August 2022 - 4

EDITOR'S LETTER
Fruit
Field days educate with
on-farm examples of tech,
growing systems
As late-summer and fall harvests near, growers are busy preparing.
Many growers across the U.S., however, step away from their own
operations each summer to spend time in other orchards and fields,
maybe just down the road from their farm, or halfway across the
country. Field days and farm tours give
university fruit breeders and commercial
growers the opportunity to showcase
their work, whether it's a newer variety or
experimenting with a new trellis system or
sustainability-focused growing process.
The last half of July was particularly a busy
time. Fruit Growers News' assistant editor
Doug Ohlemeier travelled to Washington
for the International Fruit Tree Association
Summer Tour. Participants toured apple,
cherry and pear operations in Richland,
Pasco, Royal City, Quincy, Leavenworth and
Wenatchee. Participants included growers
Growers
News.com
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FRUITGROWERSNEWS.COM
H-2A labor firms MásLabor and AgWorks
merge
MásLabor, a provider of comprehensive
services for employers using H-2A and H-2B
labor programs, is merging with AgWorks
H2 LLC, an H-2A and H-2B consulting firm.
Chris Koger
Managing Editor
from other fruit regions in the U.S., as well as Canada, Mexico and Chile.
Doug's cover story on the event, which was July 17-20, illustrates a
positive practice we often see in the specialty crop segment: A willingness
to share information on successes or failures with others. Many times
those experiences are a mixture of success and failure. For instance, one
grower reports that while netting guards against sunburn, it can affect
overall coloring, and daytime vs. nighttime temperatures also play a part.
In late July, Senior FGN Correspondent Gary Pullano was in Benton
Harbor, Michigan, for the Viticulture Field Day at Michigan State
University's Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center. The
next day, July 28, Gary was at the MSU Clarksville Research Center for the
Michigan Pomesters' 11th annual Ridgefest field day.
That same day, in California, strawberry growers, researchers and other
industry stakeholders attended the Cal Poly Strawberry Center's Sixth
Annual Field Day. More than 440 people attended, a record for the event.
We'll have coverage of MSU's Viticulture Field Day, Ridgefest and the
Cal Poly strawberry event in the September FGN issue.
This fall, FGN will have coverage of tech-heavy events, starting with
the Midwest Mechanical Weed Control Field Day, which returns to the
Michigan State University Southwest Michigan Research and Extension
Center in Benton Harbor on Sept. 14. Registration is available until Sept.
8 at thelandconnection.org.
I'll be attending a new (to the U.S.) event in October, FIRA-USA, the
International Forum of Agricultural Robotics. Since 2016, the Francebased
event has featured the latest technology in robotic equipment
that plants and harvests (plus everything in-between, including weeding
and thinning) crops. The event, Oct. 18-20 at the Fresno, California,
Convention Center and the California State University, Fresno campus
farm, has specific agendas for each day:
* Day 1 - Research and development: Features projects that scientists
and students from universities throughout the U.S. are working on.
* Day 2 - Technology and business: An expo where companies can
showcase their tech, with a full agenda of panels, breakout sessions
and networking events.
* Day 3 - Demo day: The event shifts to the California State
University, Fresno campus farm, where robots will demonstrate
their on-farm capabilities.
FIRA-USA is a collaboration between GOFAR (Global Organization
for Agricultural Robotics, which presents World FIRA in France), the
University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, Western
Growers and the Fresno-Merced Future of Food (F3) Initiative.
Gwendoline Legrand, FIRA co-director and communications manager,
said the event will demonstrate concrete autonomous solutions to
growers, and give them access to others who are using the technology,
allowing them to calculate their ROI and how to use the robots on their
farms. Attendees will have access to manufacturers, who can discuss
customization possibilities for their operations. And of course, they'll see
how the robots handle real-world field conditions.
For more information and registration, visit fira-agtech.com/event/fira-usa.
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Zuber named University of California
Extension orchard crops advisor
Cameron Zuber has been named University
of California Cooperative Extension orchard
crops advisor for Merced and Madera
counties.
Michigan ag department grants will reward
farm innovation
The Michigan Department of Agriculture and
Rural Development is accepting applications
for a new Farm Innovation Grant Program
designed to help develop and support
innovative solutions for farm, agriculture
processing and supply chain problems facing
the state's food and agricultural industry.
Compliance date extension proposed for
pre-harvest ag water requirements
On July 18, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration issued a supplemental
notice of proposed rulemaking to extend
the compliance dates for the pre-harvest
agricultural water provisions as outlined
in the recent 2021 agricultural water
proposed rule.
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August 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of August 2022
