North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

Stephen, wow, I guess NY has one thing going for it.  My extension has two good horticulturists on staff who will whip out their microscope and take a look at anything I can't see with my Radioshack $15 pocket microscope (great tool).  I've had pedigreed pathologists charge me nothing but lunch at a diner to check out some cambium problems on ancient apples.  When my extension can't handle a problem I go right to the specialists at Cornell, all for very reasonable fees. 

 

Of course, their true expertise is commercial fruit production, so they are not always on top of the best approaches to obtaining sound fruit with the least chemical input amongst other home and estate orchard issues, but the bureacracy is barely noticable.  Given Californias semi-permanent fiscal crisis (thank you prop. 13) I guess it's not surprising that they don't give much away there.  We do have a very high state tax rate in NY.