GLEXPO

I am at the Great Lakes Fruit and Vegetable Expo in Grand Rapids, MI for a couple days. Today, the Art Mitchell Symposium on Fruit Thinning and Return Bloom. Speaker highlights:

Dr. Terence Robinson, Cornell University

• apple fruit thinning should be driven primarily be economic considerations
• the carbohydrate balance of trees from bloom through about 15-20 mm fruit size is important to understand the potential effect of a chemical thinning spray
• temperature and light during the same period described above primarily determines carbohydrate balance
• carbohydrate balance can be modeled, and thus some form of numerical 'thinning index' can be developed as a tool to assist growers in making chemical thinning decisions

Dr. Jim Schupp, Penn State University

• the 'Darwin' mechanical thinner has proven useful (with modification) in bloom thinning peaches to consistently reduce amount of time hand thinning and improving peach fruit size. More...
  
• the Darwin thinner was also used in apples, and may have particular utility in organic apple orchards; but, there is increased risk of transmitting fire blight because of it shreds foliage; more research is needed in apples

Duane Greene, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Greene covered timing (bloom to 25 mm), chemicals (NAA, NAD, carbaryl, 6-BA, and ethrel) and the impact of light and temperature on the activity of chemical thinners
  

Phil Schwallier, Michigan State University

• Honeycrisp has a strong capacity to overset
• crop load of Honeycrisp should be no more than 4 to 6 apples per sq. cm. trunk/limb cross-sectional area to get adequate return bloom
• young Honeycrisp trees should probably be hand-thinned only to achieve desired results (chemical thining too risky because of ease of over-thinning)
• mature trees can be thinned with a combination of carbary (1 pt) + BA (100 ppm) or NAA (8-10 ppm) to reduce crop load to <>
• summer NAA treatments can improve return bloom

Dr. Gregory Clark, Valent Biosciences

• Clarke gave an excellent overview of the theory behind fruit thinning and talked about how Valent is looking at ABA (abscissic acid) and AVG (ReTain) as potential additions to the thinning/crop load management toolbox

NC-140 meeting/Mexico update

As promised, video (below) and picture gallery. Ciao.

Santa Cruz Valley (AZ) Foodways Festival

While visiting old friends Joe and Carol Costante of SaddleBrooke/Catalina, AZ last weekend, we took a ride down to Tubac to check out the Santa Cruz Foodways (Sabores Sin Fronteras/Flavors without Borders) Festival. Sponsored by the Santa Cruz Valley Heritage Alliance, I was directed to the Festival while visiting Suzanne Nelson, PhD., Director of Conservation for Native Seeds/SEARCH of Tucson, AZ. The Festival was co-sponsored by the University of Arizona's Southwest Center. Although small, what a delightful event! Among others, we visited a Sun Oven demonstration by Baja AZ Sustainable Ag, and an educational display by the Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project. I even tried a Sonoran hot dog with 'Mexican Candy' which was 'delicioso!' Entertainment included Mariachi Plata (Band).

A bit more about the Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project, whose primary goal "is to assist the National Park Service in replanting historically, culturally and botanically appropriate fruit trees of this land." 'This land' refers to Sonoran desert region of Arizona and Mexico, and specifically the Tumacacori National Historical Park, an important mission site in southeast Arizona. We visited the orchard at Tumacacori after leaving the festival, here with a fig tree.

Wow!, the food, culture, and history of southeast Arizona rolled into a small but intimate event in the Sonoran desert. A reminder of what's important to our lives and culture, and not soon to be forgotten...

¡adiós! amigos

JC

Buenas dias

I just returned from Chihuahua, Mexico where I attended the NC-140 Annual Meeting. (Well actually I am in Tucson, AZ right now for a few days of R&R after a busy summer and fall harvest, but more on that later.) We traveled in Mexico from Chihuahua City, to Nueva Casas Grandes, to Cuauhtemoc for orchard tours and the meeting venue at La Nortenita Fruit Company. (I could not find a website for La Nortenita?) I could probably go and on about this visit to Mexico, but it's likely I won't get to it. Thus, quick impressions of my visit:

• our hosts, Carlos Chavez, University of Chihuahua, and Rafael Parra, INIFAP were very gracious (among others) and eager to show us the Mexican apple industry and infrastructure
• Delicious and Golden Delicious are the primary apples grown; all are sold to the Mexican market and they like sweet apples -- Gala is gaining a foothold; Mexico produces app. 30 million 42 lb. bushels annually (vs. U.S. 200+ million)
  
• orchards are mostly on semi-dwarf (MM111, M7) rootstocks; some orchards are experimenting with dwarf rootstocks, however, the high soil pH and hot environment seem to be particularly stressful to these rootstocks
• most (viable) orchards are covered with hail nets
• La Nortenita Fruit Company is state-of-the-art storage, packing facility, and sales house -- unsurpassed by no one in the world if I had to guess
  
• Mexicans eat a lot of apples (app. 12 lbs. per person, vs. U.S 18 lbs.) and are proud of their role in North American history, despite what may seem to be many years of slavery and strife; Dr. Terence Robinson from Cornell University, a decendant of Mormon settlers and farmers in the Nuevos Casas Grandes area told of the history of the Mexican people and was also very gracious in hosting the meeting along with his fellow Mexicans

I am going to get together a photo album of orchards we visited, and video of La Nortenita Fruit Company packing house someday -- will update ASAP.

Gracias

Juan

UMass Video Fruit Advisor -- Topaz apple and hi-tunnel blackberries



Super-spindle Cameo apple trees on B.9 rootstock

I picked these Cameo ('Caudle' cv., trees from Willow Drive Nursery) apples that were planted in 2002 as part of a larger super-spindle (2 ft. X 10 ft. tree spacing) block at the UMass Cold Spring Orchard today. These were very nice fruit -- see the results of my testing. Harvested eight (8) bushel boxes off twenty (20) trees. Thus, assuming app. 2,000 trees/acre, projected yield should be 800 bushel boxes per acre. (I did not pick all the fruit, only the nicest 'target' fruit.) Not bad, but the real story is the ease of management of these trees. Most are easily kept under 10 ft. in height, pruning and spraying is simple. This apple variety (Cameo) with this rootstock (B.9) planted to a super-spindle (2 ft. between trees by 10 ft. between rows) can't be beat. The only down side is tree cost to establish, and maybe, Cameo has a tendency to be a little biennial -- a major problem with varieties such as Gala, Cameo, Honeycrisp when grown in these intensive orchard systems that needs more research!

I also looked at Topaz, a particularly red strain being sold as 'Crimson' Topaz. (Adams County Nursery.) Topaz is scab-resistant, attractive, seems to yield early and heavy, and I like it -- I believe it has Cox Orange Pippin' as a parent, so it is quite tart (but with high sugar) with a rather complex flavor. Widely planted in organic orchards in Europe I understand. Organic growers must seriously consider.

Ciao.

Peaches and Cream (aka 'Together at Last')

I received an e-mail this week from Dave Lokken of Oshkosh, Wisconsin with attached words and music for a song titled 'Together at Last' where Dave professes his love for fresh peaches and appreciation for the fruit growers who produce them. Wow. I listened. I loved. I knew exactly what I had to do -- put the words and music to a slide show of all the peaches I picked at the UMass Cold Spring Orchard in Belchertown, MA this year (2008). I started harvesting July 16 (with a numbered apricot selection) and the show chronicles all the peaches (in order) I picked and evaluated through September 25. (In reality, I just picked the last peaches up on the hill yesterday, October 10, but they did not make it into the show.) Many shown are numbered selections from the Fruit Acres/Stellar peach breeding program, but many are named too, such as Earlystar, Brightstar, Risingstar, Jade, Country Sweet, Glowingstar, Honeykist, Starfire, Blazingstar, Redhaven, Allstar, and Blushingstar.

Oh my gosh, what's not to love? How lucky are we to be in this business of growing these 'tender' fruit? And how very, very special are peaches grown in in Massachusetts on the northern edge of their range? (See this Massachusetts Fruit Growers' Assoc. press release about the 'Golden Days.')

Well, thank you very much Dave for the inspiration and I hope you enjoy the show:


'Together at Last' (words and music by Dave Lokken)