Before our spring break study tour, the class was assigned different stops we would be making to research and present. My designated stop was Lewis Taylor Farms in Tifton, GA. Lewis Taylor started farming in the 1930s as a transplant producer; however, the farm was purchased by Ed Walker and Bill Brim in 1985. Throughout the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the first greenhouses and packing facilities were built. Currently, the farm has 6,500 acres of produce, 81 greenhouses, and 7 circle pivots that cultivate 75 million pine seedlings each year. Lewis Taylor Farms produces a variety of different vegetables and row crops including peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, cantaloupes, watermelons, broccoli, peanuts, greens, and cole crops. Through the years, the farm has split into three divisions: Spring Hill Produce, Quality Produce, and LTF Greenhouses.

Spring Hill Produce specializes in the management of the cantaloupe, watermelon, broccoli, tomato, cabbage, and greens packing facility. This division of Lewis Taylor Farms uses a state of the art hydro cooler, slusher, and clam shell icer to remove heat from the produce in order to obtain longer shelf life. Quality Produce produces over 25 commodities including peppers, cucumbers, squash, eggplants, peanuts, and cotton using 6,500 acres of plasticulture. Plasticulture produces higher quality and higher quantity plants and aids in better shipping tolerance. These thousands of acres are fertilized and watered by a computerized drip irrigation which reduces water use and runoff. Quality Produce is also equipped with a packing facility that contains two coolers with a storage capacity of 40,160 bushels. LTF Greenhouses and Transplants produces vegetable, cantaloupe, and watermelon transplants along with pine seedlings. In total, this division of Lewis Taylor Farms grows 350 million transplants in their greenhouses and 75 million pine seedlings each year. These greenhouses have a combined growing area of 900,000 sq ft.

Lewis Taylor Farms is always finding new ways to make their operation a bigger and better produce provider. I found it interesting that Quality Produce has the technology and workforce to fill over 1800 boxes of peppers and 900 boxes of cucumbers per hour. Also, I found out that Lewis Taylor Farms was one of the first in Georgia to experiment with growing broccoli on a big scale.

I think I am most excited to see how expansive this farming operation truly is. It is one thing to read the numbers online about it, but I won’t truly understand their meaning unless I see the farm. I am also interested in seeing the 75 million pine seedlings growing in their circle pivots.

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