April 2024 - 22

IFTA CONFERENCE
said Andrew Sundquist during a tour of the company's
Moxee groves.
At another Cosmic Crisp block, Sundquist root prunes
both sides of trees. The company experimented with
pruning management, allowing limbs to grow too long
or or cut them too short, producing varying results by
picking crews. Sundquist worked to make the process
more uniform so pruners could easily move from
one block to the next following a basic set of rules
throughout the orchard.
" What we've been trying to do is to get back to more
uniformity and moving to a system where everything is
tied to the leader, " Sundquist said. " It's a lot easier to
teach these uniform systems. Plus, the more leaders
you have, generally, the more productive you are and the
less variability you have. "
Labor bonus
Persuading longtime labor to change thinning practices
is a challenge at Cornerstone Ranches in Toppenish.
" If you prune it correctly, you cut your costs quite a
bit, " said Graham Gamache, owner. " One of the hurdles
that we're battling against is we have a legacy pruning
crew. A lot of the same people have been working here
for a long time and so when you introduce a new tactic to
them, they're hesitant to adopt it. "
Technology could help reduce thinning costs.
" We're trying to get away from the labor, " said Javier
Ramos, apple manager. " Because we always have a
lack of people working in the field, I'm always thinking
about mechanization of the thinning. "
THE OTHER THING THAT
WE'RE LOOKING AT IN THE FUTURE
IS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO
BE ROBOT-READY AND ALLOW FOR
MECHANIZATION TO COME IN. A LOT
OF THE MACHINES WORK BETTER
ON A VERTICAL WALL.
- Suzanne Bishop, Allan Bros.
Discipline requirement
In its Grandview blocks, Washington Fruit Growers
runs an intense cropload management system for
varieties including Fujis and Galas grown via formally
trained V-type trellis and multileader systems.
" The biggest thing for me is the uniformity of those
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Newcastle, CA
22 | APRIL 2024
multileader systems, " Ramon Cuevas, manager, said.
" You've got to be really disciplined when you start it. If
you're going to do multileader, you've got to make sure
you select similar branches that you're going to bring
out and be disciplined to the spacing in between. "
Despite extra work required to teach picking crews
how to properly check the buds, harvest bonuses have
helped incentivize the process.
" We have three opportunities to get exactly what we
want out of this deal, and the quicker we can get to
our number, what we've seen is we get a better fruit
size and better quality of fruit, " Cuevas said. " Our
philosophy is: Get it up to the top wire as fast as we
can, but in the meantime, take what the tree gives us. "
Changing grove
Sean Gilbert, president of Gilbert Orchards, talked
about the challenges of growing apples on an orchard
that has been in constant development since he was a
child helping his father train young Galas. The Gilberts
transformed the old orchard with 30 by 40 inch
spacings into an economical modern Honeycrisp
orchard on M7 rootstock.
Focusing on color development has underscored
the importance of formal training, he said, eliminating
" cheater limbs " that don't conform to the system.
" We've learned we have to manage that very
carefully, " Gilbert said. " And those of us that enjoyed
the early years on Honeycrisp, we could get by without
having a very high-colored Honeycrisp, and we could
still sell it into the market for decent money. "
http://www.FowlerNurseries.com
April 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2024
