North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[road's end farm <organic101@linkny.com>]

On Dec 12, 2007, at 7:20 AM, Thomas Olenio wrote:

> With the new strains of ecoli, deliberately running animals in the orchard
> is a bad idea today.
>
> Once upon a time it was good idea, today it is a very bad idea.
>
> I would NEVER buy fruit/cider/produce from any farm that deliberately ran
> livestock (of any species) through the orchard.  It may be picturesque, cut
> down on insects and boost sales, but to a thinking consumer it is health
> folly.  It is no different that migrant workers defecating in the fields and
> contaminating food.
>
> With modern changes in ecoli this is only common sense.  Common sense can
> sometimes be hard to find today though.
Common sense in this case, even with modern changes in ecoli, doesn't require that you never have livestock in the orchard. It only requires that livestock are not in the orchard too close to harvest time.

Current guidelines are 120 days prior to harvest if the edible portion of the crop contacts the soil; and 90 days if the edible portion doesn't contact the soil.

Unless drops are harvested for human consumption, orchard fruit is a crop that doesn't contact the soil. Even if you're worried about the drops, there's still close to 8 months of the year (less of course if the orchard contains fruit that ripens at different times) during which livestock can safely be grazed there. Whether this portion of time overlaps with the spring fruit drop is going to depend on the variety of fruit; but there may be benefit from having livestock in the orchard even if they go in in late fall, after the harvest.

There's some evidence that pasture-raised livestock are much less likely to carry the hazardous strain of E coli than feedlot-raised livestock.

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly