Sustainable Fruit
Production, Horticultural Practices:
Lehman’s Orchard LLC
Continuing Education
As growers, our work is never
complete: We are always looking for the next
best practice. We strive to visit other
orchards, wineries, fruit processing plants and
cideries both in the United States and abroad to
learn what others are doing better and more
successfully with less impact on our
environment. In addition, we attend seminars
and classes as well as read everything we can
get our hands on to further our sustainability
practices.
High Tunnel Practices:
We grow one acre of
raspberries, sweet cherries, and apricots under
high tunnels not using chemicals. The purpose
of the covered tunnels is to keep the crops
inside dry, free from insect and fungus damage.
Drip irrigation is used only along the crop rows
minimizing pressure from weeds. The high
tunnels protect the fruit crops from wind, hail,
rain, frost, dew, and keep the inside
temperatures more moderate allowing the plants
and trees inside to reach their full potential.
The crops from the high tunnels are sold at our
farmers markets stands as, “no spray.”
Our cultural practices
making IPM application possible:
We farm a smaller acreage so
that we can meticulously care for our healthy
crops thereby limiting disease pressure. We
keep the orchards clean and free of disease by
constantly mowing and pruning. Our farm has two
5 inch wells and is fully trickle irrigated.
Our orchards are planted in styles, (i.e., high
density slender spindle in apples, vsp in
grapes, open center in peaches and cherries,
which encourage early fruit ripening and
discourage disease and overproduction). We
have over 100 different varieties of fruits
which are carefully chosen for our climate and
for their disease resistance, (i.e., Gold Rush
Apple). During the season, we constantly
hand-pick ripe fruit to eliminate disease risk.
Our cultural practice of
high density planting of all crops (early fruit
production and canopy establishment) minimizes
the need for additional herbicides within the
row. Consequently, a lot of our weeding is done
by hand. We only weed for the first half of the
year. Having weeds in the row for the last half
of the year encourages soil fertility and keeps
the underlying layers of soil loose.
Rotate the crop and begin
anew:For the
last 15 years, we have typically planted annual
rye through the winter, then incorporate it into
the soil and plant the next fruit crop. Last
year, we added another step to this process and
it is called biofumigation. By adding summer
covers to the ground like Sorghum Sudan grass,
the underlying layers of soil are broken up (the
sorghum roots go deeper than rye) and the
biomass adds nutrition to the soil and cuts down
the Nematode populations. Because of the high
cost of oil, we are gladly raising our own
nitrogen in the row middles rotations of rye,
grain and oats.
IPM:
We use modern Integrated
Pest Management techniques to reduce the
amount of spray needed… usually by 50
percent per application (We recognize the
disease quickly, time the spray to prevent the
disease before it can ruin the crop). We do
not adhere to a conventional weekly spray
schedule, instead we carefully time sprays to
just before and after a moisture event, which
allows us to only spray when necessary, reducing
the number of sprays from a regular spray
program. It takes more time and work, but we
feel it is worth it.
Insects: We monitor and
treat pest populations of apple maggot (sticky
trap for recognition and apple maggot traps
control), plum curculio (degree days), cherry
fruit fly (yellow sticky trap and usually does
not arrive until after harvest), peach tree
borer (degree days and look for larvae and treat
with pheromone strips), codling moth (Isomate
pheromone strips last through the season),
oriental fruit moth (pheromone strips last
through the season), encouraging predator
populations (rose bushes on perimeter, no mow
strips of weeds and flowers, rotation of
insecticide sprays). The new bat houses
installed in 2009 will be extra insurance
keeping insect populations low.
Fungicides: Prevention is
the key. We time sprays and prevent cherry leaf
spot (copper early and sulfur when warm weather
hits), bacterial canker in peach (mechanical
hedging, copper sprays late/early in year,
mechanical removal and burning of trimmings),
fire blight in apples and pears (timing of
antibiotic sprays critical in region, mechanical
removal and burning of infected branches only in
dormant season, copper sprays in early season),
scab in apples, pears (ebdc fungicides at 1/3
rate prevent most disease timed just before and
after weather event), peach scab (sulfur sprays
at 50 percent rate timed just before and after
weather event).
Farm History:
Ralph Lehman, my school teacher grandfather,
grew 50 acres of U-pick tart cherries in a sod
system of weekly mowing throughout the growing
season. This constant mowing of grass built the
soil. We keep this in mind when we add
fertilizer of manure or calcium nitrate and only
apply lesser rates when the plants are actively
growing. We apply 100 tons of hay mulch to
different sections of the orchard per year.
This typically covers 7-8 acres and 15-18
percent of the acreage is rotated every 6
years.
Organizations we
participate with/Subscribe to:
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Cornell University |
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Great Lakes Cider & Perry International
Association |
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Good Fruit Grower |
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Great Lakes Fruit |
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International Fruit Tree Association |
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Michigan Grape Society |
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Minnesota Grape Growers Association
|
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Taster’s Guild International |
| |
University of Michigan Agriculture
Extension |
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University of Minnesota |
