IFTA 65th Annual Conference, Hershey, PA: Orchard Post-Tour Brief

The International Fruit Tree Association (IFTA) held it's 65th Annual Conference in Hershey, PA from February 13-15, 2022. Orchard tour day was Monday, February 14. Cold and windy, but mostly sunny, true to IFTA fashion. (Cold and windy, not so sure about the sunny part?) I will have to admit, I was not terribly well engaged, I was dealing with everyone's earbuds and the speakers transmitter device so everyone could hear. Not terribly sold on it when the crowd is on the small side, there were 4 buses total, and mostly each orchard stop had only one bus, about 35 people. Sometimes I wonder if those earbuds do not foster engagement particulary well either? I would opt for the more traditional mic and speaker when the crowd is small. (Or have the speaker speak up? It's not that hard.) Oh well, enough of my complaining. I will give you a brief rundown of what I/we saw on the tour.

First stop, Penn State Fruit Research & Extension Center (FRAC, fitting for Pennsylvania, if you know what I mean), where Dr. Jim Schupp talked about his peach rootstock and hi-density peach plantings. The rootstock trial was planted in 2017 with Cresthaven as the variety trained to a Perpendicular-V. It looked good, Schupp says Controller 6, 7, and 8 reduce tree size somewhat at 80-90% compared to Lovell rootstock, and they are all about the same size to date. (Controller 6 "should" be smaller though.) Rootpac 40 and MP-29 are pretty dwarfing, 66% and 31% of Lovell respectively, and will likely need some kind of support as scaffold breakage and drooping are a problem. FYI, this is an NC-140 Regional Rootstock Research Project, more info here.) Speaking of support, Schupp also showed us a young hi-density peach planting, the rootstocks escape me, but trees were planted very close together and to a Perpendicular-V. Schupp was experimenting with removal of one of the scaffolds on alternating (every 2-3 years?) basis to renew the scaffold(s) and prevent the lower part of the trees from becoming shaded and non-productive. He wanted to make a pedestrian peach orchard. The scaffolds were supported by a T-post type trellis with two wires (about head height). I did not particularly like it, I say good luck.

Dr. Jim Schupp, NC-140 peach rootstock planting at FREC

A pedestrian peach orchard? Really Jim? Kind of an oxymoron isn't it?

At FREC we also checked in with Dr. Long He's crew (aka grad students) in the engineering shed where each presented their project, including: robotic pruning and green fruit thinning, sensors in the orchard (Internet of Things, IoT), intelligent spraying, and imaging of fruit buds, flower clusters, and fruit(lets) using a Moog data "rover" ATV (part of PACMAN). Interesting stuff, some maybe a bit far-fetched? But that is what University researchers do, don't they?

I thought the drones and heat mapping were pretty cool. I envision drones could easily scout large areas, report back to the home base for further investigation by real eyes?

Dr. He shows us the Moog data rover, the ultimate goal being gainful adoption of precision crop load management

Stop two, Hollabaugh Bros. Inc. market and orchard. Their family run market is well known in the area, since 1955, and has the usual bakery, apples, groceries, and gift shop. There was a "bee" room which I gather is popular with the kids? It was popular with me as the cider donuts and coffee were served there... :-) Because it was Valentine's Day, I noted some were picking up gifts for their significant other. In the Hollabuagh Bros. orchard, well, I don't remember a whole lot, a mature semi-dwarf pear block, they like the fire blight resistant pears from Ontario, Harrow Sweet and Cold Snap? An on-farm peach rootstock planting sponsored by the Penn State Extension folks, Hollabaugh's being one of 12 farms with the planting of Controller 6, 7, 8 and Krymsk 86 with PF Lucky 13 on top. And some tall-spindle apples, generally looking good, but with some talk about fire blight history and M.9 rootstocks. Some active pruning was going on by the Hollabaugh orchard crew on a platform. BTW, during the Conference, attendees unanomously agreed a platform was the number one peice of "technology" that every orchard should have. Did I say it was cold and windy, and the cider donuts were beckoning?

Bruce (and father Brad listening) at Hollabaugh Bros. Inc. orchard. Mature talls-spindle apples, Gala, Fuji, Honeycrisp. More trees missing on M.9 than other rootstocks. Otherwise, no complaints here.

After lunch at the local Biglersville fire station -- it was very good, need I say more -- it was a quick hop to Rice Fruit Company. Usually packing house stops are quite ho-hum for me, but the Rice team did a good job showing us their pre-sorter operation, packing line, mesmerizing robotic technology (video below, and they do not take a coffee and donut break, unlike me!), and a bit about their marketing and who they pack apples for. Including Ocean Crisp Apples Honeycrisp out of Nova Scotia. Interesting. Not much to say here except Rice has kept up with innovation in the apple packing business, and the younger generation is slowly taking over running the show. Which reminds me, we got a demo of StemPunk by Leighton Rice, a wearable stem "clipper" while picking Honeycrisp (and other?) apples.

OK, finishing up the tour at Mt. Ridge Farms with father David and son Blake Slaybaugh. David showed us his "workshop." Jaw-droppingly well outfitted with lots of new "toys" and clean. Very impressive. While inside we also got a demo of Noble Orchards Software Solutions recordkeeping application. Out in the orchard with Blake we got into a bit of discussion about pruning, we felt they were not removing enough branches wholesale while leaning more toards cutting them back, the bud load seemed to high and could be corrected by wholesale removal of more branches? Plus, M.9 was showing more tree mortality, call it RAD/SAD whatever, but I put two and two together and call it fire blight in the M.9 rootstock. Oh, did I mention that Premier Honeycrisp was found here? I think that helps explain all the new shop toys! :-)

Blake Slaybaugh. Pruning is always a source of good (conflicting?) dialog on IFTA tours! But it's all good!

That's about all I got, short and sweet, it was a good tour and the best thing was time spent on the buses was minimal, all the orchards were in Adams County and the Biglerville area, and it was less than an hour from Conference central at the Hershey Lodge. The downside of that of course, is not much nap time on the bus. And thanks to Jen Baugher our bus leader. Check out my Twitter feed if you want to see some of the Conference presenters slides (along with my comments). Or search the hashtag #ifruittree on Twitter for more. For 2023, here we come Grand Rapids...