December 2019 - 1

California grape
growers deal with
mealybugs without
chlorpyrifos
New York grower
prunes for
multi-leader trees
8
22
28
'Apple whisperer's' CSA
sells rare, odd fruit
December 2019 | Volume 58 |
Issue 12
SIMPLE
AND
By Gary Pullano
Managing Editor
Gerbe Botden is a young apple grower
who appreciates the benefits of modern
orchard technology, such as Botden
Orchards' massive over-the-row recycling
sprayer that towers over four rows and
attracted immediate attention from a
large tour group visiting the Ontario,
Canada, farm last summer.
With all of the flashy production
QUICK
Ontario growers cut corners for success
Gerbe Botden of Botden Orchards in Thornbury, Ontario, Canada, has some favorite tools to help him in his role as orchard manager. Photos: Gary Pullano
machinery on display - much of it
conceived in the Thornbury, Ontario,
Canada operation's on-farm equipment
and design shop - it was refreshing to see
Botden take some visitors aside to a Red
Prince orchard and talk about some basic,
inexpensive tools he uses on a regular basis
to chart the course toward an effective and
profitable packout.
He shared how he uses lower-tech
tools, including: A pocket knife, caliper,
counting clicker, Equilifruit disk, soil
tensiometer, a wireless data shuttle to
record tensiometer levels and a jeweler's
loupe to scout for mites.
" We talked about the equipment over
there, but without the tools to make the
decisions, that equipment is useless unless
you know how many fruit you have on
the tree, how much extension growth
you've got, what the soil moisture is
like, " Botden said. " The tools I use every
day include, when you're thinning, you
have to have a pocket knife to count how
many seeds are on there to make sure
everything is set properly in order to have
equally sized fruit. "
" Later on, when you start measuring
fruit, you have to have a digital caliper. We
use the (precision apple thinning model
other growers) have been using, " he said.
" We haven't used it the last couple of
years, but it's certainly taught me how the
tree reacts to different stresses, different
See ONTARIO, page 8
MapMyApple offers orchard
organization, problem diagnosis
By Stephen Kloosterman
Associate Editor
Commercial orchards are often a
patchwork quilt - blocks with different
cultivars, planted in different years.
Varieties have different schedules with
various bloom times and harvest times. A
disorganized grower risks getting lost in
all of those details.
MapMyApple, a smartphone
application that's new in the North
American market this winter, promises
to help growers stay on top of what's
happening in their own orchards.
Available through Google Play - and,
developers say, soon the iPhone App
Store - MapMyApple is free for a 30day
trial period. Users pay a monthly
subscription fee for continued access. So
far, the app has roughly 1,500 downloads.
Although the app was developed in
Europe, Fresh
Agriculture
Technologies is a
startup company
incorporated in
San Francisco,
and MapMyApple
is also being marketed to growers in
South Africa.
High-Tech Tools
2019
See ORCHARD, page 6

December 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of December 2019