Producer: Fillmore Greenhouses, Inc.
Text & Images: Andrea Pacheco
Fillmore Greenhouses, Inc. is located in Portageville, New York. They are greenhouses that grow their tomatoes hydroponically, in a bath of nutrients instead of in soil. These greenhouses distribute through Village Farms® and provide tomatoes all across the east coast, from Canada to Florida. The first tomatoes were produced in 1998, however, the first production under the new and current owner, Mario van Logten, was in 2004.
The greenhouses include 15 acres of enclosed glass.
This visit took place in April 2011; we were welcomed and escorted by Julie Rocker, the office manager, for approximately an hour.
When the plants arrive from Canada, they are only 2 ft tall, but by the end of growing season they have grown to 40 ft long. As the vines grow, they are gradually shifted along a top rail, allowing the vines to be extended.
The Hydroponic method of growing includes a base of growing material, Riococo, which consists of dried, biodegradable, coconut shells as well as tubing throughout the greenhouse that supplies the plants their nutrients and fertilizers through drippers inserted onto the base block covered in white plastic.
A complex network of heating and fertilizer pipes supply the plants with all they need, this includes potassium, nitrates, magnesium nitrates and other necessary minerals and nutrients.
The greenhouse utilizes a natural pest control - bug cards that are hung on the plant’s vines hold natural predators that control the white fly pests.
A natural pollinator is also used – bees fly freely around the greenhouse and do their job, pollinating the plants.
The number of employees working at the greenhouse varies throughout the year, around 40 workers during the winter and 60 workers during the summer.
Students from around the world are also employed on internships; many come from Brazil, Honduras, Uruguay or other countries. This student is from Brazil; he is currently studying agriculture in Minnesota.
There are jobs at the top of the vines, such as suckering (removing unwanted growths), or jobs at the bottom of the vine, such as leafing, as demonstrated in this picture.
Starting February, they pick everyday – except on Sundays.
There are also workers inside who manage the packaging, weighing, and sorting. They check the quality of the tomatoes to have them ready to ship off.
There is a machine that fabricates all of their boxes for them. These boxes, once full of tomatoes, are then placed on conveyer belts to go through the checking process.
Some buyers, however, prefer green tomatoes. These get boxed too.
The final stage on the conveyer belt for the crates is to go through the sticker machine – it takes a picture of each crate of tomatoes, analyzes the data, and then blows the stickers onto the tomatoes without harming them.
These are the large containers for the water/fertilizer mix they use for the plants.
Three sources of energy are used: a natural gas boiler, a wood boiler (used the most – highly efficient), and a regular gas boiler.
They get a portion of their wood from the Mt. Morris Dam, however it needs to be in very specific conditions, so at the moment we visited, the wood was still not dry enough to be used.
The owner, Mario van Logten is Dutch; he frequently wears his wooden shoes around the workplace.
Workers get two 10 minute breaks throughout the day and 30 minutes of unpaid lunch; their salary is a little above minimum wage.
