Best Quotes From My Travels Around New York State’s Fruit Scene

They talk a big game in New York state, but, at the same time, it’s a pretty big state, with or without the Big Apple. I learned as much in July, traveling first from the state’s northwest corner (site of our Apple Grower of the Year ceremony) to its southeast corner (International Fruit Tree Association summer tour) and, a week later, back up to Geneva (Cornell Fruit Field Day).

Here are just a few of the notable quotables from those two weeks, courtesy of some of New York’s finest in the fruit-growing industry:

“It’s fair to say that down in Washington right now it’s a little bit foggy. USDA has lost about 10,000 people, and making their way through the challenges of the day, which are pretty dramatic, can be a little bit foggy down there. … (But) I wouldn’t want to farm anywhere else in the country today. I’m glad to be farming in New York state.” — Richard A. Ball, New York Commissioner of Agriculture

“When you go to Washington and California, the operations are so huge and very insular, and there’s a tendency to keep things tightly held. … One of the ways I think those growers protect that investment is by not necessarily sharing your successes. It’s always been a different feel here.” — Darrel Oakes, 2004 Apple Grower of the Year

“I met a grower who bought a large farm in the Champlain Valley. He was a chicken farmer. … I spent a full half-hour trying to explain to him why he shouldn’t be 100% Honeycrisp. And that was probably the worst advice he ever got, because he was bound and determined to be 100% Honeycrisp. And I said, ‘I don’t think you should do that.’ But he probably should have.” — Rod Farrow, 2017 Apple Grower of the Year

“You can never do with drip and a drone what you could do with this (center-pivot irrigation) system.” — Charles Hurd, Farm Manager, Hurds Family Farm

“You have to be doing sap analysis. You have to do it earlier than people tell you you have to do it. You have to do it at least three times a year to know where you’re going.” — Hurd

“I don’t care what you use on your fruit. I care when you test that fruit, what’s in the fruit. That’s all that really matters to me.” — Hurd

“I’m done with organic.” — Hurd

“Agritourism is hugely important. You wouldn’t believe the number of people that take a train or rent a car and come out of Brooklyn on a weekend in October to visit some of our farms in the Hudson Valley.” — Daniel Donahue, Regional Tree Fruit Specialist, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Hudson Valley Research Laboratory

“You can’t go and plant peaches and not have a marketing plan. You don’t have the legs like you’ve got with apples. Usually every year I don’t have any problem moving peaches because I’m known as the Peach Guy. In the Hudson Valley, 70 acres is like 2,000 acres in the San Joaquin. Some people think I’m crazy growing that many peaches. Let them think I’m crazy. There’s no apple that comes out this time of year that generates the kind of money that these things generate.” — Russell Bartolotta, President, Klein’s Kill Fruit Farms

“What we decided with pick-your-own customers is you can’t stop them from picking anything. We would try to rope off areas of vegetables or fruits and keep them out of there, and as soon as you blocked it off, they went there first. So we just gave up on it and put a price on everything. Everything we do is per pound … and we charge $5 per person to get in.” — Jake Samascott, Owner, Samascott Orchards

“We’ve had people remove the spare tire from their trunk, completely pack it full of cherries, put the mat back down so it looks like there isn’t anything in there. Pick-your-own can be a very frustrating piece of the business.” — Samascott

“It used to bother the hell out of me. We put so many signs up: ‘Ripe — pick here.’ ‘Unripe — do not pick.’ And as sure as hell, there are people going to the unripe row and picking. You say something to them, and they’re like, ‘It tastes great!’ It’s a green, hard peach. The thing will not be ripe for a month. She’s like, ‘I love it!’” — Kevin Clark, Orchard Manager, Rose Hill Farm

“One year the old owner was here. I said, ‘Dave, did it bother you, kids breaking branches, chucking apples, picking unripe stuff?’ He said the sooner you get over that and let it go, the sooner you’ll be happy. So I really don’t care anymore.” — Clark

“Dr. Chester Forshey (Cornell University pomologist) was a man who was head and shoulders over others. He once said, ‘Alan, with low-temperature damage, things always get better. With hail, things always get worse.’ With my experience — I’m 85 — that rings true.” — Alan Grout, Co-Owner and General Manager, Golden Harvest Farms

“It was a big gamble for my dad to say, ‘We’re going to take a perfectly good CA storage room working right in the center of the farm and let the fourth out of five sons make a go of making spirits from apples.’” — Derek Grout, Founder, Harvest Spirits Farm Distillery

“My mom told Derek that his drinking would never get him anywhere. And he’s made a career of that.” — Doug Grout, Co-Owner, Golden Harvest Farms, and Derek’s brother