permaculture

[Leslie Moyer <unschooler@lrec.org>]

Thanks Jim--I'm already on the Organic Tree Fruit Assn email list, but for 
some reason I can't post there.  I think they must moderate new members (many 
lists do), but perhaps their moderator doesn't check the file to approve 
those waiting emails as I've sent through a couple of emails (months ago) and 
neither has shown up.  It's a pretty slow list.  I've also pored over the 
MOSES website but had not found those particular articles--thanks!!  Just 
what I was looking for!!  I would like to attend their upcoming conference 
later this month (they have a whole mini-course on organic orcharding), but 
it's so far away from me and I've got baby plants I'm tending.  I may try to 
get some info from their presenters later....  For those who are interested, 
ATTRA just did a webinar on Organic Orcharding that was really good.  You can 
find it archived on their website (free).

Steven (or Margaret?) Eisenhaur, did you mean that Michael Phillips has a new 
edition of "The Apple Grower" or that he has a new book by a different name?  
I have his newest (2005) edition of The Apple Grower and I don't see another 
book by him on Amazon....

Rivka, I know this practice (keeping animals in the orchard all or most of 
the year) would prevent me from becoming certified organic, but we have such 
bad insect and disease pressure here because of high humidity that organic 
fruit production is nearly impossible. I'm feeling like I'm going to have to 
choose between some degree of profitability (and using animals) or losing so 
much of my crop that I can't make ends meet.  I won't use harmful 
chemicals--that is not an option for me, personally--for my own health as 
much as my customers.  

I've been attending a lot of workshops and webinars and doing a lot of 
reading about organic fruit management and it sounds like the biggest pest 
problem in my area that there isn't a good organic control method for is plum 
curculio.  I think that pigs (cleaning up dropped fruit) and chickens 
(cleaning up pupating insects) would be pretty effective control measures for 
this and the little bit I've been able to find on this confirms those 
thoughts.  One of the articles about integrating animals into your orchard 
system said it cut down plum curculio by something like 70-80% I think?  
(Don't quote me.)  It was high, though....maybe a conventional orchardist 
wouldn't be OK with still losing 20-30% of a crop, but I'd be thrilled with 
those numbers.  

We will be using ramial wood chips as mulch and I've already started comfrey 
from seed (the chickens would probably eat this, too...hmmm..)  Our thought 
is to use electric poultry netting to confine the chickens to the area under 
the trees, where the dropped & pupating insects would be. We know they would 
scratch in the mulch (we've raised plenty of chickens before)--and we would 
want them to because that's where the insects will be hiding--but because of 
the netting, they wouldn't be able to scatter it far. I do have a concern 
about their adding too much nitrogen under the trees however--bad for soil 
biology & may be adding nitrogen at a bad time depending upon how long we 
have to leave the chickens there.  We wouldn't keep the chickens there all 
year long, though...just through the worst of the insect hatching season(s).  
We have a small, locally-owned USDA-inspected poultry processing facility 
just 5 miles from our home so we would raise broilers on the orchard (under 
the trees only) and then have them butchered when we were done with them. We 
can sell them through a local food coop that we're a part of. 

We would ring the pigs' noses to keep them from rooting and would only keep 
them on that pasture long enough to pick up the fruit drops--they wouldn't be 
housed there permanently.  Herding pigs....now that's an interesting image....

Off to do more research.  Thanks again for those links, Jim!

--Leslie

On Feb 7, 2011, at 10:51 AM, Erdman, James wrote:

> 
> Hi Leslie
> There is a group that started in Wisconsin a few years ago that now covers 
> a wider area called "Organic Tree Fruit Asociation" and some members have 
> been keeping pigs in their apple orchards.  One is in Michigan and has been 
> the subject of field days, etc.  I have heard the owner speak at the 
> Wisconsin Organic Farming Conference in the past.  The Organic Tree Fruit 
> Assoc newsletters are available online:
> http://www.mosesorganic.org/treefruit/newsletters.htm#issues  I think that 
> Winter 2009 (Vol 5 issue 1) and Fall 2009 (Vol 5 issue 2) have articles 
> about hogs in orchards, and refer to articles in earlier issues, also.  The 
> Organic Tree Fruit Association also has an online discussion  that is a 
> Yahoo group.  Info should be at the website, I think.
> 
> Jim Erdman, in Menomonie, WI