May 1st 2010

Meeting the organic challenge

To grow fruit organically and profitably in the humid Midwest and East, where diseases and insects flourish, growers need to work hard if they are to compete with growers in the West. Production costs in the West are lower, and packout of quality fruit is higher. “We’re making progress,” said Harry Hoch, LaCrescent, Minnesota. He and his wife, Jackie, own and operate Hoch Orchard and Gardens in southeastern Minnesota. The Hochs have about 30 acres of certified organic apples.

by Richard Lehnert

Woolly apple aphid

Alyssum has other qualities that make it a good candidate for attracting syrphids into orchards.

by Geraldine Warner

Compost tea recipes

Tweaking the aeration time, handling, and changing additives can create diverse compost teas—even though they were made with the same compost. Washington State University researchers saw differences in the microbial organisms, nutrients, pH levels, and salt concentrations of compost teas that all started from the same compost and water. CeCe Crosby, who’s working on her soil science doctorate degree at WSU under Dr. Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, research leader of the Biologically Intensive Agriculture and Organic Farming program, worked with compost teas for her master’s thesis. That research evaluated the potential mechanisms of biological control activity against the pathogen that causes black rot in cabbage.

by Melissa Hansen

What are compost teas?

by Melissa Hansen

Last Bite--From doctor to farmer

Yakima Valley apple and pear rancher Dr. John S. Kloeber, unlike many of his contemporaries in the early fruit ­ranching enterprises, initially had absolutely no interest in a career in agriculture. Born in 1865 in Baltimore, Maryland, he was a member of a family that had immigrated to the United States from the Alsace region on the border of France and Germany. His parents moved to Lynchburg, Virginia, where John completed his public school ­education before enrolling at the University of Virginia. Deciding that his future lay in the practice of ­medicine, he ultimately transferred to the University of Maryland from which he graduated in 1888 with a medical degree.

John Baule

Consumers and ­sustainability

by Melissa Hansen

Sustainability: imposition or ­opportunity?

With major food companies joining the green movement, a growing number of farmers are being asked questions about their sustainability efforts and/or programs. Growers can either view the movement as opportunity or imposition, says Dr. Cliff Ohmart. “They can either see [sustainability] as a light at the end of the tunnel or as a train that is coming to run over them,” he said. Growers can be proactive, moving forward to develop a program that can add value to their product, or they can be reactive and respond to programs developed in a top-down manner that likely will become another cost of doing business.

by Melissa Hansen

Fatal ­attraction

East of the Rocky Mountains, plum curculio is one of the most difficult orchard insect pests growers have to deal with. A snout beetle a quarter-inch or more long, it attacks both pome and stone fruit and leaves behind fruit scars and white larvae. In apples, most infected fruit falls as part of the June drop. But in cherries and peaches, the larvae are often there at harvest—a highly objectionable result. Dr. Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service at the Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, West Virginia, has been trying to find effective ways to deal with plum ­curculio since starting on her doctorate 15 years ago. Leskey and others in the industry working with plum curculio are developing lures because the beetles are attracted by odors, including those put out by fruit and those emitted by other plum curculio.

by Richard Lehnert

Good to Go

Good Job

Getting trees off to a good start

This is the ninth in a series of articles covering all aspects of planning and establishing a competitive orchard. Once the trees are planted in a new orchard, there’s only a limited amount of time to set up the planting to be successful, says Tim Smith, Washington State University Extension educator for north central Washington. Proper irrigation practices are essential for maximizing tree ­performance.

New organic organization

Minnesota grower Harry Hoch helped found a new organization called the Organic Tree Fruit Growers Association, and his wife, Jackie, is the first president. The organization started as an informal network of a few upper Midwest growers who wanted to help each other meet the challenges of growing organic fruit in a humid region.

Richard Lehnert

Native flowers ­provide habitat for beneficials

Entomologists at Michigan State University are developing approaches growers can use to promote beneficial insects in their own orchards. Pollinating insects and natural enemies need ­alternative food sources when food isn’t available in the orchard and places where they are protected from sprays and other orchard operations. Dr. Doug Landis and his graduate student Anna Fiedler have developed a list of 26 native plants that bloom in specific periods, from early season into fall, and could provide good habitat for beneficial insects. Meanwhile, Dr. Rufus Isaacs and postdoctoral researcher Julianna Tuell have identified hundreds of species of native bees that pollinate fruit, especially blueberries, and have developed programs to help growers protect and ­nurture some of them.

by Richard Lehnert

Solving the woolly apple aphid

by Geraldine Warner

Good Point--Washington fruit industry scholarships change lives

by Jennifer Witherbee

Promoting ­ ecolabel wines

A program that began by certifying vineyards in Oregon’s Willamette Valley that were following practices to protect and restore salmon watersheds has grown to include more than half the wine grape acreage of Walla Walla Valley in Washington and Oregon and several vineyards in eastern Washington.

by Melissa Hansen

Growers surveyed on pest practices

Though use of Guthion is declining, 80 percent of growers and managers surveyed used it as part of their codling moth program in 2008.