On the International Fruit Tree Association tour Feb. 13, attendees gather to hear grower Andrew Sundquist describe how his Moxee, Washington, farm converted old Brookfield Gala trees to multileader WA 38s through grafting. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower)
On the International Fruit Tree Association tour Feb. 13, attendees gather to hear grower Andrew Sundquist describe how his Moxee, Washington, farm converted old Brookfield Gala trees to multileader WA 38s through grafting. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower)

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Joan Hebb, right, tree fruit coordinator with the Scotian Gold Cooperative and a board member of the International Fruit Tree Association, shares an update on the winter season in Nova Scotia on Monday, Feb. 12 as part of a regional roundtable kicking off the annual conference held this year in Yakima, Washington. Craig Tanner, current IFTA board chair, is seated at left. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower) IFTA gathers for annual conference and tours in Yakima, Washington

Tour buses fanned out across the Yakima Valley as tree fruit professionals eager to learn visited six orchards on Day 3 of the International Fruit Tree Association winter conference in Washington.

Multileader, high-density plantings and crop load management were highlight topics.

In one block, Andrew Sundquist of Sundquist Fruit in Moxee, just east of Yakima, showed off a block of multileader WA 38 trees grafted several years ago from Brookfield Galas. The trees had relatively sparse 14- by 5-foot spacing but 8,000 to 10,000 leaders per acre due to the many leaders per tree. WA 38, known for vigorous growth, performed better and more consistently for Sundquist in on-farm trials than did Envy and Honeycrisp grafted the same way. His goal is to use platforms for harvest and pruning. Some of the challenges are scion rooting, for which he root prunes, and blind wood, for which the farm may try scoring.

At Gilbert Orchards in the West Valley area, Cragg Gilbert delivered a lecture about 17 million years of geologic history, lava flows and ice age floods as a preface to describe the soil at his farm — fertile but shallow.

Also at that stop, the Gilberts were transparent about some of their mistakes along the way in multileader farming. Cropping a Honeycrisp too early was the biggest, said Sean Gilbert, Cragg’s son. They are now struggling to coax the trees into filling their spaces.

At Cornerstone Ranch south of Yakima, farm owner Graham Gamache and his orchard manager, Javier Ramos, showed the participants how they use a three-leader V-trellis system for any variety the market dictates — from a 20-year-old Golden Delicious block to 2018 Wildfire Galas. They consistently get more than 70 bins per acre of quality fruit, they said. Gamache called the system “infinitely adaptable.”

Other stops were Chiawana Orchards in Cowiche, also west of Yakima, and orchards owned by Allan Bros. and Washington Fruit in the Grandview area, toward the southeast end of the Yakima Valley.

The conference continues with panel discussions and presentations Feb. 14 at the Yakima Convention Center and a post-conference add-on tour of Yakima Valley cherry orchards on Feb. 15.

—by Ross Courtney