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...
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 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...)?
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.
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