tree fruit stakeholder listening session october 17, 2019...
TRANSCRIPT
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Tree Fruit Stakeholder Listening Session – October 17, 2019 – Wenatchee
Notes
Summary notes for each crop are listed first with a transcript to follow.
Contact Tianna DuPont, WSU Extension [email protected]. Notes provided by Robert Orpet, WSU.
Objective: The objective of this session is to provide an additional opportunity for stakeholders to discuss
their challenges and needs in a format where Researchers and Extension can directly listen, providing
detailed input, creating connections and promoting targeted research and extension efforts. Additional
opportunities will be available in South-Central Washington (Tri-Cities) and North-Central Washington
(Omak).
Contributors
Stakeholders: Loren Queen, Tree Connection, consultant, Yakima; Mike Brown, Gebber Farms, grower.
Brewster; Mike Hodge, GS Long, consultant, Wenatchee; Tom Auvil, North American Plants, Orondo;
Lindsey Morrison, Stemilt, consultant, Wenatchee; Dena Ybarra, Perleberg Orchard, grower, Quincy;
Mike Burns, Zirkle, grower, Mattawa; Eric Limon, Wheatland Bank; Darin Palmer, Palmer Orchard,
grower, Peshastin; Troy Davis, grower, Leavenworth; Garret Grubbs, Chelan Fruit, grower, packer,
Chelan; Rob Blakey, grower, packer, Wenatchee; Brent Etzkorn, GS Long, Wenatchee, consultant; Susan
Bishop, Allan Bros, Yakima, grower, packer, research; Richard Kim, Pace International, Yakima,
research; Sam Parker, Parker Orchards, Dryden, grower, consultant; Mike Doerr, Wilbur Ellis, consultant;
Josh Hill, K&L Orchards, Dryden, grower; Brandon Long, Long Orchards, Cashmere, grower; Phil
Simmons, Diamond Back Orchard, Chelan, grower; Jeff Ballard, Chelan Fruit, Chelan, packer; Dale
Goldy, Gold Crown Nursery, Quincy, grower, nursery; Scott McManus, Cashmere, grower (sent ideas);
Duane Hayman, Lost Valley Orchard, Chewelah, grower (sent info);
Listeners
Research and Extension: Keith Vanden Brock, WSU TFREC; Matt Jones, WSU, Wenatchee; Allie
Druffel, WSU Extension; Lisa Newman, Wenatchee; Loren Honaas, USDA; Kai Carter, Ag Weathernet;
Achour Amiri, WSU Plant Pathology; Yanmin Zhu, USDA; Stefano Musacchi, WSU Horticulture;
Elizabeth Beers, WSU Entomology; Scott Harper, WSU Prosser; Lee Kalscits, WSU Wenatchee; Tobin
Northfield, WSU Entomology; Naidu Rayapati, WSU Prosser; Per McCord, WSU Prosser; Carolina
Torres, WSU Horticulture, Postharvest (Not all listeners signed in and may not have been noted).
Facilitator: Tianna DuPont, WSU Extension
Continued next page.
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Apple Top Challenges
*=people who
said it
• Codling moth******
o Organic and conventional, especially organic
o Lures, timing
o SIR – is it practical
o Mass trapping?
• Fire blight (organic for 2)***
• Organic mealy bug/ grape mealy bug**
• Post harvest rots organic
• Organic weed control
• Clean wood
o Viruses and fire blight in the nursery
o Clean budwood
• Labor
o Labor efficiencies
o Profitability – even the big guys are not making $
o Labor – hard to profit when labor costs increase
• Cropload
o Precision cropload
o Capturing variability in the orchard
o Cropload
o Predicting crop estimates
• New systems in automation
• Rootstocks – there is a massive number with limited understanding of how
they work
• Pollinaters – what varieties work best
• Calcium
• Sunburn
• Stembowl splits and cracks
• Post harvest
o Organic post harvest fungicides
o Post harvest storability of apples
o Spots and rots
o MRLs
o Conventional resistance to (Fl)
o Decays
What would you
most like to see
more research
done on to meet
current
challenges?
Horticulture • Rootstocks
o Rootstocks and nutrition – eg what picks up K
better
o Which are more sensitive to thinning?
• Varieties with less splits
• Pollinator optimization (native pollinators)
• Cropload, modeling to thin to a range of sizes
• How do we effectively count buds and determine if they are
floral or vegetative
• Find the most effective way to monitor fruit growth
• Reduce reliance on PGRs
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• Sprinkler, fogging, shade net, drape net – compare and look
at side impacts eg powdery mildew
• GA effects on splits/ stem bowl
• Sap analysis
• Efficient ways of doing evaporative cooling
• Biannual bearing (problems right next to pollinator trees
• How do we or can we know the stress of each tree?
• Automation
•
Pest/Disease • How root development impact fireblight and replant
• Fire blight
o is there really low risk in the model now?
o Spread and resistance
• Mealy bug
o Specifically organic
o Natural enemies for mealy bug
• Harmonize MRLs
• Rodents
o Does plaster/ oats really work?
o Organic
• Efficacy trials and how products impact beneficials
o Eg PFR97
• Natural enemies
o Release timings
• Apple leaf curl midge
• Codling moth
o Spray trials, but keep the IPM and NE
consequences into effect
o Lures/ pheromones – how effective are they still?
o Resistance screening: assail, delegate, altacor
o Model validation, codling moth and leaf roller
• crown rot in organic’s
• Organic rosy apple aphid
• Screen new organic products
Post
Harvest • Post harvest rots- quantify the utility of sanitizing rooms,
and the impact of orchard sanitation
• Resistance to post harvest fungicides, where is it coming
from? (fludioxinil, penicillium)
• To limit post harvest decays in organic should we pick
earlier
• Organic preharvest fungicides
• Rotation of new post harvest materials
What would you
most like to see
more research
done on to meet
long term
challenges?
• Automation
• Invasive preparedness
• Resistance to Decays
• New Varieties
• Effective Biologicals
• Better understanding of roots and soil
• Increased efficiency
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• Bird Control**
• What happened that Little Cherry Disease got out of control?
What would you
like to see from
Extension?
• Revisit the fundamentals: sampling, ID, IPM
• Organic Pre-harvest for post harvest disease techniques
• Field days: want to go look at techniques
• Automations
• Rootstock info
o Variety by rootstock information
o How Geneva rootstocks do in WA
o All the variables to consider with a rootstock choice
o Roots to variety match
• Make sure to include lunch (taco trucks)
• A survey of the industry on sterile insect cost, ability to pay, what willing
to pay for codling moth control in general
• Codling moth
o Learn from the area wide of the past, data sharing made it a
success
o Resistance management
• Future consequences of pest control now
• Invasive insects (leaf curl midge, stink bugs)
• Bird Control (sugar bee & cosmic)**
• Fertilizer amounts and treatments
• Actionable items for drones
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Pear Top Challenges
*=people who said it • Psylla****
• Mites**
• Declining Yield (Conventional down 30%, Organic
10%)
• Labor Efficiency
• Cork (more issue, cropload, even in cool years)
• Giant Trees (dark inside, bad coverage)
• Pruning (cutting too much of next year’s buds, tree
training)
• $ to Replant (so need avenues to rejuvenate old
orchards)
• Eating Quality***
• $ for Pears
• Fire blight
What would you
most like to see
more research
done on to meet
current challenges?
Horticulture • Ways to reduce cork
• Calcium (how much, when, alternatives during the
later part of season, which is best)
• Irrigation trials
• Understanding the relationship between crop load,
weather, rootstock, nitrogen, and D’Anjou pears as it
relates to cork.
Pest/Disease • Psylla/Mites
o Fall spray programs – do they work
o Is psylla shock effecting yield
o Overheads – do they work or just wash off
residuals?
o BMPs with new products
o GPA with new products
o Two spot IPM program
o Do we have azadirachtin resistance
o Continuing an IPM program for pear psylla
control in conventional orchards.
o Using Apogee, etc to control vigor?
• Mealy bug (eg PFR97)
• Combatting fire blight
Post Harvest • Standard for pre-conditioning
• Alternatives to Ethoxiquin
What would you most like to see
more research done on to meet long
term challenges?
• Developing a true dwarfing rootstock for pears.
• Look at way we grow Anjous
• More modern systems with renewal pruning
• Soil – how do we manage for the long term
• Rootstocks – smaller, more precocious
• Is monoculture a slippery slope
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• Better way to grow a more consistent product
What would you like to see from
Extension?
• Biocontrols tied to resistance
• Survey of how much oil is used in the industry to see
if it is impacting trees
• Podcasts – including grower interviews
• Pruning methods demos
• Get research review info out to growers (eg short
summaries in newsletter with links to reports)
• Thinning workshop/program
• Harvest meeting (scald, storage, etc) (like in past)
• Bridge knowledge gap between generations
• Create/work with model orchards
• Fall Pruning demo
• How to rejuvenate old orchards demo
• Pruning demos for old guys (not just next gen)
• Lessons learned from apples on trellis and training
• Packing house rejuvenation
• Extension on standard for ripening
• Packing efficiencies – eg get rid of wraps
• nutrition aspects or more training on ripening to
increase consumption
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Cherry Top Challenges • Little Cherry Disease*****
• Rasp leaf
• Profits***
o Labor costs increasing, input costs increasing,
profits decreasing
• SWD
What would you
most like to see
more research
done on to meet
current challenges?
Horticulture • Crop load management
• Cracking
• New Varieties
• Plant Growth Regulator and plant steroids to increase
fruit quality and yield
Pest/Disease • Little Cherry Disease
o How viruses interact/ can we stand a certain
level
o Alternative hosts (eg is puncture vine really an
alternative host)
o Vector management (timing, which products)
o How will leafhopper sprays impact IPM
o How to remove trees in organic
o Epidemiology – hot spots, what is causing it
o Early detection
o Faster testing
• Systemic powdery mildew control
• Variety evaluation for mildew
• MRL harmonization
• Organic SWD and mealy bug controls
• Mildew – do oils work?
Post Harvest • Stem health – can we keep it greener longer
• Cracking – field to packhouse
• Food safety (hydrocooling and birds) (exclusion netting
for birds)
• Testing ways to increase pressure
• Calcium disorders
• Ways to increase pressure
• Post-harvest work for treatments for reducing rots and
maintaining fruit quality
What would you most like to see
more research done on to meet long
term challenges?
• How did we get here with Little Cherry Disease
• Systems studies
• Consumer studies on willingness to pay – eg what size
package to put fruit in that consumers will feel
comfortable buying
• Variety/ rootstock combinations
• Technology to ship longer
• Great varieties – big, hard…..
• Long term impacts of training and trellising systems on
IPM and sustainability
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October 17, 2019. Tree Fruit Stakeholder Listening Session – North Central
Verbatim notes
Facilitator comments are in italics, stakeholder comments begin on each new line, with indents
for multiple discussion comments on the same topic.
Introduction
Welcome, thank you for coming. The objective is to provide an opportunity for researchers and
extension to hear needs from stakeholders in a discussion format where we can hear the
background and “full sentences” as you talk about it in addition to the summary points. When we
have a discussion versus just writing things down you can feed off and build on each other to bring
needs to the surface. We are using a fishbowl format where you have a group of folks chatting and
brainstorming and a group of folks listening – research and extension is listening and I’m
providing facilitation which is why some people are in the inner vs outer circle. For each topic we
will go around the circle and let everyone either answer or say it doesn’t apply. Feel free to build
on other peoples’ thoughts in this discussion and don’t be afraid to repeat or chime in again on
topics already mentioned so we know it is important. We also have sticky notes so you write things
down and we’ll put them on the board. We will provide notes to folks who are not here. There will
be another session Oct 29 hosted by Bernadita in the South and one in the far north in Omak with
the Okanogan Hort association meeting on November 11.
[Around the circle to introduce each person]
Apples
What are your top 3 challenges?
We will go around the circle and discuss everyone’s top three challenges in apple.
From my own perspective at a chemical company I’m trying to make sure MRLs are harmonized
so that when it comes to different countries exporting to, you don’t have to worry about picking
and choosing – everything is harmonized straight to the packer and not getting stopped up
anywhere based on what s been sprayed. Let’s just start with that.
What would you like to see from
Extension?
• Identification
• Area wide Little Cherry Disease program
• Podcasts including people outside US
• Who are our consumers and what do they want
• Cornell rootstock demos – in orchard
• Understanding new rootstocks
• Field days to see more orchards
• Model orchards
• SWD area-wide
• Resistance management support – hotline/ test
materials
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My number one concern for apples is codling moth. Mostly organic but conventional is a tight
second. #2 is post-harvest rots and decays, stored rots. #3: Grape mealybug in organic. Primarily
organic. I’m mainly organic.
Codling moth in organic orchards. Invasive pests like leaf-curl midge. Stink bugs.
There’s lots. Crop load management, *precision* crop load management, viruses, labor, organic
disease management, fire blight, calcium related disorders. Top three: Calcium, sunburn, and
cropload management.
My three would be predicting the crop or crop estimates, capturing the variability within the
orchard whether it’s trees or fruit, also definitely seconding cropload.
I’d group those all together
-Yeah but they have nuances to them in our management process.
Could you describe crop load variability?
-Trying to see where the vigorous areas are and the not so vigorous areas and how do we
manage that. Lots of times we have the data but then how do we make a decision based on
the data as well. A lot of times we take samples whether its soil or tree samples or bud
samples, but how do you do that to represent the entire orchard?
My top three is because I am mainly postharvest: conventional resistance management of Fipronil.
In organic we don’t have as many choices for fungus control so we need more organic fungicides
for postharvest control in organic. Last for me is MRLs because even though there are some good
materials out there it is very difficult to register and export to countries because packers cannot
segregate domestic versus export.
Top three: postharvest storability of organic apples and finding what we can use postharvest as a
fungicide. Fire blight control in organic. Stem bowl splits and cracks.
Organic fire blight. Spots and rots in organic. Grape mealybug in organic too. Trying to get that
PLR and humidity especially in the summer in the second generation.
Number one is probably codling moth. More research in new lures, pheromones, practices, timing
issues, particularly organic, organic is probably first. Number two is probably decay, both pre- and
post-harvest, new materials new things coming to help us as far as crops honeycrisp, sugar bee,
new stuff coming up like that. Bird control, squawkers and sugar and things like that. Sugar bee is
a high early sugar apple trying to come outside the box of what we saw this year.
Labor efficiencies. Cost of production is getting out of control. Surprising how some large
organizations were unprofitable the last few years, so profitability is a big issue across all crops—
apples, pears, and cherries. I think bird management or control for Sugar Bee and Cosmic is going
to be amazing to see how well Cosmics are feeding the bird.
I had that as my long-term challenge
-That’s your long-term challenge, bird control?
Yeah
-Falcons!
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[laughter and jocular bird comments]
-Root development. Roots to address fertigation issues. Roots for fire blight or replant, etc.,
making sure we understand what those roots do. Clean bud wood important from an
orchard standpoint. Your bud wood source is important. Pollination. What pollinators work
best? It would be nice to see updates on that. Also varietal selection, but that’s not as big a
concern.
I’d like to see efficacy trials for some of the spray materials in relation to the damaging insects,
but also how does it affect the beneficial population we’ve been trying to establish all season long.
One of the materials, PFR 97 for mealy bug – how does that affect beneficials? Release timings
for beneficials, specifically for mealy bug. And then rodent control. We use plaster of Paris, rolled
oats, bait stations, and I don’t know if it’s working or not, it’s a hard visual to see out there. The
snap traps are time-consuming but you have to put multiple approaches together to control them.
I’d like to see does rolled oats and plaster of Paris really work? I think there was some research
way back in the 60s or something like that, but I’d like something current. And fire blight.
I would say codling moth is number 1, organic and conventional. More damage in conventional
than usual this year. I also see labor shortage as a big issue, and profitability – the profit margin
when labor cost keeps going up and returns do not keep going up.
Fire blight management is my number one. I think the dynamic in the industry has changed
substantially and my question was is there actually a low-risk part of the model any more? I think
that needs to be evaluated and have some suggested in how we respond to fire blight. We have a
massive number of new rootstocks available but have limited grower understanding of how to
utilize them. Another layer is the varieties that go on top of the rootstocks--many scions are
proprietary but we don’t know how to mix rootstocks with scions. On top of that to add another
layer of new and evolving systems for orchard mechanization and automation.
I only have like four apple trees, luckily, but organic rodent control affects everybody. That is all
I have for apples.
I have fewer trees than the last person. [move on]
Labor efficiencies and codling moth are my top two.
Codling moth control for organic as well as organic weed management.
[30 m 20 s] Researchers have the opportunity to ask about challenges.
Stefano M: I had a question about clean bud wood? Is that about viruses, or…?
Actually viruses in particular, but fire blight as well. I think moving forward its going to
be important that we don’t’ propagate issues at the nursery level.
I think the virus issue side of that is I’m not sure the researchers can help us. It’s more of a
regulatory issue. Getting reliable virus-free material out of clean plant centers. UC Davis.
It’s OK though to talk about challenges that might have a research solution because par
tof our job is to also think about policy and extension and not every challenge has a
research solution.
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[emailed comments]
[I will not be able to attend, but for apples, and I imagine pears, my top challenge is Fireblight.??
Especially in organic orchards.]
[1. Organic pest and disease control measures. We are currently inundated with new “organic”
pest and disease control measures. There is very little efficacy data on these new products. Could
lab essays be done to identify what works and what does not in the lab. That would provide some
guidance as to what really works and what does not.
2. Automation is still a very high priority. Most of our new varieties have similar harvest dates
that will put pressure on the labor system.
3. Codling Moth control. We have succeeded setting up Sterile Insect Releases for CM. Dr
Beers research project has just finished its 2nd year of a 3-year project. Growers that want to
participate in this practice can now pay for the service (roughly 1000 acres). There are 2 ongoing
issues with SIR. First is the cost. The 2nd issue has been CM “drift” into non-treated areas.]
[1. Fungicides and limited options. We’re pretty limited to treat mildew with FRAC 3/7/11’s,
the new U class, and then organic materials with dodgy efficacy. New materials would be crucial
for helping resistance that will surely come in the next 20+ years. Extension could help this effort
by doing more trials that look at efficacy of different materials vs new materials around different
growing areas. Another really important thing to see from extension would be an open resistance
management sector. So growers could have someone in extension to contact and send leaf samples
to, so we could track if we have resistance to any of the three FRAC’s we’re limited to. This would
help growers better decide which fungicides to use.
2. Fertilizer treatments and amounts of materials. Right now every chemical company offers
varying amounts of what their interpretation of what the right amount of fertilizer is for a given
year. One example of confusion I’ve ran into: Bruce asked for 30lbs/acre N broadcast so I went
and talked to a rep about how he’d convert it over to a banded acre and how much it would take to
match the N provided on the true acre basis. He did not know how to answer this and suggested
that we should just match the 30lbs banded. This doesn’t make since to me since we’re
concentrating it. Other work that I’ve started but would be cool to see extension do, is how different
amounts of fertilizers change soil status in different varieties/areas. For example, some of my work
this year looks at how 30lbs/acre banded changes soil N and petiole N status a year after application
in Cowiche vs Yakima, etc.
3. Drone applications and limited knowledge. I keep meeting up with big drone companies
like MicaSense or Ceres Imaging that can amass so much data for us, but that looks to be almost
completely useless. I have tons of NDVI images, and thermal images, but it seems like they’re
only marketing these data maps as ways to go see sprinkler breaks, or little zones that you still
have to ground truth. One way I see extensionists changing this, are by getting funding to work
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with these companies and create methods to scout certain diseases like mildew detection,
fireblight, etc all via the sky. This way we’d have much more actionables in drone scouting rather
than just areas to check out because they’re showing to be weaker via NDVI.]
What would you most like to see more research done on to meet current challenges?
Related to one of the challenges that was brought up, spray trials that look at pest efficacy and
responding to new invasive species that also takes the IPM point into account especially the effect
on natural enemies. Does something that’s softer on on natural enemies but still efficacious against
a target pest eventually reduce sprays for secondary pests that would flare up if you had used a
harsher treatment? Also something to address consistency of codling moth resistance management
to make sure we are harmonized on that so we can steward chemistries for the future. Pollinator
optimization – I think it’s an awesome idea and I know there is some work on blue orchard bees
versus honey bee pollinators. Or, employing other native pollinators. Maybe there is an economic
benefit of supporting native pollinators so that eventually because of sustainability prevents us
from having to spend more money on brining in honey bees.
More needs to be done on control of mealybugs, specifically organic control of mealybugs.
With products?
-Yeah, products, IPM, and how they fit together. And, also how to determine if mealybug
populations actually are vectoring a disease. If we have lots of disease and few mealybugs
or lots of mealybugs and lots of disease, there is a lot of variability in little cherry virus in
grapes, pears, apples and cherries. Diseases in relation to mealybug control, that’s a
priority.
When I sit around and talk about codling moth like the good old days, there’s not many of us are
left from the area-wide control days, there’s a couple of us still. I think we need to remember those
lessons from area-wide and remember that you’re looking a regional pest that’s migratory. When
you’re looking at a region wide project you need to get people together. It’s the sharing of the data
that made it successful and when I see sterile insect trials and mass trapping and different
pheromone programs going out that seem to be done in isolation. I think someone needs to take
the lead and bringing the regions together. Whenever we do areawide pest management it always
works and it will work again. The other one I think is resistance screening for codling moth is a
lot of work, but we need to know where we sit on Assail, Delegate, and Altacor. I trust that Vince
is doing model validation on some of the older models, but if our overwintering conditions change
you probably need to spend some time validating those models, at least on leafroller and codling
moth.
Organic disease management. Postharvest rots. We have to sanitize the orchards and sanitize
rooms, but I think a study actually quantifying those looking at what if, what is the breakeven
point if we have good sanitation, average, and not-so-good orchard sanitation what is impact on
decay after 6 months in storage? Crop load management, I think going through pollination
thinning, sensing, modeling so we can thin down to almost an exact peak or range of fruit sizes
would be really good and trying to account for that variability in the orchard to bring about more
uniformity in an orchard with crop load and size. Calcium issue in bitter bit – I think understanding
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the effects of rootstocks and root growth and always looking at different calcium sprays, but we
need to go beyond just looking at sprays.
Along with croploads. Trying to figure out how do we effectively count buds to determine if they
are floral or vegetative that would be really great – whether it’s a sensor or some kind of light that
can penetrate it and determine really quickly if it’s vegetative. Finding the most effective way to
monitor fruit growth throughout the season and tying it to weather, going back to the modeling
idea. And is there a way or can we figure out the stress to each tree so we know real time what’s
actually going on. We noticed there is a biennial bearing problem right next to pollinizers and I
don’t know what’s going on, so it would be interesting to figure that out. Then, a goal of reducing
reliance on PGRs because I don’t think that’s a precision crop tool, so down the road how do we
reduce that more?
Mainly about the fungicide residence and postharvest chemicals. WE normally spend several years
or more monitoring what is the frequency of resistance to postharvest fungicides. We need good
pictures of where those resistant populations are any why are resistance populations coming up
and increasing – we still don’t know where those resistant populations are coming from, we need
to know if it is coming from the packing house, the field, the bins. Many years ago, Xiao tried to
figure out, where is Penicillium coming from, but the research was inconclusive because on year
there was more resistance population from the field the other year more the bins. We think
penicillium spores are not coming from the field because we are not using those chemicals in the
field so we thought maybe the population stays on the bins and is recycling every year we still
don’t know. Will it be the same situation for [para-methiol?]? Or maybe Botrytis is coming from
the field from similar molecules? Could other molecules from the field make it likely to evolve
resistance to certain postharvest fungicides. We have a lot of unknowns. Some packers rotate
different chemicals every year, but not every orchard is the same. Maybe some packers have
different or better sanitation practices for bins or orchards or cleaning rooms better than other. So,
what is the effect on resistant population, is it going down or staying?
GA effectiveness on fruit split and the stem bowl. We tried it this year and the year before and
didn’t see any real difference. We tested this and there was somewhat of an effect but don’t know
if it’s an actual effect or just a coincidence. Research in varieties that are prone to that, some of
the new proprietary varieties. Fire blight spread and rootstock resistance or susceptibility to fire
blight.
I really like the idea of having vegetative vs floral bud detector because no one should have to bud
cut. Organic preharvest fungicide and then also you guys are using natural predators for
mealybug—did it work?
I think it reduced the population some in some areas. I’m not an expert at setting up trials.
In one 15 acre block we released at 3,000 in one area, we skipped 4-6 rows and released
some more and skipped some rows and did the same thing again. To begin with it looked
like they did a really nice job in two areas, but the other two areas I couldn’t make any
rhyme or reason out of it, it didn’t seem like the control was good
What was the timing of the release?
Twice. Once in August, and once shortly after petalfall.
Apple and grape?
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Just apple
Lady bugs?
Mealy bug destroyers
What exotic stuff did you have to do to get those?
Went to an insectary. Bio Bee was the name of it. I was concerned about them coming in
the mail and the humidity, especially releasing right before Gala harvest in August. It’s
really hard to put a figure on it. I could see some in the stem end but it looked like the
population has gone down. We did have an issue where we used grafting tape and they love
it underneath grafting tape. So we just have a resident population we want to get rid of but
populations on the fruit seemed to reduce quite well. They [lady bugs] are strong fliers. We
released them in a half mile block and we saw a nymph later at petalfall. We found some
mealybug occasionally. I think the mealybug thing is, if there’s any work to be done – how
do you set up trials effective? Release timings. Are there any native biocontrols? Can we
raise them ourselves? Timing? Whoever named it that is right on top of it, that is the coolest
name, Mealy Bug Destroyer.
Did you release adults or larvae?
Adults in 500 petri dishes with foam and honey. I wasn’t sure how to release them so we
went and just tapped the petri dish out on a tree or two, skipped a bunch and did it about
every 150 feet and did it again. They came in a cooler and they responding to ambient
temperature very quickly.
I wonder if they would be more effective as larvae since they disperse as fliers?
I wonder about the timing, if you are spraying Centaur in late-June is the timing off a little
bit?
It’s possible. I was trying to gauge the relase on the food source in the orchard and that we
put a PFR on prior to and tried to wait 7 days after we sprayed and then release. We had a
really big population so we are just trying to get a handle on it.
So release timing is really important
Back to codling moth. More new research in materials methods in lures, pheromones, timings,
borders. Most questions were about pheromones and lures – how effective are they still are? Decay
has been covered by those people who know. As much information on rotations, new materials pre
and post harvest. Bird control – new ways besides squawkers and sugars and the timing of those,
varieties like Sugar Bee, more research in the methods and timing of those.
Has anyone heard of new bird control methods they want looked at?
I wrote down “help” and “more”. [laughter] They seem to get used to it, the sugar stuff
doesn’t work, it seems a little but if the timings wrong they get used to it. Especially now
in Cosmic and the duration on the tree, with Sugar Bee it’s hanging a lot longer and the
sugar is early and the birds learn it, it’s a problem. Is anyone doing vertebrate pests?
I received a question about that from someone on the East Coast. Someone in California
is the closest person I know researching bird control.
15
A component of bird control is habituation. Is there a power line, a road, a row of rangeland,
we did a spray trial of particle films in Methow with Honeycrisp that’s young, 7 acres of
Honeycrisp was eaten form the bird population that came out of the forest, so we never got
to assess the effectiveness of the sunburn materials because we could not assess the fruit
because the birds ate them all. The spray apparently did nothing for bird control.
Horticulture-wise, I know Dr. Kalcits is working on rootstocks and nutrition. There is some
evidence that some rootstock pick up potassium more effectively and generate a little bit more
bitter pit issues. Along with, crop load management, a couple of rootstocks are a little bit more
sensitive to chemical thinning--201 and 810 in particular will thin a little easier than perhaps M9
and G41, so that’s a learning experience. Horticulture and pest management tends to go together.
Aphids and mealybugs survive better on high vigor tree. So you may need to make a horticultural
decision on pest management if you’re trees are too vigorous you either decide to fix it or remove
it. Mealybugs thrive on pruning cuts. If your vigor is so high that you’re pruning harder you may
have some issues along with that as well. So a number of these issues, there’s horticulture issues
that go with it. K in organic you may have to pick at the preclimactic minimum meaning that starch
ratings within the fore-ring is maybe your desirable harvest window your fruit is not as pretty but
it won’t rot. If you put rotting fruit in the packing line you are just inoculating every fruit that falls,
so if you don’t pick the fruit perfect for longterm storage in organic you’re going to be disappointed
guaranteed.
Apple leaf curl midge is one we are battling with. More efficient ways of evaporative cooling. It
would also be interesting to look into leaf sap analysis.
When you say efficient ways for evaporative cooling, are you talking more cycling or…?
Yeah a little bit of cycling seems like it would work but I’ve read something with
evaporative cooling vs shade netting can make trees less efficient. If you put bands around
the trunk to see if they grow bigger, and again leaf sap analysis can tell you different things
going on.
Back to evaporative cooling: comparing overhead sprinklers versus misting or fogging to
drape net versus shade structure could be very interesting.
Related to that powdery mildew could be related.
Connections between disease and shade netting.
Does it reduce photosynthesis too much?
Some data suggests that if you add 18% shade it is just getting it back to the rest of the
world
There is a lack of understanding on rootstocks compatibility.
To that point, some rootstocks if you push on the “accelerator” and give a little more water
and fertilizer there’s rootstocks that will respond and dealing with M9 and M26 they don’t
responds especially in older blocks so there is a fair amount of learning in that perspective.
I don’t as a grower understand how we have gotten to the point where we are at with LCD [little
cherry disease]. I’ve worked on it a long time. I look back and what did we stop using or was there
something that we stopped using that all of the sudden. We’ve farmed around mealy bugs and stuff
16
forever and didn’t consider them a pest. I can remember years ago walking into cherry blocks in
late and so many leafhoppers having to wear a mask and there were som many and in the past but
we didn’t worry so much. In terms of unintended consequences what happened? The industry is
facing a dire situation with LCD right now and maybe you know this Betsy and I don’t, but I don’t
think the industry understands how we got here. That is another career for you Betsy.
Betsy: I’m good, thanks. [laughter]
-Especially we think about what we’re doing and should be doing and there’s a lot of things
that changed in terms of chemistry all the time. What are the future consequences of
dropping things? Could we have prevented LCD had we actually been thinking and looking
at it? It’s going to leave a massive economic bite on the industry.
Especially between Western X and LCD, but that’s cherry so that’s the next topic. We
talked about apple mealybug and grape mealybug but how different are they really?
We sort of put or current and future things as we went around, are we missing anything
You mentioned areawide practices and I think we should get back to that area-wide discussion in
terms of LCD when we get to cherry.
If your apple neighbor is doing a good job and you’re growing cherries that’s a benefit
The whole areawide thing, coordination, talking to each other, growers and consultants.
Put a map on a wall and put red spots where the pressure is high and everybody looks at it
and tries to figure out why the orchard is red.
The whole map is going to be red! Any questions from the listeners?
I have a question, you were concerned about pheromones still working: was that for mating
disruption or lures for monitoring.
Both.
I hear codling moth so much, is it an increasing issue? Or is it something if you feel climate change
or something like that is putting more pressure on your orchard?
Was it worse this last couple of years or it never has gone away?
Worse. The chemistries are all over, there’s no, Altacor and Delegate don’t’ work as well
anymore. There’s no doubt the seasons are longer.
This is the third flight, increasing pressure later in the year.
A higher percent of the industry is organic.
Splits and cracks were brought up, is that mostly an issue of predicting maturity or are you trying
to balance of other issues on the tree?
The issue of maturity is getting it to that right spot to harvest and not losing you know 5%
to splits.
It’s maturity management issue.
17
We are not getting to harvest but seeing more splits. In organic there are a lack of products.
We want to see research in something beyond GA
Graft to a better variety – solves the problem!
There are options conventionally to treat splitting and things like that, but in organic all I
know is GA
[emailed comments]
[I'd like to new research into combating existing fireblight, or evaluation of strategies to combat
the disease once it is prevalent in organic orchards.??]
[# 2 would be organic strategies for the rosy apple aphid.]
[-it would be great if you (your organization) could purchase the ability for people to log into a
service to see and hear the workshops or session that are only 1-2 hours in length. Cornell does it
for their small farmer’s classes,
-it would be nice to have workshops on soil sampling and it’s results and how to calculate the
amount of fertilizer to use. Leaf analysis too.
-mulching, why, how, etc.,
-irrigation management, how to evaluate how much is enough, sprinkler efficiency, retrofitting an
older orchard,
-cosmic crisp is great but I’d love to see the starch indexes for more varieties, I know there’s a few
out there
-pruning, on regular trees, not just intensively planted orchards, for opening the canopy, letting
light in for better color development, sucker pruning -as in when and how]
What would you most like to see more research done on to meet long term challenges?
We sort of mixed these together so we won’t go all the way around but if you have long term things
you’d like to add, pipe up.
Automation.
Invasive species preparedness.
With automation, cultural practices to enhance effectiveness of automation.
Decay resistance.
New variety development for plant breeding.
Effectiveness of biologicals.
18
Better understanding of soil, particularly how are roots growing, when do they grow, when do they
stop growing, *do* they stop growing? Some fundamental questions.
Increase in overall efficiency. We can’t keep throwing costs in to the system. We need to reduce
our input costs because prices aren’t going to rise.
Or at least stabilize them.
Get the costs/price squeeze under control.
[emailed comments]
[There are new CM lures that are making mass trapping of CM more cost effective. It would be
great to see WSU, USDA-ARS and Ag Canada work together to get this technology into growers’
hands. Unfortunately, at this time mass trapping as a control measure in the organic system is not
allowed. We can do “intensive trapping” but as a control measure it is NOT allowed. It may be
worthwhile to petition NOP to allow this practice.]
What would you like to see from Extension?
Back to extension, we need to revisit the consistency of sampling techniques, resistance
management practices, so we are all on the same page, some of those processes that have been
around a long time but maybe haven’t been talked about more recently.
Fundamentals of pest management right, monitoring and spray timing. Preparing the
orchard.
Organic ways to control [fruit drop?]
I think we are doing that in March
Organic ways to control preharvest rot.
Field days and demos, making sure everyone is on the same page on pheromone placement and
trap placement. Go look at it. Demo it. Field release, field management of beneficial.
Automation field days too.
Variety by rootstocks demos and field days. You know grow an orchard, put it into a long-term
trial at Sunrise and see what these different rootstocks by varieties do.
And add in lunch.
Okay I like it. Sometimes I do people and people leave before the food!
Taco truck.
Taco truck is a good idea.
When we’re talking about codling moth and Betsy’s doing an sterile release, I think we need to do
an an industry wide survey – what does sterile insect mean to growers, how interested are they in
actually putting gin sterile insect production for moths?
Need a cost estimate. Canadian government put 10 million in the rearing facility.
19
How much are growers willing to pay to reduce codling moth pressure – whether it’s
areawide netting or areawide sterile insect. An economic study.
Betsy: I think that is a great idea and I would love to see such a study done. I would
welcome it.
How much are spending on codling moth control? I bet it makes those other numbers small
When will the technology be available? Sterile insect release is still high in the sky, but
exclusion netting is here now.
[Several other comments, but indistinct on recording, seem to be similar in spirit to
comments above on the issue]
Rootstock-scion issues have come up a couple of times, are there specific questions on rootstock-
scion interaction? Are there particular questions that are driving that interest in exploring
rootstock-scion interactions?
At IFTA I think Geneva made a presentation of all their rootstocks they are introduction
and they are only a small part of the industry, but you could sort of hear the collective
eyeroll from all the growers in the room about ‘how I’m I going to deal with all of those
issues?’ Well in 15 years we’ll probably have figured out how to deal with those, but there
is an element here that we have to adapt but it will be difficult how we communicate that
to growers and get understanding out.
In my experience there are a lot of questions about these new Genevas. In particular it
would be nice to have some information from the Northwest about how those roots interact
in our situations. A lot of information really comes out of Geneva, it would be nice to get
local information
Well we have about 15 years of data from the Research Commission
The question is accessibility right? Because, where do you access that? The information
may be there but growers don’t know how to access that.
Results from back East are not very relevant to what we see out here.
Stefano: If I may add something even worse than that because the you are just using
rootstock and there is a new stock of rootstock always coming out. Next year there will be
a new set out that no one knows what they are, So it will be a problem.
Even more to the point, I think Stefano is that Cornell is pretending they are commercial
as soon as they release them but number one is there is no G2 material available in tissue
culture to propagate on certified material. It took 7 years to get G41 production.
Stefano: also how can we sell rootstock if they are not available?
Anything “new from Cornell means it is 10 to 15 years out.
Pears:
What are your top 3 challenges?
20
I think the declining yield across all varieties is a big concern, it’s an economic concern obviously.
Do you have a specific case of declining yield?
As an industry our yield across our main northwest pear varieties has been dropping off.
Yeas year was our one big year but this last harvest was, we’re way back down again.
Organically or conventionally?
Conventionally, I can’t speak to organic.
Are you talking about tons per acre or total tons?
Tons per acre.
We find that too. Mostly on the conventional side. Organic side this year, and this year is
one of the worst every for yields, is only like 10% down from last year.
In conventional how much was it?
Oh 30% to 40% and we were probably lucky.
Where is that?
Dryden.
We were within a bin or two of our 3-year average.
Last year was a good crop, but historically speaking it wasn’t anything to write home about
but comparatively better than the previous four years so that made it stand out. In the last
7 years you can see something has gone wrong here.
That leads to cork. It seems to be more and more of an issue, the way it’s been explained to me is
this is in part understood as a cropload issue and nobody seems to be surprised that we have fewer
pears that we have more cork but we are seeing cork in a year where we didn’t have a lot of normal
other things that would be associated with cork like heat. We had a relatively cool summer and we
found cork in trees that if you just isolate the tree itself had plenty of pears on it yet still had
significant cork problems so I’m not sure what’s going on there, I’m not sure is that just eh best
explanation we could come up with, or if it’s a real, if we really understand where this is coming
from.
Did you do summer pruning where you had cork?
Yes
We had a lot of cork only where we did summer pruning. I don’t know if there’s correlation
there or not. Last year we had a clean year, two years ago or three years ago we had quite
a lot of cork. This year it was specific to where we did summer pruning and it was, we were
summer pruning when it was hot, those three days where it was 97 degrees.
That leads us to the next one which is pest management, and psylla, especially in Anjou if you
don’t summer prune you are spraying in such a big canopy. The way we grow Anjou trees leads
to many secondary problems. So much foliage is decreasing efficacy of spray products. We’re
trying to play with gallons per acre with the spray, we’re trying to see how much vegetation can
we get out the trees to maximize our gallons per acre. We still feel like we’re fighting a losing
21
battle with our primary, well it’s not a *primary* pest technically, but it is our main pest that we
have that ruins the crop is psylla. That’s comprehensive, I mean when I look at the way we grow
Anjou trees in particular, because it’s our main crop, especially in the upper valley, it leads to so
many concerns I have for the future. So those are kind of the three I’d focus on for now.
Fall spray programs. Does it work? Is Louie here? I just got done this week putting up Surround
in two different orchards and I want to know if it was really worth it. A lot of growers in the valley
this year have put up lime sulfur and Surround, all sorts of different programs. A) do they work;
B) if they do work, which product works the best?
What rate of Surround did you use?
One orchard as an experiment I did 400, it takes 100 lb to the acre, and in another I did 300
to the tank. In another one I did diatomaceous earth, Celite, right after harvest at 75 lb to
the acre .
Did you tap before and after [to monitor psylla]?
No I didn’t, I wish I had time to, or you know WSU could help me [laughs]
Beating trays don’t take too long.
Overhead irrigation. Again, one of those questions, does it work or not?
It works. We put it in and it was the least sticky.
-I’ve seen two orchards in the second year with overhead irrigation and there was psylla
shock, the trees lost half their leaves and they lost all their size because of it.
Because of the wash last year?
-Because the psylla numbers increase because you’re washing off the residue. Washing off
the psylla makes them grow more. Are we having so much psylla on the tree we are not
killing them with washing, are we experiencing more pear decline and psylla shock?
My big question is: is all the psylla shock throughout the years decreasing yield?
Yeah, you got old trees so they are experiencing enough winter damage on their own just
being there.
So is it more the timing of your wash?
-I don’t believe in wash at all. You are stepping over a dime to pick up a penny. Long term
you shoot yourself in the foot. It’s my opinion so I ask WSU to look into it.
There’s sprinkler rot too.
-Yep
So we have declining yield, cork, psylla, do we have any other main challenges?
Yes. Mites. Twospot conventional IPM. It’s just not working. Organic is doing OK. But miticides,
ovicides not working, we’re losing Envidor, concerned about that. Labor efficiency. Trying to
eliminate the ladder. We could even go into pruning, some ANjous are 18’ tall in double rows it
doesn’t make sense. Spray penetration killing mealybugs. Organic fungicides. I spray Serenade
22
every single week and I still have mildew on the fruit that was unacceptable in some spots but not
all. With grape mealybug stuff all I have is PFR. So how many days between the application of
fungicides and PFR, the timing can just not work out.
Where are your orchards and when do you have an issue with mildew?
Issue with mildew in a wet Spring. The orchards are up in the valley.
Fruit quality and condition and trying to increase consumer demand for pears with better quality
fruit horticulturally and with post harvest.
Better eating quality?
-Yes. We can improve packability and storability
Consumer acceptance quality.
Yes yes
It was a perfect year for pear psylla. We want to control psylla and take the eye off the prize and
let the mites grow. You have to look at weather conditions. I disagree that we have a declining
pear issue. Some of you might, I didn’t. I had a good crop this year, last year was my short crop.
You’re upper valley?
-That’s right. Don’t forget, we had 26 degrees one night. You can see that on a pear that’s
in the bin. So all of these things, we need to look into them, but it’s not the end of it.
Horticulturally pruning is the biggest issue. We have people detailing the trees so they are
cutting off every spur on the tree because they want have work to do in the winter – we
need supervision on those pruning crews.
Also getting out that pole saw, getting some of that off up in the canopy when you can’t
penetrate through it.
I think it all starts with tree training in the winter and summer.
We need to change the horticulture to make a modern system More renewal pruning and
less detailing.
I saw a beautiful block of Bosc ruined because they treated it like normal pears and the
russet chimera disappeared in 5 years.
When they say ‘I want to detail your trees’ I hear ‘I want to cut your crop off’
Getting rid of Ethoxyquin and having an alternative to Ethoxyquin and MCP.
On the radio yesterday a guy talking about business said you have to give the consumer what they
want. When Rob talks about a better eating quality pear that’s what we need to do. This other stuff,
we have to get the money back. We have to give them what they want, we can’t push it down their
throats ‘you’re going to take these over green Anjous with MCP’, they aren’t going to eat them,
they’re going to choke them back
They are not going to buy them
Grapes are sitting right next to them
23
The edible pears are the ones that look cracked, have marks, are bruised, those are the ones
you want to buy take home and enjoy.
This is also pushing down the price. You lower the price to make sellable your crop then it
is difficult to get the price back up.
I think roots. We’ve got more control over canopy, light, and precocity, so you’re not planting old
97 and trying to catch up in 7 years, you can plant something you can harvest in 2 or 3 years.
I am confident we can plant 87 at 1000 to 1500 trees per acre and get good yields, but not
the way we prune pears historically.
What variety?
Boston Bartlett in particular. A couple Anjou. We can get Anjou to 50-60 bins per acre.
If you can get pears to a trellis you have less canopy to penetrate with your sprays. A better
shot of controlling things upfront. Still doesn’t matter if [consumers] don’t buy them, but
we can be more efficient at production.
A model orchard would be good #1 – what rootstocks, what pruning, what density? Model
out your production curves.
You should put Gem in there as a fire blight resistant pear that actually can be high quality.
You can’t get clean wood
There is in Corvallis
You should be variety specific if you do test blocks. To use the right pruning and
watering for the tree.
I’ve heard a lot that they don’t have capital to remodel an orchard. How do we rejuvenate these
old orchards, or can’t you?
If you want to change the entire canopy structure you can do that, it would just take a while.
-As an extension project – how to do that? Look at different options, what works for
different grower sizes. Demo it. Work out the economics and let’s see. Do you give up or
make a go of it?
Do you need to go out of production for a year, or three to fix it?
How many people have done soft cuts and gone out of production? Usually when I make
a few big cuts I get better production.
Maybe in these test blocks do interplanting. Which…
Or anything! The pear industry is not in a good way. So try all these different options, have
a separate meeting, talk about model orchards and have new plants with new innovation.
The pear business is in a point where, I’ve interacted with a few people that are trying to
put pears on a trellis. Well, we missed the last 20 years of all the mistakes the apple people
made.
And they’re wanting to make the mistakes all over again!
24
So get with some of your apple friends and as them some hard questions to force
them to admit all how may times we’ve screwed up.
And still screwing up.
We only upgrade our trellis based on the last one that’s fallen over.
Soil is an unknown for me. How to manage fertility better in the longer term .What should we be
doing for it?
[emailed comments]
[1. Psylla control is still a challenge. There have not been new products added to the tool chest
on the conventional side. It may be time to look at compounds like Apogee/Kudo’s to control
vegetative growth. This could help with both Psylla and Fire Blight management. Some new
organic products are claiming effective control. Most of these compounds have not been tested by
University staff though. Claims are mostly being made based on manufacturer’s data.
2. Mite control, specifically Spider and Rust mites. This seems like a cyclical problem. In the
last 2 seasons mite outbreaks were controlled well with conventional control measures. I have no
doubts that mite issues will continue to show up.
3. An increase in consumption of pears needs to take place. I am not sure if nutrition aspects
or more training on ripening is needed?]
What would you most like to see more research done on to meet current challenges?
Going back to psylla and mites, what specific questions do you want us to look at now and later?
I feel that there is not a real consensus on best practice on gallons per acres. It seems to have
changed throughout the years. We could do a poll and you get all different answers. I don’t know
what, you have to do what feels best at your point, but not sure if this is a research question.
Every sprayer has it completely different from mine and different from their neighbors.
You need to get a diesel.
It goes back to penetration.
Can we get written down a twospot IPM program. I don’t think there’s anything going into that.
It’s kind of a big deal – it doesn’t matter if the leaves are off to penetrate but to save us some
money I’d rather not have to put it in the tree especially if we are using azadirachtin. I’d rather just
do one thing if I have to. Also on the psylla are we getting resistance to azadirachtin
It would be good to survey the spray program and see how much oil is being used. Years
ago that was a big detraction – oil would reduce vigor in annual cropping of pears. And are
we still applying calcium to Anjous on a regular basis? Because the number of apps, how
much you put in the tank goes back to how much calcium you should be using on
everything. There is a lot of data out there we paid dearly to get and there are a lot of
25
products out there but basically only calcium chloride is effective. A lot of other stuff has
been advertised and the data really only supports calcium chloride.
Do you want more data on calcium or some reminders about using calcium?
How much calcium is being used?
You got alternatives for cell division and see if you can use that. You can use a chelator
but which is a better formulation?
The data says ‘none of them’
No? Being around the industry and seeing the dollars spent in this area I just find it difficult
to keep spending money doing the same trials and expecting a different outcome.
What would you put on for cell division, calcium, on Anjou pear?
If not calcium chloride, then I’m not sure the other efficacy side of that is there is a lot of
calcium nitrate on soil applications is another source. There is a nutrition book basically
written in pears looking at calcium, so let’s not reinvent the wheel, let’s make sure we are
using what came out of trial work in the book.
Tom Racey’s book right?
Tom Racey’s book. It’s about a thousand pages.
The impacts of inputs on biocontrol and resistance management. I don’t know is that project done?
I’m sure we’ll hear more about that this winter. I don’t know if you have time to do resistance
screening efficacy, Does Vince have DD models to help build programs with more science behind
protecting biocontrol?
One more extension in future research may be packhouse rejuvenation. There are a lot old
antiquated pear lines in the industry. Seeing what’s out there and available, assuming we can
rejuvenate.
What would you most like to see more research done on to meet long term challenges?
Based on industry success 20 to 30 years ago a lot of pear regions have developed into
monocultures. Is that a slippery slope that is one of the critical problems related to everything
we’ve talked about and is there something we can do about that?
Improve packing efficiencies. We have some very clunky post harvest chains. We need to get rid
of “raps” for heavens sake. Controlled atmosphere research. There are unintended consequences
that need to be addressed with more intense research.
I think developing a standards for conditioning and fruit ripening industry can buy in on. Seeing
that ripe Anjou without having a standard in place for that means. If the Anjou viable from a
consumer standpoint, we need to make it a consistent product. The avocado industry seems to have
figured that out better, we could do something along those lines. Part of it is the post harvest
conditioning process but also the way the trees, especially Anjou, are grown stuff on the outside
of the tree vs the inside is going to be different. It goes back to the question, is there a better method
for growing a pear with a more uniform experience in the orchard all the way through to post
26
harvest to create a more consistent experience in the store. At least for the time being, the
architecture is a much more complicated problem, but just coming up with, if we market our fruit
as preconditioned we need to know what that is and so does the consumer, and it needs to be the
same thing or we need to stop doing it or touting it.
Both of those projects have been done in the last two years. Stefano did canopy position
and I did ripening.
Stefano: how many of you are aware that we have for 3 years a project on fall pruning?
Autumn pruning to renew vigor.
Are you saying how long have we recommended it?
No, are you aware of this project
Yes
You never try it in your orchard?
Fall pruning, no.
What about the labor?
Stefano: That is another point. You are asking for a thing that has already been
done. If you don’t do something different you will end up in the same situation. So
if you summer prune you get the same, but if you don’t try to do something different
you will never go out of your situation. I know that labor is an issue but maybe you
can hire people longer, I have no idea about that, you need to figure it out.
Refresh us, when is Fall Pruning
Around October is a possibility because you are cutting down, but I don’t want to
drag the discussion down. I want to know if you being exposed to these things.
Because what you mention, we’ve already proved the fruit are different at levels of
ripening and they will never be ripe at the same time. So it’s a done deal. When we
go ahead from this point is the next step. Maybe you can convert your canopy to be
more exposed to light, but I’m not sure it’s working at this step, so you need
something to improve in a different way. So you have what you have, you can’t
change everything, but that is my opinion.
That’s a good opinion. What we need is, I know we had some young field grower
and fieldmen pruning demonstrations and we need more for us old guys. That’s one
of the things in extension. When I started 33 years ago here were pruning
demonstrations everywhere. Now there’s none. As a warehouse fieldmen I used to
prune with my guys one day a winter. Some wanted to prune all day, but we were
always doing pruning demonstrations. Now we don’t have any pruning
demonstrations.
[Someone] was doing that back in the 80s, after Anjous in Fall and the leaves are
still green and he would swear by it in the quality and fruit set you get next year,
but it has gone by the wayside.
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A lot of work was done on preconditioning. A lot of that work was done by Kevin
Moffet, you just need to go see why there is not a standard, it is probably political.
There is a standard! There’s been a standard around for ten years, and it’s not hard
or complicated, it’s just people don’t want to invest money to buy the ripening
chambers.
Or the variability of shipping preconditioned fruit from Seattle to Atlanta.
It’s just things you figure out. It’s will, not technical.
Let’s get some marketers in here [laughter]
You as growers need to go to your warehouse and say you want a ripening program
or go to a different warehouse that’s doing it. If we’re increasing sales 50-90% with
a ripening program it works, and it’s not a hard program.
[Refocus and move on]
We identified there is a huge knowledge gap maybe extension can help with between young and
old generation. So much stuff has been done that as younger people come into the industry how
do we know what has been done 20 to 30 years ago. How can we read all the books there are.
Grower experience can vary with region. Being able to bring that together would be huge. One
idea is we could have a podcast interviewing different growers. I am going to be on the road for
hours and I can’t read a book but could listen to a podcast while I’m driving and that could benefit
everyone.
I teach at Wenatchee Valley college and I am looking for people to bring my students to
bring that kind of information to them, so if any of you can host a field trip, I’m on deck
looking down.
Water irrigation, deficit irrigation, something that control a lot of things like cork and fruit quality,
has there been work specifically on that? We’ve done apples and wine grapes but pears we use
overhead systems, how does it compare to apples.
We have a couple things going on at the winter meetings.
What is the duty of WSU extension, what is your role.
My role *today* and part of our mission is to connect research to growers and stakeholders
and also provide 2-way communication. That’s part of what we are doing today, a
communication format with the goal of making change in peoples lives and the world. Not
just talk, but actually make things happen whether that’s with a workshop, or the economic
data behind it or bridging that information from research so that you not only know about
something but that feel comfortable applying and you know all you want. This is *one* of
our roles as well what you think of with workshops and all that kind of stuff.
When we first started we used to have preharvest parameter meetings we would talk once
a week all through harvest and talk about where the industry is going. I think extension
brought that together. I think it brought better consistency in products in crops because we
we were all working together. We would have consistencies in the marketplace. We called
it a preharvest meeting. We would talk about if there was sunburn that that year and how
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will it affect storage. Scald. We talked about those things and when you left that meeting
you had an idea of where things were going. We had pruning demonstrations probably
Every two weeks. In the spring [somone] did a thinning program, and it would be, the Turf
restaurant would be full of people and we’d have different thinning programs. How many
times have we done that in the last 20 years, and extension put all that together. That’s why
I asked the role, is that still the role of extension or not?
Yes it’s definitely part of it
That’s what I’d like to see.
That’s why we want to hear some of these things and we are building capacity to
do more.
It would be great.
One more, phytophthora. While you are all doing this stuff like pear psylla natural enemy stuff,
did you do a survey with Wenatchee Valley and test what percentage of trees have phytophthora?
That would be magnificent.
Apple or..?
Pears.
Not fruit rot. Of roots.
Not fruit rot no. I can tell fruit rot.
You did an excellent job with the newsletter sending it with the e-mail. It’s great, fantastic sending
out information regularly. Another thing and I don’t see anyone here from Tree Fruit Research
Commission, the Tree Fruit Research Commission spends a lot fo money doing research. They
spend a lot of money doing research and they have tree fruit research reviews right? How many
growers do we see at their meetings? Not many. It is usually professionals, fieldmen, researchers,
and so on. If there was a way to get the significant findings out to growers in a timely fashion in
your email or maybe the commission could put it out in an email similar to what extension does.
That would be great because that way the growers see what’s going on with the researchers because
a lot of them are not connecting. Researchers today spoke about their findings but many growers
are not finding it. That connection between growers and research has to be improved somehow.
What you’ve been doing is very good though.
Just so you know that newsletter is not on my, now Bernardita is doing it, but as a team.
Ready for cherries?
Stefano: I have a comment, there is a very good point that think about there are all those years of
data with good information, I still look at that. We try not to reinvent the wheel. If we can
summarize the results of the project at the end in bullet points and send it out to the industry this
would be a great thing. Then at least no one would have the excuse I didn’t have the information.
It is a really good point because there is a lot of information.
They have it on the commission site, it’s still there, you have to dig it out, it’s all archived
but if you really lot to know a lot of people don’t know where to get it, or how to get it.
Someone from the commission or WSU needs to summarize it.
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[Emailed comments]
[developing a true dwarfing rootstock for pear]
[Continuing an IPM program for pear psylla control in conventional orchards. As passe as it may
seem after the fine project of the last few years, I believe that this work needs to continue for the
next three or so years, as we get a little better at understanding how insect relationships develop
over multi-year programs.]
[Understanding the relationship between crop load, weather, rootstock, nitrogen, and D’Anjou
pears as it relates to cork.]
Cherries:
What are your top 3 challenges?
Little cherry disease.
Profitability. Lots of people were disappointed that revenue just barely exceeded costs in many
different realms.
Definitely the costs. Labor goes up, inputs go up, returns do not. It’s more challenging to stay
profitable and we need to have some new varieties, or varieties with the tonnage to be profitable.
Virus identification program.
In addition to the viruses already known, knowing the risk of having multiple viruses, how they
interact, maybe you see it two combined or you see when there’s only one and having more
transparency about that would be helpful. And early detection.
And what viruses you can tolerate or can’t. Or combinations you could tolerate or can’t.
Maybe we can tolerate some viruses.
Or certain times you can tolerate it and certain times you need to kick it out.
We’d like to see an epidemiological study on viruses industry-wide, areawide. Trying to
ID the hotspots, what’s causing it and how to address those issues. Our orchards might be
clean but our neighbors might not be.
Alternative hosts, especially for Western X you know. Is puncture vine really a reservoir
for Western X and if so is it seed-transmitted which would be worse because puncture vine
seed is well-distributed and easily distributed, so there’s a list if weed species on the
orchard border and puncture vine is the number one things I see in the valley and it’s all
too frequent around here too.
The role of bees in virus transmission is another question.
Even in California, how many viruses do almond have just a random question?
Crop load management in cherries.
Could you test the pollen for virus and figure that out.
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It’s been done. If you want to talk about viruses that are working together or not
working together, you can’t do a simple PCR test, you have to go to a genomics
test ant the cost goes up. It’s more expensive. But the genomic thing can identify
virtually every versus in the tissue.
Concentrating on little cherry for now, what other questions do you have.
Vector management, just spraying for leafhoppers. This Fall it was just spray spray spray from
harvest until fall of the tree and I suspect they survive that a little bit. There’s got to be a time when
they’re more likely to transmit virus, but spraying ornamental leafhoppers to get on top of all these.
I think they are starting work in the Prosser area with Scott and Holly.
Weed hosts.
How do you remove a diseased cherry tree in an organic orchard?
What about how the leafhopper spray program is going to affect other pests like two-spots or
something like that because right now we’re spraying a lot more for it.
I used to sell Delegate, Entrust, and GF120 as much as I appreciated the 8 sprays a year, I suspect
it’s probably not sustainable. You can *say* there’s resistance and *say* you can’t do it, but we
probably need an alternative.
We need another insecticide that’s a 3-day or less preharvest interval.
I had that for long-term challenge. And organic mealybug control. Entrust induces mealy
bug
Anybody have mildew?
Mildew in organic cherries would be a good one.
Maybe a variety evaluation to show the difference between leaf vs fruit infestation of powdery
mildew. Maybe trees could look bad but fruit is ok?
New varieties.
Understanding dwarfing cherry rootstocks.
Which ones
I know a lot of people went to Giesla. People get excited and jump in without really
understanding the nuances. We need a stronger foundation.
Some information is out there, especially on precocity. Krymsk 5 is a unique
opportunity. Few make it worthwhile.
Like apples -- combining the right variety with the right rootstock is important. Are some
combinations better than others?
Research in trellising effectiveness. As was said during pears, you don’t want to make all the same
mistakes that happened with apples.
More model orchards
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Field days to visit model orchards that already exist before we spend money.
There are interesting blocks in the Prosser area
The model orchards don’t have to be at Sunrise but can be with a willing grower
wanting to try.
Even field days with McDougall at Legacy, there are different rootstocks, a couple
of the Krymsk.
Cracking is always a problem but I don’t know how much is left to do.
Maybe in the packing house, it would be nice to know whether they are all going to pop.
When not to hypercool?
Make sure crack resistance in new varieties is well explained. The new pearl series has
much less cracking than Bing, maybe 10%.
Is the holistic orchard receiving hydrocooling, packing, post-packing and new varieties.
On varieties, goodness knows we are going to plant a lot of new cherries, you want to make
sure you plant crack resistant not susceptible cherries when you plant a new orchard.
Bing is a favorite cherry of mine.
Stem health postharvest. I spend more time on stem health than actually cherry quality. Can we
keep stems greener longer?
[emailed comments]
[1. Mildew, specifically on late season varieties has become more difficult to control. There
seems to be two schools of thought regarding “helpers”. Summer Oil and Sulfur both seem to be
common helpers. Several years ago Dr. Grove was a proponent of summer oil. There have been
some unsubstantiated reports of reduced tree health and reduced fruit quality in oil treated blocks.
Could that be looked at??
2. Ongoing Post-harvest work for treatments for reducing rots and maintaining fruit quality is
needed.
3. Using Plant Growth Regulator and plant steroids to increase fruit quality and yield.]
What would you most like to see more research done on to meet long term challenges?
How did we get here in the first place? Knowing this would help us not to return here as easily.
Especially western X, it’s been there different places every 20 years or so. It’s been through
California, Washington, British Columbia, and now it’s back in Wenatchee.
A lot of people aren’t even looking for Western X, they’re looking for little cherry.
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This winter that’s going to be a big push.
Cherry rasp leaf, that’s our hidden issue.
When it comes it’s going to be nasty
When it becomes widespread.
Something about vector management. That’s a big one.
Long term we need a better variety that is bigger and firmer to begin with and does not crack
Also shade netting. Pest levels and blocking airflow.
Bird control and food safety
Food safety with hydrocooling, birds love cherries, birds are dirty dirty things and
combining that with hydrocooling is worrying so food safety and hydrocooling. Organic
hydrocooling.
Exclusion netting again – for birds. Some companies spent a lot of money on bird netting.
Faster testing for little cherry disease, or on-farm testing, which I know is doable for little cherry
disease, but for western X they don’t have a system where you can detect on farm for that yet.
We need better access to PCR for lab testing for viruses, ELISA can done in the field but
has too many false negatives.
There are dwarfing rootstocks from Michigan.
Those would be good to put in the model orchard.
Post harvest, I think in we need to get into new markets with longer transfer times. The technology
to ship longer and varieties that ship better.
A question: what do you think of breeding a variety of cherry that can get the virus but does not
show symptoms? Would that be acceptable? It would have the virus but not show symptoms,
It depends on how the growers value all the other cherries because if you pass it on to a
variety that is susceptible then you have a problem. Or what if you had a variety like
Krymsk rootstock that is supersensitive and you put that in you orchard every so often and
if you do have it really does show up and just dies
That is a problem with Krymsk is that in Oregon very few trees actually died from the
virus, at some time apparently they did die but in commercial settings it hasn’t been
observed to that degrees. Some people put varieties on Krymsk rootstock hoping that it will
be signal that would quickly be like Geneva 16 for apple – put a virus stick on that puppy
and it’s dead in like six months. I’m not convinved Krymsk is a reliable methodology
It wouldn’t take that much to figure it out though. I know we have some Western X we
could graft onto Krymsk rootstock very easily.
Are there questions from researchers?
I’ve heard of greater problems with western X farther north, where there also used to be more little
cherry virus problems? I wonder if people are experiencing that as a general finding, have people
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gotten results back from where they have Western X where they used to have little cherry virus?
Is it moving north, how fast?
[no replies]
When was the last field day done on cherries?
There were three in July
What topics?
In Prosser area: training systems; in Grant County area: organic and little cherry virus;
in north: black pearl and little cherry disease.
And a Western X field day at the Rosa Farm.
It was at least those three.
What would you like to see from Extension?
Give us a better idea of who our consumer is – what they like and don’t like. Just starting a better
interface between between growers and consumers to facilitate that could be really helpful.
Another thing is when doing studies I noticed a lot of studying one thing. For example bitter pit
on apple, what do the treatments do to the rest of the roots, the bigger stuff, so when we do things
we look at the entire system of the tree and not just focusing in on one thing.
Related to what you were saying, looking at consumer studies on willingness to pay. One of the
comments a the cherry review was: Lots of people want to buy cherries but they don’t. So, how
do we get more people to buy cherries? The problem is cost per unit. What is the optimal mass of
cherries we should be selling? People don’t want to buy 3 lb of cherries, or don’t have the money
for 3 lb of cherries so can we sell a pound or ½ a lb and get it into a price point where we can ship
more cherries that way. We could do such a study at Stemilt, but it’s an industry problem getting
people to buy more cherries so it should be an industry project.
If we did a podcast it would be great to include people from other parts of the world to capture
everything that’s happening and to have extension in that would be really helpful.
Matt researcher: a few people mentioned better trying to understand life history of beneficials.
Vince and I have talked about what is the perception if you were to get an alert from DAS or
something ‘now is a bad time to spray for a certain beneficial but the right time to spray for a pest’.
I am curious how you would you respond to that? We have models for beneficial in the pipeline
for DAS, but we are trying to figure out how do we present information about beneficial alongside
a pest?
Another question is when do you release, are you releasing adults, or nymphs? You have a
target insect? Are we releasing adults that may not feed well on our target insect. Do we
need to have a generation pass before you’re feeding on the target pest. So we need to have
timeline to match of feeding and lifestages. That goes along with that you don’t want to
spend a lot of money on a release and then spray them out, so it’s an interesting complete
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dataset: when do we release, nymphs or adults for a given beneficial, and a lot of companies
are doing a lot of that.
Back to Matt’s specific question
Does it have to be super degree specific, or can we pool to it to like ‘prebloom these
are the beneficials you need to protect and avoid these specific products’,
‘summertime’, and ‘preharvest’. If you could get four specific recommendations, a
product like that would be great. You can tell a product like Delegate disrupts pests
but you may not have enough tools to get to the end of the year so what’s your best
recommendation.
You could put it in the box of management practices. I would weight it out and look
at the economic threshold and determine where I’m at and decide
Or I can use a soft or a hard product. Just knowing would be good.
An alert would also keep IPM on the forefront of minds ‘oh there is a consequence
for this’ and even if we are in the busy season spray spray spray you kind of forget
about long-term
If you give a popup alert make sure you can turn it off.
You can edit it in when you select your weather station.
Just making sure, ‘text you at 2 AM or something’ ha ha ha
There are key sensitive times for maximum codling g moth developmental and you
might not be able to afford delaying it to save beneficial so it needs to be side-by-
side. Don’t just emphasize beneficials or you could get into trouble with your lack
of codling moth control in your organic system.
Any other questions
Thank you. Feedback can be sent to [[email protected]]. There will be another opportunity
in the South October 29 that Bernadita Sallato is organizing, and the northern folks tentatively
November 11. Drink some coffee on the way out.