Top Flavor's Farm Manager Mike Clements tours the farm daily, checking in with crews and sampling crops.

Top Flavor is testing a new irrigation method to save on labor hours. It sets up a "deadbed" in short-season crops to lay pipes upon. The pipes stay in place through various plantings, removing the need to lay pipes between each planting.

Like other growers in the Yuma, AZ growing region, Top Flavor now treats any overhead irrigation water. In fact, it treats any water that touches the edible portions of plants.

Top Flavor has a steady workforce. Its main labor challenge is its crews' average age, which is in the 50s.

Top Flavor moved to using fewer, but more powerful tractors with multi-task attachments. The change has saved money, and the team has not seen any compaction problems.

Mike Clements chats with University of Arizona Extension Agent John Palumbo.

Most crops at Top Flavor are hand harvested. The radish harvest, however, is mechanized.

Although Top Flavor is best known for growing for Tanimura & Antle, it also grows for Sabor Farms.

"Top Flavor does not directly sell any vegetable crops," Clements says. "All crops are harvested and marketed through our different partners."

Top Flavor contracts with different seed companies and/or seed production companies to grow commercial proprietary seed varieties. It also trials seed varieties in conjunction with local seed companies, who showcase their products and compare them against current commercial varieties.

"Seed trailing is a sales, product development, and research tool," Clements says.

The original six medjool date palms in the U.S. are on Top Flavor's property. The desert conditions are ideal for the crop, and Top Flavor now has a robust program and exports medjool dates to the Middle East.

Clements says one of Top Flavor's competitive advantages is it constantly seeks out new crops consumers will embrace. Clements thinks Americans will enjoy pointed cabbage, popular in Europe due to its sweet flavor and petite size.