Q&A With New Washington Hort President
February 5, 2013 
Editor’s Note: The president of the Washington State Horticultural Association’s (WSHA) Board of Directors for 2013 is Jeff Cleveringa, a horticulturist from a multi-generation family farm in Prosser, WA. Cleveringa provided Western Fruit Grower with the following biography and then was kind enough to answer questions via email.
Jeff Cleveringa completed his college studies at Dordt College in Iowa, graduating with a B.S. degree in plant science in 1992. He subsequently completed an internship with Zeneca Ag Products, then worked as horticulturist for Simplot Grower Solutions, and then for Starr Ranch Growers (Custom Apple Packers) until 2003. During this time, he served as the president of the Columbia Basin Tree Fruit Society. In 2003 Jeff began working with Cave B as a horticulturist/viticulturist; then added the responsibility of supervising various aspects of construction of Cave B Inn until its completion. In 2007 Jeff was asked, along with several others, to help found PickerTECH with the goal to automate apple harvest; this is still an ongoing project.
In 2011 Jeff returned to work for Starr Ranch Growers (Custom Apple Packers) as head of research and development. He is now evaluating new technology for fruit packing and orchard equipment, as well as new orchard systems, new apple and cherry varieties, and he works with sales and marketing at Oneonta. Jeff has served on the board of directors for the Good Fruit Grower magazine. Besides being WSHA board president, he also serves on the Washington State University (WSU) Tree Fruit Research Commission Technology Committee, the WSU sweet cherry breeding program, and the WSU apple breeding program.
When you were growing up, did you always want to be a fruit grower? Why/why not?
Growing up on a diversified crop farm was fun, but there was always something that needed attention. Tasks ranged from cutting asparagus to irrigating corn and spraying apples. My least favorite jobs were pulling weeds and hand-thinning apples. The best part was working outdoors and eating the fruit at harvest. I think the love of farming is in your blood, it’s what you enjoy, and it’s why you can’t sleep at night, all rolled into one. When someone eats a great apple or cherry and says “Wow, that tastes great,” there is an immediate sense of pride that you helped supply this eating experience.
For many years, the presidency of the Washington State Horticulture Association was bestowed on an elder statesman of the tree fruit industry. At 43, you are much younger than average, as were the previous two presidents. Your predecessor, David Douglas is only 38, and his predecessor, West Mathison, just 36. What does this trend toward younger leaders signify?
The industry is transitioning to the next generation of leaders. This is the next generation taking over the businesses from the previous generation; our industry is changing. This new group of leaders will have agendas different from their parents as times have also changed. It will be an exciting time ahead to see how each of these new leaders steers their operation.
In your acceptance speech you said you wanted to make more use of social media to keep WSHA members better informed. Why? What would that entail, exactly?
I think that growers need more information when making decisions at the orchard level. The apple crop is globally marketed and influenced by fruit from all parts of the world. Growers need to know what is going on in other parts of Washington State, the U.S., and the world in order to make the best decisions. Growers need to know what is working in their own industry to avoid repeating mistakes that have already been made by others. Also, marketing needs to be better understood by growers; what varieties are being sought after and which ones are losing market share?
To help the growers better connect to the information they need, I would like to place more information on our Horticultural Association website, with updates happening weekly. This may look like weekly orchard updates on insect or disease pressure, or how thinning programs are working. It may even include an extra email to warn our growers of oncoming threats in the orchard. Most growers are not plugged into a form of “instant” contact (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) other than email. With this in mind, I would like to host more tours of orchards, and I am looking at supply chain tours for growers to better understand what it takes to get fruit to the store shelf. I would love to see more orchard tours throughout the growing season, not just one glimpse of time — having technology field trips to see it working firsthand. I think that tours are the best way for growers to get out and see what is going on. A “tweet” is still what birds say in the orchard, not what you follow on your Twitter account with your smart phone.
You seem to be a big believer in the use of the latest technology to improve your company’s performance, as well as that of the industry at large. What tools do you use?
New technology has been evolving rapidly over the last 15 years. It’s hard to believe that smart phones did not exist before 2007 when Apple introduced the iPhone. I think that always implementing the latest technology carries some risk, but you need to be on the forefront watching those technologies closely to see the
progress and where they best fit. We, as an industry, need to be partnering and offering advice to new, promising technology groups to help them develop and introduce their technology to our fruit industry. One example of implementation is my employer, Starr Ranch Growers, who has implemented robotic box stackers to make our packing facility a more efficient, safer workplace. In order to keep abreast of new technology I network with friends, travel to agriculture shows and meetings,and look at orchard systems—all worldwide.
Speaking of new technology, you were one of the founders of Picker Technologies, which is trying to automate orchard tasks. How did that come about? How far are we from seeing robots pick a crop?
PickerTECH was started by a group that wanted to help bring more automation to the harvest of tree fruit. Those in the group saw that the industrial revolution had left the fruit harvesting industry behind. The goal is to make a harvesting system that would be faster, gentler, safer, and allow greater flexibility of the workforce. PickerTECH is bridging the technology gap to allow more automation in the harvesting process. How close is the industry to a fully automated system? I think that we are still many years away from full robotic pickers as the industry is slow to change; future technologies will require reworking many orchard plantings to a more planer (thin) architecture to more easily adopt the new technology. With advancements in robotics like Robo-Sally, it will not take very long for that technology to be available and more affordable for the fruit industry: http://goo.gl/Buc6i.
If you could give a person just starting out as a grower one piece of advice, what would it be?
Force yourself to spend time (with an open mind) in other growers’ orchards throughout the growing season! What you learn in discussion with other growers is really priceless. You can avoid some expensive lessons in failure which will put you further ahead just by asking questions.
If you could have dinner with one well-known person, who is either alive today or from the pages of history, who would it be? Why?
Grady Auvil—I was not fortunate enough to have known him. He took many risks in his day that were very futuristic for his time. One example: he helped introduce and develop plantings of new varieties from other parts of the world (Gala, Granny Smith, Fuji) into a Red Delicious- and Golden Delicious-dominated market and showed that consumers desired other choices. He set the bar for fruit quality standards very high.
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