Special Reports/Organic Farming
A future for
organic apple growing in the Northeast
By Laura Sayre
In the humid Eastern states, expanding marketing
opportunities are matched by stubborn production challenges.
But new disease and pest management tools may be tipping the
balance in favor of locally-grown organic tree fruits
The USDA Economic Research Service tells us that in 2001 (the
most recent year for which totals are available) there were
12,189 acres of certified organic apple orchards nationwide,
up from 9,270 in 2000. But just 633.3 of those acres, or about
5 percent, were east of the Continental Divide.
Eastern
apple growers face twice the disease pressures as
Western orchardists, in addition to over 60 destructive
pests, but rumor has it the fruit is twice as delicious |
While Eastern and Midwestern
states like New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin
have long histories of fruit growing and strong—if
struggling—apple sectors, growth in the organic apple business
has been largely restricted to Western states like Washington,
Arizona, and Idaho, where drier growing conditions translate
into drastically reduced pest and disease pressures.
Eastern fruit growers face twice as many problem diseases
as their Western counterparts (including fireblight, scab,
black rot, and cedar apple rust) in addition to no fewer than
60 species of damaging insects. The single most destructive
insect pest for Eastern growers—the infamous plum curculio—is
unknown in the West. The geographic disparity is so great that
Eastern tree fruit growing is widely regarded as "the final
organic frontier," as Michael Phillips put it in his The Apple
Grower: A Guide for the Organic Orchardist (Chelsea Green,
1998).
If that phrase sounds like it contains a challenge—a throwing
down of the gauntlet for organic practitioners, it's because,
well, it does. Apple growers may seem like a soft-spoken
bunch, but they're stubborn, too; and their determination to
find organic solutions to Eastern production problems springs
from a fierce loyalty to the region, the work, and the way of
life.
Eastern apples have more flavor than Western apples, declares
Don Jantzi, who grew up on a family apple farm near Buffalo,
New York, and has been orchard foreman for The Rodale
Institute® Experimental Farm since 1986. "Western soils tend
to be sandier, and those sandy soils give less flavor," he
explains. Eastern growers, moreover, have a broader range of
varieties to choose from than their Western counterparts,
which means that "Eastern growers tend to be more independent.
Out West, the marketing programs are so advanced that growers
are more locked into a certain set of varieties." And as
anyone who's been to a supermarket lately knows, those
dominant Western varieties have grown steadily more tasteless
over the years as they have been further selected for color,
uniformity, and durability under shipment.
Pennsylvania State University fruit researcher Jim Travis goes
even further, arguing that what is widely regarded as the
humid East's greatest liability for organic fruit
production—large and vigorous insect populations—could
eventually be seen as its greatest asset. "Look at this
biodiversity," he says, gesturing at the rich spring scene,
bumblebees staggering through the air, green grass and
dandelions and flowering trees bursting out as far as the eye
can see. "Western fruit producers are growing in the desert.
They don't have all this to work with."
The upshot is that despite the difficulties, Eastern fruit
growing remains viable. "If you have a good market for
processed products—like baby food, dried apples, juice, or
sauce—or if you have a good direct marketing strategy, like a
pick-your-own operation or farmstand," Jantzi says, "you can
make it work."
Deep roots
The Rodale Institute Farm currently maintains about 1100
apple trees on a total of just under six acres. The oldest
trees here were established in 1981, but the majority were
planted in 1990, when an apple production project was launched
with support from the
USDA's
old Low-Input Sustainable Agriculture (LISA) program (the
precursor to the Sustainable Agriculture Research and
Education program, or SARE). That project brought together
researchers from Rodale, Cornell University, Rutgers
University, the University of Massachusetts, and the
University of Vermont, and yielded (among other things) an
84-page Management Guide for Low-Input Sustainable Apple
Production, which still serves as a valuable reference for the
running of the orchard today.
After the research agenda wound down, a decision was made to
continue managing the trees for production purposes alone.
"Our goal was to maintain the orchard and to meet the
challenge of staying on top of new management strategies as
they became available," says Jantzi.
Today, it looks like that strategy may be literally bearing
fruit. Evolving market conditions and new materials are making
organic apple production in the East more attractive than
ever. And there is now talk of initiating a new research
agenda in the Rodale orchards in collaboration with
Pennsylvania State University
Traditional management, with a few key differences
Many aspects of organic apple production would be
perfectly familiar to conventional orchardists. Organic
managers adhere to the same basic principles when it comes to
selecting a site for a new orchard, choosing rootstocks,
pruning, and staking or trellising trees. "There's an organic
grower in New York who maintains that natural trees"—that is,
non-grafted, seedling trees, grown on their own
rootstocks—"are stronger and easier to keep healthy than
regular grafted trees," notes Jantzi. Most organic growers,
however, including The Rodale Institute farmers, continue to
work with grafted trees because they are easier and less
hazardous to prune, thin, spray, and harvest. Independent of
other factors, organic growers tend to favor wider tree
spacings in their orchards, and "may want to be more diligent
in their pruning," Jantzi says, since they need to rely more
heavily on factors like air circulation to reduce disease.
One area in which organic orchard establishment may differ
sharply from conventional practice is in the selection of
varieties. Since the mid-1980s, breeders have been releasing a
series of disease-resistant apple cultivars, including many
that are resistant to apple scab and others that show
resistance to rust, fire blight, powdery mildew, or fruit
rots. Rootstocks, too, vary in their susceptibility to certain
diseases. While some growers reject the disease-resistant
varieties in favor of more recognizable—and therefore more
marketable—cultivars, Jantzi emphasizes that "there are good
scab-resistant varieties out there." Organic growers can make
their lives a little easier by including a handful of
disease-resistant varieties in their orchard mix.
"Good," it should be noted, is a strictly relative term for
apple growers, since there are so many qualities making up a
desirable apple, from tree maturation, growth habit, and
blooming period, to yield, fruit size, color, texture, flavor,
and storage characteristics. As any grower will tell you,
successful orcharding requires a combination of early, mid-,
and late season varieties both to spread out the risk of
weather and pest susceptibilities and to extend the marketing
period over as many weeks as possible.
The
Rodale Institute orchards include both scab-susceptible and
scab-resistant varieties; there are also a couple of heirloom
varieties that happen to be fairly scab-resistant, including
Tydeman and Brown Russet. Because of their research history,
the trees here include a wider assortment of varieties than
most growers on this scale would have: 39 altogether, from
early-season cultivars like Lodi, Jersey Mac, and Williams
Pride to late-season favorites like Rome and Granny Smith.
"Some of the varieties we have I would not plant again, but
you work with what you have," observes Jantzi.
The farm's younger orchard is dominated by three varieties:
Liberty, NY 74828-12, and NY 75441-67. Liberty is a
Macintosh-type apple and one of the most common scab-resistant
varieties; Jantzi says it tends to be pretty consistent in its
fruit bearing, has a good red color, and is good for both
baking and eating fresh, but doesn’t store particularly well.
The two numbered varieties were obtained on a research basis
but were never released commercially and thus were never
assigned names. Nevertheless, Jantzi says they've proven their
worth on this particular site.
The orchard floor
"There's lots of debate about when and how much to mow,"
Jantzi says. "We mow fairly constantly through the growing
season, for aesthetic reasons, but some growers and
researchers argue that letting the grass stand under the trees
encourages more beneficial insects." On the other hand, Jantzi
reports that whereas in earlier years Rodale's orchard
managers released packaged beneficial insects, he no longer
does this
since
beneficial insect populations—including ladybugs, lacewings,
honeybees, flies, spiders, wasps, insidious flower bugs,
predatory mites—are now healthy without supplementation.
For additional weed management, Jantzi goes through with the
Weed Badger about four times a year, clearing an 18-inch strip
along the base of the trees. The aggressive cultivating tool
is effective but time consuming, Jantzi says, making weed
management another area in which organic growers have to spend
more on labor than conventional growers do.
To maintain fertility in the orchard, Jantzi puts down roughly
100 lbs of compost per tree per year ("Depending on who's
doing the shoveling," he notes). They used to spread in the
spring, but a few years ago switched to spreading in the fall,
when the compost can help the fallen leaves and waste apples
decompose over the winter.
A new generation of organic pest control materials
There's no way around it: pest and disease management are a
big part of orcharding in the humid East. Problem diseases
include apple scab, flyspeck, sooty blotch, powdery mildew,
fire blight and cedar apple rust, and the list of major insect
pests is even longer, from the plum curculio, to the
oblique-banded leafroller, red-banded leafroller, tufted apple
bud moth, codling moth, Oriental fruit moth, lesser appleworm,
and European apple sawfly.
The
cornerstone of low-input orchard management is good
monitoring. Each year, Jantzi hangs a series of insect traps
in selected trees to keep tabs on pest populations. The traps
use pheromone lures or visual and/or scent mimicry to attract
specific pest species, and can be used both to calculate the
economic threshold at which spraying is justified and to
determine the optimum moment to spray.
"Most insects are most vulnerable at egg hatching stage,"
Jantzi explains, "so that's when you want to target your
spraying." It's also possible to anticipate pest cycles by
keeping track of degree days—the accumulated warmth (as
represented by mean daily temperature) above a 50°F base temp.
Codling moth eggs, for instance, will begin hatching 243
degree days after the first moth is trapped. Of course, such
calculations have to be balanced by weather conditions when it
comes to the actual spray schedule. "You go for the ideal," as
Jantzi puts it, "and then you do what the weather will allow."
Pheromones are also used for active pest management in the
form of mating-disruption cards—small plastic cards which
release female insect sex hormone odors and thereby confuse
the males as they attempt to mate. Jantzi relies on
mating-disruption to manage Oriental fruit moths and codling
moths. "They say that for the pheromones to be effective you
need a minimum orchard size of 5 acres, and your orchard
should be as square as possible," he points out. The Rodale
Institute orchards don't quite fit those parameters, but
Jantzi feels the cards offer the best solution for handling
these pests.
Probably the most radically new product for organic orchard
management is the kaolin clay product known as Surround®.
Developed in the late 1990s by two USDA Agricultural Research
Service scientists in cooperation with the Engelhard
Corporation of
Iselin,
New Jersey, Surround is based on what's called 'particle film
technology.' Rather than killing target insects, it forms a
white, powdery film on the leaves, branches, and fruits,
making them unattractive or unfamiliar to the insects. The
idea was originally developed as a possible disease-control
mechanism; but researchers discovered that while it had no
effect on diseases, it was highly effective against nearly all
the major apple insect pests. There is also some evidence that
Surround increases net photosynthesis by keeping plants cooler
in the hottest part of the day.
Jantzi and Jeff Moyer, Farm Manager at The Rodale Institute,
made frequent use of Surround in 2003, but were not totally
happy with the results—in part because last year's heavy rains
made it difficult to keep a coating built up. This year,
they're planning on concentrating the Surround coverage within
a shorter window, starting about two weeks later and ending
about six weeks earlier, and then turning to other materials.
Other, relatively new, organic pest control materials Jantzi
and Moyer plan on trying in the coming season include spinosad
(marketed by Dow under the brand name Entrust®), a
fermentation product derived from a soil-dwelling actinomycete;
and some of the neem products like Aza-Direct® (named from
azadirachtin, the active ingredient extracted from the seeds
of the neem tree). "There are some studies that have shown [Aza-Direct]
to be effective, but others have found it not to be
effective," notes Jantzi. "People are still figuring out the
best ways to use these new materials." The New Hampshire-based
organic orchardist Michael Phillips has been experimenting
with the use of whole neem oil (as opposed to derived neem
products), on the grounds that it might be more effective and
that it's economically preferable to purchase the natural
insecticide in a less processed form, as close to the original
producer as possible.
Most of these products can be tank-mixed, so if the timing is
right they can be combined to make fewer trips through the
orchard. Part of what's revolutionary about new materials like
Entrust and Pyganic® (a pyrethrum product) is that in contrast
to most organic-approved products, they work against a variety
of pests. "That kind of runs counter to organic thinking,
where you're trying to minimize impact on beneficials," Jantzi
observes. But the new materials are expensive, too, so growers
are inclined to use them conservatively.
The bottom line
Acre for acre, apple yields can be as good in organic as
in conventional, Jantzi says, although they tend to be lower
for a couple of reasons—the lack of organic-approved growth
regulators for thinning, and the related tendency of varieties
to fall into a biennial bearing habit. The Rodale Institute
farm orchards average around 600 bushels per acre. A portion
of the harvest is sold direct to the public through The Rodale
Institute bookstore, both pick-your-own and ready-picked. The
balance goes for processing, some sold wholesale for organic
cider and some custom-processed into apple butter for direct
sale.
Jantzi is quick to point out ways in which the orchard set-up
here is far from perfect—the scale, for instance, is too small
for commercial independence, too large for the available
labor. He is intimately familiar with the challenges of apple
growing and the hazards of making the switch from conventional
to organic management. Although he draws inspiration from—and
compares notes with—an annual gathering of Northeastern
organic apple growers, he still says he knows "more people who
have tried it and quit than tried it and continued."
"I think every grower has it in the back of their mind that
they'd like to get away from using pesticides, but there are a
lot of things you have to consider," he cautions. It may make
more sense to think about gradual steps on the way to
certified organic production, Jantzi says, rather than an all
or nothing approach. Above all, "You have to educate yourself
about what's possible, both in terms of production and in
terms of marketing." And what's possible is expanding all the
time.
Sample spray schedules
for organic apple production in the Northeast
By Don Jantzi and Jeff Moyer
Below are three possible spray schedules based on our
experiences here at The Rodale Institute® in Berks County,
Pennsylvania. Sample #2 was the schedule we used in 2003, and
sample #1 is what we hope to do in 2004.
NOTE: Our management decisions are geared towards
producing as large a quantity of grade A table fruit as
possible; growers with other objectives—such as cider
production—will want to make adjustments accordingly.
Disclaimer: Inclusion of products on these schedules should
not be interpreted as an endorsement of any individual brand
or company, nor has any research been done comparing
individual products. Items are listed only as examples of the
type of product or active ingredient being used.
Sample spray schedule #1
Lime sulfur and/or sulfur on scab-susceptible varieties
beginning at green tip.
Pyganic® (pyrethrum) to control leafroller, plum curculio,
fruitworm, European sawfly, at pink and/or at petal fall.
Surround® (kaolin clay), petal fall through June.
Entrust® (spinosad) and Dipel® (Bt) to control second
generation codling moth, mid-July or August.
Pheromone mating disruption for codling moth and Oriental
fruit moth, beginning at bloom.
Sample spray schedule #2
Lime sulfur and/or sulfur on scab-susceptible varieties as
needed, beginning at green tip.
Surround®, full season coverage beginning at pink or late
bloom and continuing as needed to maintain thick coating
through early August.
Sample spray schedule #3
Sulfur as needed, beginning at green tip.
Neem spray (Aza-direct®, Neem oil, Agroneem®, or Neemix®) as a
fungicide for summer diseases and a summer insecticide for
various insects, at pink and/or petal fall.
Dipel® and/or Entrust® for internal worm, late summer.
Resources
Guy Ames, Considerations in Organic Apple Production (ATTRA
Organic Matters Series, 2001)
Disease Management Guidelines for Organic Apple Production in
Ohio (West Virginia University Tree Fruit Research and
Education Center)
Management Guide for Low-Input Sustainable Apple Production
(jointly published by Cornell Univ, The Rodale Research
Center, Rutgers Univ, Univ, Univ of Massachusetts, Univ of
Vermont)
North American Fruit Explorers (NAFEX)
www.nafex.org
Stephen Page and Joseph Smillie, The Orchard Almanac: A
Seasonal Guide to Healthy Fruit Trees (agAccess, 1996)
Michael Phillips, The Apple Grower (Chelsea Green, 1998) Note:
Phillips is reportedly working on a revised edition covering
the latest materials, including Surround.
Curtsey: The New Farm
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Pakissan.com;
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