Project Description
Soils & Nutrients
Featured stories about soils & nutrients in this issue.
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Not enough canned pears
Pacific Northwest pear processors are raising grower prices to $300 per ton this season in hopes of sourcing more Bartlett pears for the processed market.
The BIG Stomach
RIGHT: Workers pack apples in the modern facility built two years ago at Crist Bros. in Walden, New York. The packing plant serves only their
WSU seeks licensee
Washington State University’s Research Foundation, which owns the new WA 38 apple, has issued an “announcement of opportunity” inviting individuals, companies, or cooperatives that are
Orchard ground covers
For 21 years now, Dr. Ian Merwin has tended a 320-tree apple orchard on the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake near Cornell University’s Ithaca campus.
Rescue thinning
If you’ve thinned and thinned and there are still too many apples on the trees, there is one more growth regulator treatment you can use
Meet Washington State’s new agriculture director
Bud Hover’s road to directorship of the Washington State Department of Agriculture began in 1938 when his mother and her family loaded their belongings on
Weed ZAPPER
Engineer Graham Brodie developed the microwave weed-killing machine. Kitchen microwave ovens are routinely used to “zap” our food. They can heat leftover pizza or cook
Beware of weed resistance
DON'T LET WEEDS GET AWAY It’s particularly important to keep up with weed control in a young orchard because the weeds compete with the trees
Nutrient information needed
As yield expectations have soared in recent years, so has the importance of nutrient management. Apple growers who were once happy harvesting 60 bins per
Testing tree health
Dennis Smith, horticulturist with G.S. Long Company, Inc., in Yakima, Washington, has been doing soil and leaf sampling for fruit growers for over 20 years
Last Bite
1 Dagger nematodes are vectors of which virus? a. Prune dwarf b. Tomato ring spot c. Professor Plum pox d. Prunus necrotic ring spot
Choose your poison carefully
A barn owl nesting box at Omeg Orchards. Notice the metal underneath the box that’s used to prevent raccoons from climbing the pole to reach
Cornell releases wine grape varieties
A new white variety is cold tolerant; a new red variety is disease resistant.
The root of the matter
This excavated root system is from a 40-year-old Concord own-rooted vine. PHOTOS COURTESY OF ALAN LAKSO Grapes, with their flowing vines and lack of inherent
Your management program matters
LEFT: Above left: Adult A. mali are affected by most of the tested reduced-risk pesticides. RIGHT: The parasitic wasp Aphelinus mali attacks woolly apple aphids
Growers rapturous over rodent control
Barn owl boxes really do work.
Hidden costs of rodent control
Growers check out the Verminator, a burrow-building implement that lays bait in burrows designed to reach gophers. (Melissa Hansen/Good Fruit Grower) Rodents—particularly voles, ground squirrels,
The Top Five
Soil has been called the “living skin” of planet Earth, an essential but fragile part of the biosphere. As such, it responds negatively to abuse
Hudson Valley’s wholesalers
Two of the largest wholesale operations on the International Fruit Tree Association tour in New York were Crist Brothers Orchards at Walden and Porpiglia Farms
Evaluating grape sites
Michelle Moyer demonstrates how WSU's vineyard site evaluation computer model works. PHOTO BY MELISSA HANSEN Dr. Michelle Moyer, Washington State University’s statewide viticulture extension specialist,