August 2019 - 24

CHERRY MARKETING INSTITUTE
Honoring Jim Laubach a
big part of cherry festival
PHILIP J. KORSON
Cherry Marketing Institute
517-669-4264
As I write this article this month harvest
is underway in southwest Michigan and
already wrapped up in Pennsylvania. The
season here in Michigan is late and the
wet and cool spring has kept growers on
their toes. Every year is different, and this
year is no exception.
This past week, we recognized an
exceptional man who has had a huge
impact on the cherry industry. Jim
Laubach is this year's " Cherry Industry
Person of the Year " award recipient. An
industry day celebration took place on
July 2 at the Northwest Horticulture
Research Station in Traverse City,
Michigan. Jim was recognized for his
dedicated service to the cherry industry.
He has been around for a long time, but
this wise, quiet man has never sought
recognition or accolades for the work he
has done. Today, I want to change that!
Jim Laubach and his company,
HortSystems, was one of the pioneers in
developing a network of environmental
monitoring stations and using the
information generated to run predictive
models that would help in the management
of insects and diseases. This would be a
revolutionary integrated pest management
(IPM) decision-making tool that would
have far reaching effectiveness for
Michigan's tree fruit industry. When
external funds were not available for the
idea, Jim decided to set up the network
though HortSystems and built the output
complete with models for his growers. It
was highly successful.
In 1998, Project GREEEN was funded
at $6.7 million per year. One of the pillars
of Project GREEEN was a comprehensive
weather system, along with disease and
insect models that would help growers
make better disease and pest decisions.
When this happened, Jim gifted his
network and output models to Michigan
State University (MSU), and this became
the beginning of the current statewide
MSU Enviroweather system. This
system now has state-of-the-art weather
monitoring sites throughout Michigan and
Door County, Wisconsin. It has evolved
to include predictive models for many
agricultural crops.
Jim served for many years on MSU's
Enviroweather advisory group that was
instrumental in developing the system
that exists today. It is really pretty simple.
You can have great science, but we need
to be able to apply it in the fields in ways
that growers can use it. Enviroweather has
become so much a part of our decisionmaking
process for disease and insect
control, it's hard to even imagine farming
24 | FruitGrowersNews.com
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Tart cherry harvest got off to a late start
this season. Photo: CMI
without this tool. Best of all, it can save
growers a lot of time and money. This
innovation and contribution to the tree
fruit industry was like Thomas Edison and
the light bulb. It has been and will have a
lasting impact on the tree fruit industry.
Jim could write a book on IPM scouting
and has shared his talent and advise with
researchers and Extension specialists. He
has worked with them on research projects
as well as Extension meetings. He was
always the guy who didn't talk a lot, but
when he did you better be taking notes
because it will be important information.
Congratulations Jim on this welldeserved
award and thank you for your
service to the cherry industry.
I also would like to extend my thanks
to the National Cherry Festival and the
over 600 volunteers who worked so
hard to make it a fantastic event. The
festival is always a great opportunity to
promote all facets of the cherry industry
to the hundreds of thousands of guests
throughout the week. Nita Send and
her committee does a great job with the
industry booth at the open space and is
behind the scenes making sure that the
booth always looks great, and tells the
cherry industry story.
Special thanks to the MSU team at the
Northwest Horticulture Research Station
for their hard work to make the cherry
connect a great experience for the over
2,000 people who will visit the station
during the week.
Steve Patmore worked timelessly to
arrange cherry products to sample and
was the crew boss. Many people from the
cherry industry participated and helped
including Barb Wunsch, Judy LaCross,
Rick and Donna Sayler, the Lyons'
family, Bob and Janet Underwood, Jeff
and Nita Send, Sarah McGuire, Angela
Sayler, Cindy Weber, Gary Kaberle and
the list goes on.
To the many people I missed, thank
you for volunteering your time, your
energy and your expertise to make this
year's National Cherry Festival a huge
success. Lots of great press and lots of
great memories were made! A huge
thank you to everyone who played a
role and helped to promote this terrific
industry. FGN
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August 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of August 2019
