Tomorrow morning I will go to the orchard to spray for the first time this year. Weather and work conflicts have delayed this requirement. It's been a wet year. So no copper/lime in the spring, an important fungicide. The current fruit shows the impact of no spraying, especially the Red and Yellow Delicious. I will use an old Kubota L260 tractor with the sprayer on a rear hydraulic. Later tonight I will review my notes on the process and the Illinois Pesticide Applicator Training Manual 39-17 I bought yesterday at our University of Illinois extension center in Clinton. I'm hoping to limit spraying to fungicides and use organic pesticides (bugs). Japanese beetles are around the corner.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
How it Started...
In Spring 2012, at my Horticulture class at Richland Community College, Decatur, IL, our professor relayed that the owner of a private orchard near Maroa was seeking help in maintaining it. The offer was to the department for use of the students in conjunction with courses. The professor wasn't interested and passed onto the students. I called and met with the couple, from Chicago and had bought the land with about 300 apple trees and 40 peach trees. Due to their jobs, they were unable to keep up the orchard and were going to plow it under if didn't receive outside help. I am retired Army, and was working a 90 day contract at Caterpillar and thought this might be an unique opportunity for the family. I talked it over with the wife and kids (all 5) and had their enthusiastic support. We had just seen "We Bought a Zoo" recently and I think the novelty of that excited most of them.
We hit it off with the couple, about our age with kids ages near ours. They made an offer hard to pass up; the owner would teach me the ropes, full use of his equipment and generous split of the profits. I incurred no risk except for investment of my time, which I would severely underestimate. I would have to maintain the orchard: pruning and spraying. I would have to harvest, market and sell the apples. I would have to coordinate the labor. In retrospect, my enthusiasm and optimism far exceeded my capability, and God intervened in several ways.
First was the April 2012 frost that seem to be particularly brutal to the orchard area, killing all the buds. The trees did not recover. Hard to believe, but 340 fruit trees produced ZERO fruit. In addition to the frost, I speculate the lack of pruning and spraying the previous years were a factor, as well as weak pollination.
Second was the birth of our daughter in July 2012. She has Down syndrome and was in natal intensive care for several weeks.I was thankful I did not have the burden of the orchard at that time.
2013 came and my commitment was still there. I decided I liked being semi-retired and being home around the family and new daughter. I substitute teach, do hardscapes and defense industry consulting (see that blog at informationfx.blogspot.com) and was working on a home inspection certification, all of which gave me the freedom to continue with the orchard opportunity. I learned to prune fruit trees, but estimate I only completed about 20% of needed pruning (I will show a picture of the massive pile of 20%). I will do separate entries for pruning lessons learned. Last week I learned to spray.
I decided to keep a log of lessons learned and observations of my steep learning curve, which led to creating this blog to include most of my activities and learning. If nothing else, my family will remember this as the Year We Ran an Orchard.
We hit it off with the couple, about our age with kids ages near ours. They made an offer hard to pass up; the owner would teach me the ropes, full use of his equipment and generous split of the profits. I incurred no risk except for investment of my time, which I would severely underestimate. I would have to maintain the orchard: pruning and spraying. I would have to harvest, market and sell the apples. I would have to coordinate the labor. In retrospect, my enthusiasm and optimism far exceeded my capability, and God intervened in several ways.
First was the April 2012 frost that seem to be particularly brutal to the orchard area, killing all the buds. The trees did not recover. Hard to believe, but 340 fruit trees produced ZERO fruit. In addition to the frost, I speculate the lack of pruning and spraying the previous years were a factor, as well as weak pollination.
Second was the birth of our daughter in July 2012. She has Down syndrome and was in natal intensive care for several weeks.I was thankful I did not have the burden of the orchard at that time.
2013 came and my commitment was still there. I decided I liked being semi-retired and being home around the family and new daughter. I substitute teach, do hardscapes and defense industry consulting (see that blog at informationfx.blogspot.com) and was working on a home inspection certification, all of which gave me the freedom to continue with the orchard opportunity. I learned to prune fruit trees, but estimate I only completed about 20% of needed pruning (I will show a picture of the massive pile of 20%). I will do separate entries for pruning lessons learned. Last week I learned to spray.
I decided to keep a log of lessons learned and observations of my steep learning curve, which led to creating this blog to include most of my activities and learning. If nothing else, my family will remember this as the Year We Ran an Orchard.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)