North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Road's End Farm <organic87@frontiernet.net>]

On Apr 14, 2008, at 3:59 PM, Karen Tillou wrote:

> who out there in the east is successfully growing organic fruit? are you in your backyard, or big-time commercial, or inbetween, taking fruit to a farmer's market or restaurant when you have it...

I grow some strawberries and a few melons, along with a lot of different vegetables and a few herbs. I've had some luck with Japanese plums and with peaches and apricots, though I'm in a borderline location for those as far as weather is concerned, and the last few winters have not been kind to them at all. My sales are mostly at farmers' market, with some to local groceries, etc. Some years ago I successfully grew organic grapes at a different location also in the Finger Lakes; those were mostly sold to wineries, some went as fresh fruit. I've put a few grapes in here recently, and may put in some more.

I see other local organic fruit in the stores, so I know others are doing it; and I know people in the area who have grown or are growing grapes, peaches, raspberries. I do see some local organic apples, but I usually get mine as barter from an old orchard owned by friends of mine; these are organically grown, and taste fine, but are often not very good looking, but they're not professional growers and do very little to the trees. The organic apples in the stores do look good, but as I don't need to buy them I don't pay them a lot of attention. 

> what is successful fruit?  does it mean no bugs, or does it mean enough bug free fruit to have some for storage and eating out of hand, enough wormy  but ok fruit for canning/drying, and enough wormy/scabby fruit to juice with and make cider with too?  does it mean some years are boom and some are bust?  

What counts as successful fruit is going to depend a lot on the operation. I had a winery eager for my seconds peaches, so seconds in those were no problem. I don't usually have many seconds in strawberries; the challenge in those for the organic grower isn't insects, it's weeds. Some markets will buy fruit which has cosmetic problems but is otherwise sound; some won't. Very few markets, if any, will take wormy fruit.

Some years may be boom and some bust in conventional farming as well as in organic. I think the weather is a bigger problem there. Organically-managed soils may be more resistant to drought and flood than some conventionally-managed fields, due to a probable higher organic matter content (some conventional growers are also careful about this), but there are limits to this factor.

> what are the bug tolerances for you smaller commercial growers - can/do you sell buggy/scabby seconds to home canners at the farmers markets? is it legal to sell juice made with a wormy apple (wormy but sound; not rotting, of course...)?

I don't know what the legal situation is for cider. I wouldn't bring to market any produce with actual insects in it; the tolerance for scarring left by insects no longer there, or for scab, is going to vary from market to market. I can often sell fruit with minor cosmetic problems as firsts, and there is market here for "canning grade" in some crops.
>

>  running animals under trees for june drop control, windfalls, larvae overwinterers?  we bag here for scab and the codling moth and apple maggot, but i have yet to introduce animals (poultry or pigs) into the orchard as it is on public proerty, i don't live there, i'm not there every day, etc.  someday, i hope to work that concept into an orchard.

These days you're limited on when you can turn livestock into an orchard by restrictions on fresh manure use, brought on in large part by recent salmonella concerns. Raw manure, according to current standards for organic certification, has to be incorporated into the soil at least 90 days prior to the harvest of a product whose edible portion does not have direct contact with the ground (120 days if the edible portion does contact the ground); so livestock can't be pastured in the orchard within 3 months of harvest, which rules out June drop control by this method except for late-ripening fruits. You could put livestock in after harvest is over, or early in the spring; but from what I've read on this, you need to be careful what species of livestock you put in and just how you do this, in order to prevent damage to the trees or the soil.


--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly