Growing a tight-knit team

Growing up in Sonora, Mexico, Elias Torres learned how to farm from his father, an agronomist who consulted farmers growing open field crops like wheat and peanuts. From a young age, Torres learned “the love of horticulture and the passion for growing” from him.

Inspired to carry on the family tradition, Torres pursued a career in plants. “At first, I wanted to grow open-field crops,” he says. But while studying horticulture at the University of Sonora, he “had the opportunity to work in greenhouses growing tomatoes and cucumbers, and started to get more interested in the greenhouse side of horticulture.”

While he was finishing his degree in 2003, some recruiters from Eurofresh Farms in Arizona came to his university looking for greenhouse supervisors to work under H-1B visas. By December of that year, Torres had secured a position growing tomatoes and cucumbers at the Arizona facility. When the company was purchased by Texas-based NatureSweet, Torres stayed onboard as a site manager until the greenhouse he oversaw was sold off around 2015.

That’s when Torres connected with the team at Westerlay Orchids in Carpinteria, California. After a few phone interviews, the company invited Torres to visit the facilities. During a vacation to California, Torres and his family fell in love with the small coastal town of Carpinteria and decided to relocate.

Now, as head grower and production manager at Westerlay, Torres oversees 14 acres of orchid production. “It was a big, big difference, coming from growing cucumbers, [which] were a really fast crop, to growing phalaenopsis orchids, with a 70- to 75-week cycle,” he says. “At the beginning, it was a little difficult to adapt because it was so slow and not as labor intensive as produce. But I have a lot of support from the people here … that made it a little bit easier.”

Monitoring plant health

Although the crop cycles were a change of pace for Torres, he quickly adjusted to Westerlay’s growing schedule and began implementing new programs to improve production.

When Torres arrived in November 2015, the company didn’t have a consistent process to scout for pests and disease. Within a year or two of joining Westerlay, Torres rolled out a weekly scouting program to keep a closer eye on plant health throughout the growing facility.

“We scout every week. We make rounds in every single row. We remove all the plants that are infected with fungus like fusarium or pythium, and we’re also scouting for any pests like thrips, spider mites, or caterpillars,” he says. “Based on the findings from the scouting, we treat them with beneficials [such as] hypoaspis miles, nematodes and Bacillus thuringiensis to keep the larva under control.”

Torres also helped the greenhouse transition from growing young plants in trays of loose bark mix to using plugs instead. “In the past with the community trays, there were a lot of losses [because of] different fungi and pests,” he explains. “Making the change from community trays to plugs made a big difference in the quality of the plants. We have better roots, and we grow healthier plants.”

Cultivating common ground

The other big change Torres faced was the size of Westerlay’s team. Now, he says, “I’m only managing 17 employees, and in the past, I used to manage 50 [people].” The relatively smaller crew affords him more time with his direct reports — which include an assistant grower who helps manage growing conditions, and two production supervisors who, respectively, oversee integrated pest management (IPM) and labor.

“Since this is a small group, I meet with them every day, first thing in the morning, to make sure there are no issues with the plan that we have for that week,” he says. “We also have one-to-ones every month to discuss [our] plan for next month.”

These team meetings typically happen in Spanish, since the team members Torres supervises are either bilingual or native Spanish speakers. His background growing up in Mexico has been a critical link to connect with his team and create an environment where employees feel comfortable coming to him with issues and ideas.

“I like to keep open communication with all of them and make them feel safe to come to me [with anything],” he says. “Being born and raised in Mexico, I think the connection and the communication that we have is way better than before.”

Developing that trust and rapport with his team is the highlight of his job as head grower, Torres says. This connection gives the crew a strong common ground to share their plant passions as Westerlay continues to grow.

“Being able to see something from the beginning — getting those small plants and growing them all the way to see the final product in the stores — that makes me and all the employees feel very proud of what we do,” Torres says. “That’s [what] the most important thing is, having the passion; not just liking the growing, but loving it.”

The author is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to Greenhouse Management magazine.