North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Rick Valley <bamboogrove@cmug.com>]

> There's undoubtedly been work done in this area since, though I haven't
> got it to hand. Neighbors and I applied for a SARE grant some years ago
> to try sheep in stone fruit, but didn't get the grant, which was to have
> gone for fencing costs etc, and we're both pretty broke and didn't do
> it.
I met a woman using sheep in trellised apples; she said it worked if she was
careful; she had an electric fence line on each side of the trellis.

>These days we would also have a complication as raw manure
> applications too close to harvest are discouraged due to the new e-coli
> versions; this would be less of a problem if your orchard is all
> harvested over a relatively limited length of time.
Does anyone know if these e-coli strains have been studied as to whether
they are actually a concern in these grazing systems or only in penned and
fed systems? Are geese a concern for e-coli too, or are they just lumped in
with the four-leggeds?

-Rick