North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[mIEKAL aND <dtv@mwt.net>]

Here in WI it takes 3 years before your land can be certified organic 
via OCIA.  If you are really interested it would be best to make your 
design & get your plantings in place, locate your area certification 
agency & begin the process.  most probably you will not want to certify 
the whole of your land, just the area you will be growing on.  Now that 
the new Organic Standards are out & in operation, a lot of what is 
organic & what isnt is shifting around, so that would effect each 
winery differently I imagine.  In order to put the new USDA 
certification seal on yr product it needs to be 95% organic.

Here in WI they scared up a bunch of grant money to give growers 
startup money to create small scale vinyards.  I attended a tour & 
meeting & lost interest pretty quickly when they kept talked about 2-4D 
drift.  There were a number of others there who were also doing the 
project organically which had the same reaction, so possibly all the 
organic folks may pool together.

A number of the growers here have gone into this completely cold, some 
growing grapes as the first thing they have grown, so Lon's book will 
be indispensible for folks who are just starting out & need all this 
info under one cover.

mIEKAL


On Saturday, November 23, 2002, at 11:57  PM, Dee wrote:

> Hey, and when I saw Lon's book and name in the Seed Saver's catalog I 
> ran around the house
> introducing my family to my online friend. :-D
>
> So if someone wanted to raise and sell organic grapes what can be 
> expected of the market? A
> friend of mine sold 7 tons of non-organic grapes to a winery this last 
> summer and I am wondering
> if there are "organic" wineries and would I have to be certified 
> organic to be labeled? I
> imagine I would. Anyone know of a good site for getting certified? We 
> sign the purchase
> agreement Wednesday on 20 acres and I am pretty sure nothing has been 
> done to it regarding
> fertilizing and pest and weed control for the last 7 years and 
> wondering what all would be
> expected to get certified.
>
> Dee