Pushing The Envelope

Pushing  The Envelope

Advertisement

“Sustainable Innovation” was the theme of the International Fruit Tree Association’s 54th Annual Conference in Pasco, WA, and nowhere was that more evident than on the visits hosted by various area growers on the orchard tours. It all began with a pre-conference tour of Ralph Broetje’s impressive spread — their main orchard is the largest contiguous orchard in the U.S., covering more than 4,300 acres.

After the following day of educational sessions, attendees again climbed aboard the buses for visits to four growers: C&M Orchards, Oasis Farms, Hanrahan Orchards, and Yakima Valley Orchards. The operations had a lot of differences, but when it comes to sustainable innovation, there was commonality: Striving for the very best-quality fruit that is easy to harvest. Here’s a brief look at each:

C&M Orchards

Two brothers, Craig and Mike O’Brien, farm 250 acres of apples, 40 acres of cherries, with the remainder in grapes. Craig O’Brien showed us a 10-year-old 40-acre block of super spindle Buckeye Gala on M9-337 rootstock.

Top Articles
Have a Plan For Climate Change? Why Fruit Growers Need To Act Now

High-density is the operative term here, as the 2-foot by 10-foot spacing means there are 2,178 trees per acre. Too dense? Not really, said O’Brien, adding that they have another block that’s planted with 3-foot spacing. “It sounds pretty crazy, but we think 3 feet apart is too far,” he said.

The good thing about the spacing is that figuring yields is a snap, said O’Brien, because one apple per tree equals one bin per acre. After chemical thinning, they like to get down to about 100 to 120 apples per tree, or bins per acre. Their first high-density planting has definitely been a learning experience. “Initially we let the branches get too long,” he said. “You don’t need much room with 2-foot spacing to get a good crop.”

Next up? Replanting a Fuji orchard with a redder strain on super spindle with a 2-foot by 9-foot spacing. They’re going a little denser, as Fuji’s not as precocious as Gala, says O’Brien. Since it’s a replant, the first thing they will do is fumigate the ground prior to planting. “We absolutely will not replant an orchard without fumigation,” he said.

Oasis Farms

Located literally right across the street from the O’Briens, Oasis Farms is owned by the Roy family, which has been farming in the Yakima Valley for a century. Our host, production manager Derek Hill, first showed us a four-year-old block of Aztec Fuji, also on M9-337. Hill said it was one of the most consistent blocks he’d ever seen and the trees are beautiful, though that’s not always a good thing. “There’s a tough balance between a horticulturally sound orchard and a financially sound orchard,” he said.

Next we checked out what’s becoming a common sight in these parts — a blueberry block. In fact, the overall percentage of Washington blueberries grown on the east side of the Cascade Mountains in Washington has gone from just 5% to 45% in just a few years, said Hill. It’s surprising in the fact that they can be quite a challenge to grow. Oasis Farms started with a soil pH of as high as 7.4 before managing to drop it into the 4.4 to 5.2 range with the help of a whole lot of sulfur.

They planted their first blueberry block in 2009, a 10-acre block of the Duke variety. They now farm a total of 40 acres of blueberries, all organic. “It’s been a pretty big learning process, the organic deal,” said Hill. Whether because of the recession or not, the organic premium has been shrinking.

Yakima Valley Orchards

This is the name for the growing end of the operation that many in the industry know as Allan Bros. George Allan served as president of the Washington State Horticultural Association, and brother Dave, who was our host, frequently speaks at industry events. Dave Allan immediately reminded attendees why they’ve been so successful. “Every apple has to give the consumer a good experience,” he began. “If it’s heat-stressed, it’s not happening, so a few years back we went with overhead cooling.”

He showed off a precisely grown three-year-old block of Jazz, a variety that’s a product of the New Zealand program, Enza. The spacing is 4 feet by 8.5 feet, and to minimize the aforementioned heat stress, it was planted 30 degrees off the North/South orientation to optimize protection from solar damage. There are 12 apples on two branches between trees and five apples between limb levels on the same tree, which will yield 80 bins per acre. Isn’t that yield a little on the low side? No. “That’s just fine with me because of the high quality,” said Allan.

The complex system must be carefully pruned because there must be 50% air, or spacing between the limbs, or the system will crash from excessive shading. He sounds a bit like the author of “Sunlight Into Wine,” the Australian winegrape guru, Richard Smart. “In designing a system, and it doesn’t matter what system, you need to put leaves in a position where they can work at 100%,” Allan said. “If you use carbohydrates to produce a leaf and it only gets 30% sun, you are wasting the value of that leaf.”

Hanrahan Orchards

This was the only stop where we didn’t see apples, but that wasn’t the only unusual aspect. Mark Hanrahan employs the Upright Fruiting Offshoot (UFO) system to grow cherries that Matt Whiting over at Washington State University’s Prosser research station has been crowing about for the past several years. The trees sure look funny. Hanrahan, in fact, laughs all the way to the bank: “We’re hitting $40-plus F.O.B. on this fruit,” he says, gesturing at a block of Early Robin that’s picked eight days ahead of Rainier.

The block certainly wasn’t cheap to establish. The UFO system requires extensive training, so Hanrahan had to send a crew through three times that first year. Even without land, it cost $11,500 an acre to establish. The orchard, which has 484 trees per acre, is 90% “pedestrian,” that is, that much of the work can be done from the ground.

Pruning is the key to UFO systems, said Hanrahan. Specifically, it’s critical that the end branch not be pruned so that it can pull the energy through the tree, ensuring good, uniform production. “All the fruit is the same size, there was no size differential — it’s incredible,” he said, adding that in no way did he regret spending so much time and money on the orchard in its first leaf. “You can’t waste time with these systems: Procrastination is
a killer.”

0