest tip Duley offers growers is to be proactive in spraying to control disease.

“If you wait until you see diseases present or see drought stress on the plants before you spray or irrigate, you’re going to pay for it in yields,” he said. “The more you’re able to be proactive and stay on a 7-day spray program and irrigate your inch of water per week, you give yourself the best fighting chance to have success.”

— Doug Ohlemeier, Assistant Editor