Fruit Conference Notes

At this time last week I was in a Bavarian-themed tourist town called Leavenworth, on the eastern side of the Cascades in Washington State. I was there as a speaker for a session at the second International Organic Fruit Symposium. When Joji Muramoto, with whom we have had the fortune to cooperate on several experiments involving strawberries over the years, first invited me to be a co-presenter with him, I pretty much turned him down flat. Even if it was to be an all-expenses paid trip to a beautiful part of the country, I just couldn’t imagine getting away for four days at such a busy time. Well, after his two back-ups also turned him down, he came back to me and this time I gave in. I guess I figured that I would be ready for a break by this time in the season, and if I forced my hand maybe it would be a good thing.

We flew into Seattle and rented a car to make the two hour drive to Leavenworth. On the way up the west side of the Cascades we followed the Snohomish River on Highway 2 and, once over Stevens Pass, we followed the Wenatchee River on the east side. Because of snow-melt, both rivers were at their peak flows. To someone who has spent their entire life in Central and Southern California, the amount of water in the Pacific Northwest is a wondrous thing.

After registering for the conference, the “international” aspect of it became clear when we looked at the list of attendees. People came from all parts of Europe, South America, Canada, and even from Pakistan. The next day’s sessions were full of interesting bits of information for me. Several presenters talked about efforts in Europe to breed varieties of apples that were a better fit for organic production because they were resistant to diseases—particularly apple scab. Scab, a fungal disease that causes large lesions on the surface of both leaves and fruit, is a major problem for us, as it is for growers all over the world. It is also a big part of the reason that the arid portion of Washington State to the east of the Cascades became such a major production area—they don’t get scab (or as one former apple grower at the conference said, “you have to try hard to get it”).

Another interesting development discussed at the conference was the use of mustard seed meal (the solids that are left after mustard seeds have been pressed for oil) as a treatment for apple “plant-back” disorder. It is common for conventional apple growers to fumigate before planting back into ground that was previously in apples. They do this because harmful levels of soil borne diseases and micro-organisms build up in the soil meaning that apples planted after apples almost always grow poorly compared with apples planted on “virgin” soil. A researcher at Washington State University named Mark Mazzola has done experiments with different combinations of mustard meal side by side with chemical fumigants and found them to perform equal to, or in some cases better than, their chemical counterparts.

The highlight of the conference, however, was the tour. On the third day, we set out in buses early in the morning into the beautiful countryside to the east of Leavenworth. Our first stop was at the huge Stemilt packing facility outside of Wenatchee. We donned hairnets and followed our guide along catwalks that passed from giant room to giant room. Stemilt contracts with over 200 mostly local growers and is over 30 percent organic. Our humble packing shed would easily fit inside of their employee break room. (Later that day, we would visit the home, orchard, and composting facility of Kyle Mathison, the second generation patriarch of the Stemilt fruit company. On four days notice, they were able to dine and entertain all 150 conference goers plus another 30 or so local invitees at their hilltop home overlooking the Wenatchee Valley.)

After visiting the WSU research station, our next stop was the beautiful farm of the long-time organic grower Mike Brownfield in the Chelan area. As we drove up his drive, I was amazed to see apples, peaches, apricots, pears, and cherries all side by side, loaded with fruit and super healthy. As with most growers in the area, Brownfield grows almost everything in trellised, high-density plantings. These come into production much earlier than standard free-standing orchards. They are also easier to manage–most of the fruit can be picked without ladders and because they are nearly two dimensional, weed control around the base of the trees becomes much easier. In fact, it was Brownfield’s method of controlling weeds that impressed the conference goers the most. He had a tractor set up that mechanically killed most of the weeds between and alongside the trees while simultaneously mowing the cover cropped alleyways and blowing the residue between the trees to act as a mulch. We stopped next at a larger organic orchard with dramatic views of Lake Chelan. Ray Fuller is another pioneering organic grower in this area and his orchards were also well-managed and incredibly healthy.

Overall, it was an inspiring trip and I learned things that I can apply to our own orchard crops. It was also encouraging to see how successful the organic fruit growers are up there, and how well they are able to compete with conventional growers with beautiful organic fruit. As impressed as I was by the seemingly ideal growing conditions (and elaborate growing systems) that I saw during the trip, it was good to get back home and launch back into the daily trials and tribulations of my own farm. Next up, to tackle the slug-like worms that are wreaking havoc in the pear trees…