Orchard Talk

This post started out as a response to a feedback question from Mary White. Patty and I spent all morning on our response and we decided to post it on the blog when it got too long.

Mary has raised a great question. Why don’t we have organic fruit and why is it not easier to obtain? It sounds like such a simple question, but for today’s fruit growers it is anything but.

“We are passionate about growing great fruit” is not just our slogan here at King Orchards, and includes a commitment to doing so in the most sustainable and scientifically sound methods available. That said, there are a couple of assumptions that I would like to address.

First, pesticide free and organic are not the same thing. Organic growers have over 1500 pesticides approved for their crop protection usage. You can Google “approved organic pesticides”. You will find that both toxic and persistent chemicals can be used in organic production. Copper Sulfate, for example, builds up in soils (is persistent) and is highly toxic to fish, worms, and etc. Yet copper sulfate is widely used in organic production as a fungicide. The European Union is attempting to ban/limit the use of copper sulfate, but the organic community is resisting. Now to be fair, our ipm (integrated pest management) consultant, Hortsystems Inc., tells me that the copper usage on organic farms, that he also consults for, is not a significant threat to the soils. (The same argument non-organic growers use for our pesticides)

Second, the assumption that organic is ecologically preferable is rarely accurate. The largest organic producers in the US are in arid regions where they have cultivated fragile desert ecosystems. They are able to access irrigation water from our river systems. The dry climates greatly limit the need for fungicides and insecticides. Here in our temperate Midwest, we have fungal diseases that bloom or sporulate with each rain period. Insect fruit pests, many of which spend most of their lives in the moist soils and decaying vegetation in orchard floors, adapt to the long term fruit production cycles and create increasing problems for fruit growers. The organic grower has few viable solutions and usually relies on frequent sprays of sulfur and kaolin clay which are desiccants that  cover the growing fruit and leaves to insulate and protect from pest attacks. The end result is that without real effective tools to manage pests, Midwest organic growers need much higher prices to cover their huge losses. Along with that,  they spray much more frequently than do their conventional farming neighbors. To fill a bushel with organic apples, a Midwest organic farmer uses more acreage, more fuel, and more inputs, including sprays.

Many consumers may not believe me because that’s not what they have been reading and hearing. I have challenged Michigan State Extension directors in the past to publish statewide statistics on organic farming production, economics, sustainability, etc. The cash strapped University is not going to put their cash cow in a bad light. Well intentioned donors have funded chairs on organic production at the university. The organic farming school is well attended and growing. Extension hosts small farm conferences throughout the state that are well attended and create revenue for the university. Since the internet, meetings for conventional growers see much smaller attendance. The points in question are; how many organic fruit producers do we have in Michigan now verses 5, 10, 15 or 20 years ago? How many have been in business all those years versus how many are new? What percentage of organic growers income is derived from organic farming? (How many organic farmers live off farming versus outside income). In how many cases does conventional farming subsidize the organic portion of a farm?

I don’t know the answers to all of those questions but I feel that the facts would be valuable to growers on all sides of the debate.

I want to point out that in America last year we fed Americans and still exported $23 billion more than we imported. A business of this magnitude will of course have negative side effects, including persistent chemicals in water, erosion, depleted soils, etc. We should make it our goal to remedy these real problems  and find better alternatives to persistent chemicals, better systems for soil management etc. I believe that organic programs at our universities may find some of the solutions to these problems. However, I do not believe that we should throw out science in the very serious business of agriculture. The organic movement has actually harmed the advancement of new and better farming methods by diverting so much research and funding away from progressive technologies.  I am not willing to forgo the use of effective safe pesticides just because they were synthesized, or derived from a petroleum product. (Almost all of our pesticides break down quickly and do not show up as residues in food.) When making pesticide choices we do always opt for the best ecological choice even when that might cost more.

Frequent references to organic food by food editors has created an illusion that there is a “local organic alternative” available. And, by implication, that conventionally grown local food is less safe and less desirable. The truth in the Midwest is that very few organic farmers have been able to make it work for any volume of production and that there are only very limited amounts of local organic fruit. I am not opposed to organic farmers and those who want to have organic food, (we have become friends with a large cherry grower with an organic block and we frequently share ideas) however, I do not agree that organic is better food, is safer, or is more sustainable. The opposite has proven to be true in Michigan.

For us the goal is to grow the safest, best quality fruit, and to make a living doing it,  and at the same time leave the farm in the same or better shape than when me moved here.  I expect to adopt new practices that help us to do a better job, but, Organic is not a goal of ours because it rules out too many wonderful advancements in  growing fruit.

Tags: Cherries, cherry growing

Join Orchard Talk every day in February as the King Orchards family, crew and guest bloggers will be writing about cherries: growing and harvesting cherries, cherry recipes, cherry juice, and cherry nutrition news.  We’re calling this series “28 Days Powered by Red,” in honor of National Cherry Month and American Heart Health Month.

28 Days Powered by Red: Day 1

We have a gorgeous winter day today. Unfortunately, I won’t be out much since I am trying to wrap up the year end accounting. The preliminary meeting went OK with our accountant but we have some ripples. Glenn Kole has been doing our tax returns for years. He is retired as a MSU farm economist with extension, and he really knows his farm tax landscape. But, now he is retiring from doing tax returns too, so he set us up with an ag accountant with a larger Traverse City firm. The first meeting went well and we have lots to think about. We are now paying the Michigan Business Tax. Purely ag enterprises are exempt but when you sell direct to the public (farm markets), or business to business (b2b mail order cherry juice) then you lose your exemption. We are exploring forming an LLC to put the mail order stuff under so we don’t lose the exemption on the ag side. We all know the state is desperate for the money!

This winter we have a constant buzz going in the shop. Tad Dowker, a long time cherry harvest helper, graduated from MTU (My alma mater!) and was laid off from his engineering job. Tad and Eric Belcher (our capable mechanic) have teamed up in the shop and are putting King Orchards on the right track.

First they took apart the old cherry harvester and replaced rusted and fatigued metal with lots of fabricating and welding. They made numerous improvements over the original design. Next they brought in the newer shaker that we bought in California last summer. They added numerous features which adapt it to our hilly terrain. We hope to take a shaker head from an old Shockwave Shaker which is very gentle on trees and fruit, and install it on a newer Coe shaker which isn’t as sensitive. This will take some planning and lots of fabrication.

Now they have taken our old pickup truck and removed the body to make the first of two forklifts on the schedule. Both Tad and Eric love “mud trucks” so they have brought their expertise on suspensions to the project and this looks like the best shopbuilt forklift ever. Instead of rear springs we use air bags from semi-truck suspensions. This allows a super soft smooth ride for the bins of apples and cherries. These lifts cost a fraction of a new brand name forklift and they actually fit our needs better than anything you can buy (we make them lower and shorter so they slip under the fruit and branches) The beauty of these lifts is that a worker can easily learn to drive them, they scoot quickly and quietly down long rows and back and forth to the farm yard bringing in bins of cherries (2000 lbs) or apples (1000 lbs).

If there is time we will buy several old school bus chassis and strip them down then add a huge fan to make wind machines. I have blogged in the past about wind machines and we think adding 5-6 more will make us feel more protected.

I have to quit blogging now so that I can think of projects to stay ahead of the shop’s dynamic duo!
John

Tags: cherry farming, cherry growing, cherry juice, cherry shakers, Crop Updates & Orchard Talk, Our Websites, Powered by Red

Well today we began picking in earnest and u-pickers are showing up. This is the turning point when we start taking in money on the crops which have been getting a lot of expensive care. Usually we have stretched all of our financial resources out to the max just as the sweet cherry harvest (and sales) begin. We always have lots of projects and ideas which we purchase and implement throughout the year (you already heard about the new plantings) so we can always think of ways to spend the money.
Betsy and I have been taking two tours a day through the home farm here trying to stay abreast of the ripening fruit so we can let our customers know as soon as we can possibly start the u-pick. Today you can find sweet and dark cherries but they are still in the minority with many cherries that are not ready yet. It is a struggle because we want to start and the customer wants to pick but if the customer is not patient and discriminating he or she will wind up with too many not-ripe cherries which are not as sweet. The good news is that by Sunday we should be really getting lots of ripe cherries and staying ahead of the pickers. U-pickers are frequently drawn to trees with a heavy load but the trees with a light load have larger sweeter fruit and they ripen more quickly.
This crop is quite beautiful right now. The trees are heavily laden and (remarkably) the fruit is getting to be really large. Also, the fruit seems to be sweet and firm.

Tarts are coming fast now and we will start them in a 5-6 days or so, u-pick. We have a heavy crop of tarts and we are getting the pitter going asap so that we can get them pitted for those who want their u-pick pitted. I am planning on taking down an old barn next week and putting up a tent over the cement floor so we can improve the area we pit cherries in. I also bought a new conveyor system and dump tank to facilitate tart cherry pitting, but they haven’t arrived yet so let’s hope this gets put together in time for most of the season. We went with stainless steel for the conveyors and tank and the rule of thumb is that stainless is 5 times more expensive than regular steel! Ouch.

Okay I want to blow my own horn here a little bit. One of my friends was selling raspberries and I decided to stick in a few rows here. Then I added another row and 5 rows down at the US31 market too. Jim, Rose, and Betsy had no comment other than “How much did that cost” (Jim). Now they are cranking out the berries and it is fun to see. We are still learning how to trim them so they are not so overgrown but they seem to like our soil and are growing like crazy. This year I planted some black raspberries but they won’t bear until next fall probably.

Did I tell you about our trip out West?  Betsy and I and Jim and Rose all flew out to California 2 weeks ago. Jim had located some cherry harvesters on Craig’s List and we are in the market for a new used one so we all flew out to Sacramento, and then stayed in Yuba City. Talk about tourists. We drove around all these huge beautiful farms and gawked. Almonds, olives, prunes, peaches, pistachios, kiwis, pomegranates, walnuts, and persimmons. We toured 3 fruit harvester manufacturer plants and we are now trying to buy one of the harvesters we saw. Then we went down to San Francisco for 1 1/2 days then home. Brief but fun.

The little Northern Spy apple trees that we grafted have not fared so well. We did 200 and about 35 are growing, about 50 are alive but not growing and I don’t know what to expect. They have not shriveled and don’t appear to be dying but they are not growing either so I don’t expect much from them. I think I will try again next year and I will get going earlier so they have mare time to knit together before I put them out in the row. I am still happy that I finally did some of my own grafting.

The army of young people that help with sorting cherries and waiting on our customers are getting going this week so we will be ready to assist our customers.

It is really nice to still have great potential for a full harvest of fruit.

I planted some high performance sweet corn that needs warm soils. I waited until the soil temp hit 65f and then planted a whole bunch. Then it turned cold and rainy and stayed in the 40s and 50s during May. The corn stand looks bad. I will disc in the worst of it and limp along with the rest. When I realized that I had been too hasty then I planted more corn hoping to fill the void. So hopefully the customer will be able to get our sweet corn all season long.

One new thing you might encounter is the Good Agricultural Program (GAP) which we are implementing. The response by the government to much publicized food bourne illnesses has been to require GAPs programs of all farms and processors who sell to the government. Big retailers are on board too. Much of it makes sense and is useful, such as; employee education about sanitation, bathroom and handwashing facilities within 5 minutes of any farm worker who is in place 3 hours or more, and guidelines for container sanitation and storage. The tough part for growers are the requirements for a log book on cleaning the bathrooms, a log of all visitors to the orchard, and no eating in the orchard except in designated areas.  No pets too.  They also want us to implement wildlife control, so we will claim the dog is here under that provision.  The traceability parts mean that every container will have to have a way of identifying the orchard, block, day, and the people working when it was picked.  We growers are mostly not interested in keeping a lot of log books and records. Big farms will have an easier time because they can have a person dedicated to it and they don’t have as many small operations going. Our objective is to have our Sweet cherries, Tart cherries, and Apples all GAP certified this summer. We will have to pay for a USDA inspector to come out and inspect us. The first time it is by appointment and then they will spot check to make sure that we are implementing the plan as agreed.  Rose has taken the point on this and she has made every employee watch a sanitation video, and then she kept a log of that. Now we are purchasing portapotties for the more remote locations. The sweet cherries that were picked today came into the fruitstand with a tag that had the information on what day and what orchard they came from.

This evening I had 4 deer eating the good block of sweet corn. After supper I went out to the sprayer and loaded it with 72 lbs of raw eggs. We buy them in milk cartons for the restaurant trade. I put 2 cases in with 200 gallons of water and spray nonbearing trees and corn plants. The eggs immediately begin to decay and smell bad and that will bother the deer for a week or so.

Good Night

John

Tags: cherry growing, orchard update, u-picking cherries