Strawberries through the year
More growers across Canada are marketing day-neutral strawberries. | 10
Times change but values remain
Two EE’s Farm Market has grown with the community. | 14
A berry wild success
Raise a glass to the first and only wild blueberry farm in Ontario. | 18
April 2018
From shed to thriving suburban market, Two EE’s Farm Market has grown with the community.
Raise
Marketing Matters
Marketing for a good cause.
TREENA HEIN
BY TREENA HEIN
BY CATHY BARTOLIC
I had just settled comfortably into my office chair to wax poetic about the Red Delicious apple when disaster struck – someone beat me to it.
Prompted by a very humorous feature by Tove Danovich in The New Food Economy, I was going to give in to temptation and contribute my two cents worth of support to what she considers an almost universally held belief – “Red Delicious is an apple atrocity” and “a crime against apples.”
Preach, sister!
My fingers were hovering over the keyboard, ready to strike a blow against the tyranny of the most undelicious Delicious, when a new email hit my inbox. Tom Karst, national editor of The Packer, had already weighed into the apple controversy. And he was pro-Red.
Oh, Tom! The horror!
Alas, you can only beat the dry, mealy, tough-skinned, blah-tasting topic known as the Red Delicious for so long before it’s basically apple sauce. I needed to move on.
And yet, it’s hard not to fantasize about the end of Big Red, a variety
records in search of old Washington state homesteads that may still be home to a few rogue heirloom apple varieties. And he’s pretty good at his hobby. According to a recent article from the Spokesman-Review, Benscoter has rediscovered five apple varieties in Washington and Idaho that were thought to be extinct – the Shackleford, McAfee, Saxon Priest, Kittageskee and the Ewalt.
To date, Benscoter has rediscovered more than 20 varieties of apples that were once considered “lost.”
During his investigations, Benscoter receives assistance from local property owners to hunt down wild-growing apples. He then sends the fruit or cuttings off to the Temperate Orchard Conservancy in Oregon, where they are compared to written variety descriptions and more than 7,000 old paintings collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture since 1886.
Washington State University’s horticultural genomics lab has also become involved, propagating some of the “lost” varieties. Associate scientist Amit Dhingra recognized the hardy
“It wouldn’t be the first apple to drift away into the mist of time.”
Danovich describes as being similar to a Styrofoam prop: “it looks picturesque but really has no business in the mouth.” It wouldn’t be the first apple variety to drift away into the mist of time, joining the ranks of Hog Snout and Montreal Peach. Where exactly do apple varieties go to die?
According to the “apple detective,” they aren’t really dead. They’re just lurking around the edges of a woodlot or growing along an old fencerow, waiting to be discovered. Or, rather, rediscovered.
David Benscoter is a retired agent with the FBI and IRS Criminal Division who now hunts through dusty
field-tested trees – which have many natural qualities, such as disease resistance and drought tolerance –could be useful to produce new apple varieties.
“It is estimated that of the 17,000 named apple varieties originating in North America, only around 4,000 still exist today,” Benscoter stated in a press release.
Oh, to dream that some day the Red Delicious might go the way of the Bachelor Blush and Rough and Ready, lost to the heavy underbrush of time. And may it please remain that way, just a pasty, bitter aftertaste on the tongue of memory. •
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Since 1950, you’ve been
At BASF, we’re proud of our long-term commitment to the apple industry. And we’re even prouder to be a part of our customers’ continued success. To learn more about the kind of innovative solutions that apple growers have trusted for over 65 years, visit agsolutions.ca/horticulture and follow us on Twitter @BASFAgSolutions.
The federal government is supporting new automated processes at Green Meadow Farms to help increase productivity, allowing employees to focus their skills in other aspects of the business.
A repayable contribution of $155,141 – provided through Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s Business Development Program – will help Green Meadows purchase and install new automated sorting and bagging equipment at its Morell farm. The technology upgrades will improve efficiency and productivity at the operation.
“At Green Meadow Farms, we are continuously
looking for ways to update our operation to compete in the global marketplace,” said Anneke Polstra, one of the founders of Green Meadow Farms Inc. “With this repayable contribution from ACOA, we are able to invest in new packaging technology that will support the work of our staff and help us keep up with growing industry demand.”
Green Meadow Farms was established in 1993 by Anneke and Reitze Polstra, and is now managed by brothers Terry and Thys Polstra. The 2,000-acre farm has more than 1,000 acres of potatoes and grain with up to 14 full and part-time employees.
Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc.’s third nonbrowning Arctic apple variety, Arctic Fuji, has been approved by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Health Canada (HC).
The CFIA and HC recently announced that the Arctic Fuji variety “did not pose a greater risk to human health than apples
currently available on the Canadian market.
In addition, Health Canada also concluded that the Arctic Fuji apple would have no impact on allergies, and that there are no differences in the nutritional value of the Arctic Fuji apple compared to other traditional apple varieties available for consumption”.
Arctic Fuji trees will join
the growing commercial orchards of Arctic Golden and Arctic Granny apples in spring 2018.
Arctic apples have a unique trait that prevents enzymatic browning even when apples are bitten, sliced, or bruised. Through biotechnology, the enzyme in apples responsible for browning has been turned off. The
resulting non-browning advantage benefits every sector of the supply chain, reducing food waste and boosting product appeal.
The announcement follows approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA APHIS) of the Arctic Fuji variety, granted September 23, 2016.
of fruits produced in B.C.
After 65 years, our commitment to grape crop protection clearly has good legs.
As the #1 provider of grape crop protection products in Canada, our innovative solutions run as deep as our history in industry – 65 years worldwide. But we probably don’t have to tell you that. Learn more about our solutions for your pest challenges at agsolutions.ca/horticulture and follow us on Twitter @BASFAgSolutions.
Always read and follow label directions. AgSolutions
The Colorado potato beetle is notorious for its role in starting the pesticide industry – and for its ability to resist the insecticides developed to stop it.
To better understand the pest, a team of scientists led by University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist Sean Schoville sequenced the beetle’s genome, probing its genes for clues to its adaptability to new environments and insecticides. The new information sheds light on how this insect jumps to new plant hosts and handles toxins, helping researchers explore more ways to control the beetle.
Within the beetle’s genome, Schoville’s team found a diverse and large array of genes used for digesting
plant proteins, helping the beetle thrive on its hosts. The beetle also had an expanded number of genes for sensing bitter tastes.
The researchers were surprised to find that the Colorado potato beetle’s genome looked much like those of its less-hardy cousins. The team did not find new resistance-related genes to explain the insect’s tenaciousness.
The genome did provide a clue to the beetle’s known sensitivity to an alternative control system, known as RNA interference, or RNAi for short. The nucleic acid RNA translates the genetic instructions from DNA into proteins, and RNAi uses gene-specific strands of RNA to interfere with and degrade those messages. In the beetle, RNAi can be used to gum up its cellular machinery and act as a kind of insecticide. The Colorado potato beetle has an expanded RNAi processing pathway, meaning it could be particularly amenable to experimental RNAi control methods. Schoville and Chen are now sequencing another 100 genomes of the Colorado potato beetle and its close relatives to continue investigating the hardiness and adaptability that have captured so many people’s attention for the past 150 years.
For growers, it’s important to know what pest and beneficial species are in your fields. But what if there’s an insect and no one knows if it’s good or bad?
That was the situation for Washington apple growers when it came to the European earwig. No one knew if they helped or harmed their crop.
In 2014, Robert Orpet was part of a team looking into woolly apple aphid. One of his tasks was to interview growers about natural predators. Although there was some European literature that suggested earwigs were aphid predators, few growers named them as beneficial natural enemies. Many thought earwigs were pests. Orpet had an idea why grower’s perceptions and the literature might differ. Earwigs are active at night, so
people don’t see them eating aphids. Another possible explanation was the European literature was wrong.
Orpet set up experimental sections in four different orchards and, in each section, either added earwigs, removed them or left them alone.
The results were clear. First, earwigs are aphid predators. Not only did his numbers support that, he had video of one earwig eatting an aphid colony. The damage question also came out in the earwigs’ favour. Overall, 97 per cent of the apples were good, and the chance of finding a good apple were the same in both the augmented and removal areas.
Orpet’s conclusion was the earwigs didn’t cause cracking but did exploit existing damage
The Northern Grapes Project is hosting a series of free webinars this spring, scheduled for the second Tuesday of each month. These one-hour webinars will cover special topics on growing, producing, and marketing wines made from cold-hardy Northern wine grape cultivars. Those interested in participating are required to register for each webinar individually. The organization will send out a registration link a few weeks prior to each event. This link contains further information on the series as well as links to past topics, which look equally as interesting: northerngrapesproject.org/northern-grapes-webinar-series.
University of Adelaide researchers have discovered how grapes “breathe,” and that shortage of oxygen leads to cell death in the grape.
The discovery raises many questions about the potentially significant impacts on grape and wine quality and flavour and vine management, and may lead to new ways of selecting varieties for warming climates. Professor Tyerman and PhD student Zeyu Xiao from the university’s Australian Research Council (ARC) Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production have identified that during ripening, grapes suffer internal oxygen shortage.
The research was in collaboration with Dr. Victor Sadras, South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), and Dr. Suzy Rogiers, NSW Department of Primary Industries, Wagga Wagga. Published in the Journal of Experimental Botany, the researchers describe how grape berries suffer internal oxygen shortage during ripening. With the use of a miniature oxygen measuring probe – the first time this has been done in grapes – they compared oxygen profiles across the flesh inside grapes of Chardonnay, Shiraz and Ruby Seedless table grape.
They found that the level of oxygen shortage closely correlated with cell death within the grapes. Respiration measurements indicated that this would be made worse by high temperatures during ripening – expected to happen more frequently with global warming.
The study was supported by the Australian Industrial Transformation Research Program with support from Wine Australia and industry partners.
More growers across Canada are marketing day-neutral strawberries
BY TREENA HEIN
Canadians clearly love having fresh local strawberries several times a year and Canada’s day-neutral strawberry industry is growing to meet the demand.
Kevin Schooley agrees that it’s the local angle, as well as better taste and sweetness provided by quick harvest-to-purchase timelines compared to imports, which is fueling the expansion. Indeed, the executive director of the North American Strawberry Growers’ Association and Ontario Berry Growers Association puts the increase in those growing day-neutrals across Canada over the last five years at 20 to 30 per cent, and believes there is always the potential for more new growers. However, Schooley also notes that growers with larger acreages who sell to wholesale outlets will likely take a year or two right now to evaluate the impact of higher minimum wage before expanding further – and so might growers who do direct sales.
Brad and Terri Raymont, owners of Raymont’s Berries in Cottam, Ont., sell strawberries to
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wholesalers and also directly from their farm. The Raymonts won a regional 2016 Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence for their work with day-neutrals, which began about 10 years ago. They have supported the plants’ extended growing season by using black mulch and row covers to warm the soil, as well as high tunnels for early and late season plant protection. However, Brad says he will also plant some June-bearing strawberries in 2018 (something he hasn’t done in a while) as he’s found that over the last few cold and wet springs, the dayneutrals didn’t fare very well early in the season.
Because day-neutral berries have several harvests a season, they are much more prone to insect attack than June-flowering conventional varieties.
“Pests like tarnished plant bug are everywhere all summer,” notes Craig Hunter, who leads the crop protection file at the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association. “They are difficult to control, and the pre-harvest intervals are long for most
Demand for fresh local strawberries has been growing in Canada and the country’s day-neutral strawberry industry is growing to meet the need.
products. Hence, the timing to treat and the wait to harvest can be challenging.”
On top of this, Hunter says day-neutral berry growers also face the potential loss of several key fungicides due to current reevaluations by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA).
“This could put serious pressure on the remainder, all of which are prone to pest resistance,” he explains, adding “there are very few new compounds on the horizon, so pest control will become an even greater challenge.”
Biocontrol methods are being actively employed for berries and more across Canada. See our recent story here – https:// www.fruitandveggie.com/insects/biocontrolexpanding-in-berry-fields-20390 – on biocontrol methods being used for control of thrips and more in day-neutral strawberries at Tigchelaar’s Farms, with land in Jordan and Vineland, Ont.
researchers are examining yield and fruiting duration of day-neutral strawberry varieties under different mulches, as well as how much of a role low tunnels play in improving berry quality (and which low-tunnel plastics provide better benefits).
A pest control device developed by Dr. Tracy Leskey – a USDA entomology research leader for innovative fruit production, improvement and protection based in Kearneysville, WV – is being evaluated for effectiveness at some TunnelBerries sites. The device consists of a red plastic sphere that is visually attractive to spotted wing drosophila (SWD), with a toploaded coating (containing a feeding stimulant and a pesticide) that runs down the surface over time.
Pests that attack day-neutral berries are also being studied through the U.S-based TunnelBerries Project, a large initiative now entering its third year. Research spans across many production aspects relating to the use of low tunnels and high tunnels in long-season strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Woodman Horticultural Research Farm and other university and U.S. Department of Agriculture sites in Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina and New York. At UNH specifically,
In Alberta, day-neutral strawberry growers don’t have the same SWD pressure that other regions of Canada do, but it’s still a concern, says Robert Spencer, commercial horticulture specialist with Alberta Agriculture & Forestry (AAF).
“It tends to show up in late August when raspberries and dayneutral strawberries are in season,” he explains. “Tarnished plant
Industry acreage of day-neutrals really started growing in B.C. a few years ago when the last main berry processor in the province stopped accepting strawberries and oversupply issues erupted around June.
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Use Exirel® insecticide early in the season to give your pome fruit, stone fruit and blueberries the head-start they need during the most critical stages of development. Exirel® insecticide has fast acting, translaminar and xylem systemic movement so you’ll be protecting new growth from difficult chewing and sucking pests, including aphids, plum curculio, apple maggot, codling moth, Oriental fruit moth, leafrollers, weevils, and spotted wing drosophila.
Exirel® insecticide, powered by CyazypyrTM, an important part of an integrated pest management program. Visit FMCcrop.ca or call 1-833-362-7722 to learn more.
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From a shed on the side of the road to a thriving suburban market, Two EE’s Farm Market in Surrey, B.C., has grown with the community.
BY RONDA PAYNE BELOW
As the customer base increased, the market began carrying a wider range of products, adding some import products, dairy and even a little bit of organic meat to meet demand.
A bold orange border marked the roadside stand of Two EE’s Farm Market in the early days – the same bright identifier still seen on the building today. For many in the community of Surrey, B.C., Two EE’s, and the Schoen family that owns and operates the market, has remained a landmark, even as the community around it changed and underwent mass development.
Ann Jansen (nee Schoen) and her brother Mike Schoen are behind the market and organic farming business now, having taken over from their parents, Henk and Jenny.
“It was a shed on the side of the highway,” Mike says, describing what existed when his grandfather bought the property his parents moved onto when they married in 1960.
“Dad started with chickens,” Ann adds.
In those years, from the shed and land that had previously been owned by Emil and Elizabeth Kowalski (thus the Two EE’s name) Henk and Jenny sold eggs, honey, homemade bread and summer jams. Having lived through the Nazi control in Holland years before coming to Canada, Henk was anti-establishment when it came to rules that infringed upon his freedom.
“Dad put it on paper that he owned the Okanagan bees to be able to sell the honey,” Ann says.
At that time, for someone to sell honey, it had to come from their own bees and while Henk had a few hives on his property, the majority of the honey came
from other colonies in the Interior of B.C. Of course, he didn’t own these bees, but he did sell their honey despite the white lie.
Two EE’s, and the Schoen family that owns and operates the market, has remained a landmark, even as the community around it changed and underwent mass development.
His answer was bold, according to Mike.
“He told them: ‘They [the hens] found out what you’re doing [imposing quota regulations] and they stopped laying,” Mike says. “They had a great big fight. He told them the reason he left Holland in the first place was because of that [control and the quota system].”
“Vegetables was what he wanted to do anyway,” Ann adds.
In addition to growing his own vegetables, Henk was not one to allow food waste. He once purchased spoiled potatoes from a fellow farmer and had the kids pick out the good ones among the few rotten ones. Ann recalls a time when a farmer couldn’t get into his carrot field because it was too wet so Henk and the kids went and pulled the carrots by hand after purchasing the crop.
They still try to source produce locally.
“Over all the years, those shifts. There’s always a new thing.”
– Ann Jansen
With nine children, Henk had a vegetable garden on the property and the couple would sell part of the vegetable crop to the public. Gradually, as the family grew, Henk carved more and more of the five-and-a-half acres from the trees and scrub that occupied it and nurtured it into farmland a piece at a time, until the entire site was being farmed. As the children grew, they helped out. Henk – trained as a horticulturalist in Holland – went full-time on the farm after the couple’s third child was born.
“We all had to go spend time to go pick rocks,” Ann explains. “It was a punishment. When I first started helping them, I was seven or eight I suppose.”
Henk’s anti-establishment streak rose up again when the egg quota system was introduced. A producer could report that their hens weren’t laying, which Henk did, but continued to sell his eggs elsewhere. After six months, the quota body called asking why the hens still weren’t laying since two months is the common timeframe.
“We just don’t go dig them ourselves anymore,” Ann says.
As best they can recall, Ann and Mike’s parents grew cabbage, rhubarb, lettuces and carrots in the early years. By 1999, production from five-anda-half acres plus produce from other local farmers was no longer enough to keep pace with demand. Henk purchased 25 acres east of the existing site.
Now, in 2018, having sold a large portion of the original site to the City of Surrey for a park, the 25-acre site is the primary production property with 12,000 square feet in greenhouses and the rest as uncovered crops. The original site is home to the muchadded-to market and maybe 0.5 acres for greenhouses and a small amount of uncovered crops.
Everything Two EE’s grows is organic and has been for decades. In addition to selling their product in the market, the Schoens also sell to Whole Foods and Discovery Organics.
“Dad was one of the pioneers into it,” Ann says of being organic. “Dad
realized himself that chemicals were no good. He thought they weren’t good in our bodies either.”
It was a lot of trial and error to be organic in the beginning when what Henk called “the granola crunchers” thought using a tractor prevented food from being organic. He tried a lot of things and, according to Ann, people were surprised at what he was able to do. Part of the success is attributed to the farm growing all kinds of vegetables: potatoes, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, leeks, chards, corn, lettuces, kale, onions, spinach, squashes, pumpkins, peas, pepper, bok choi, herbs and more. Melons are the only fruit.
Mike followed in his dad’s footsteps, going to horticulture school and then working on the land to apply his education. He has continued to be diverse in planting and has learned to go with market demands.
“Mono-cropping is where you have the problem with pests,” he says. “Also, you don’t lose everything if you lose a crop.”
One of the changes Mike has noticed includes the shift in when people shop.
“When mothers were at home, they’d
come shop during the day,” he says. “Now what you kind of have is two kinds of rushes.”
He explains one rush comes as people pick kids up from school while the other comes at the end of their workday. No longer is there a steady flow of customers throughout the day. As the customer base increased, the market began carrying a wider range of products, adding some import products, dairy and even a little bit of organic meat to meet demand.
Another change Mike has witnessed is the need for a wider range of non-native produce.
“Diversity of stuff,” he explains. “We’re carrying stuff for Punjabi and Asian [cultures] and other people want to try that stuff.”
There’s also a demand for more things year round. As people became more detached from farming, they lost sight of what the growing process looked like.
“They expect it year round,” Ann says. “We didn’t have fresh green beans in the winter [decades ago], you had canning.”
The market also carries a few specialty items and a lot of Dutch products.
“Over all the years, those shifts,” Ann says. “There’s always a new thing.”
One that was surprising was the rise in interest in kale.
“Dad used to grow kale just for the Dutch people. We sold them for 50 cents a head,” Mike says. “Then the crazy people started writing about how great kale is and you’re picking two leaves for 50 cents.”
He notes that cilantro has grown significantly in popularity, while lettuce has slowed – at least the head variety – as bagged salads have taken off.
Henk passed away in 2016, just four months after his wife Jenny. He was involved in the operation up until he died. Three other family members work alongside Ann and Mike and Ann is quick to point out that some of the Two EE’s employees have been with the business since before Mike.
The community around Two EE’s would be unrecognizable now to their maternal grandfather, who originally purchased the site, but the market has grown and shifted to meet the demographics and population growth in the area. And, throughout it all, it has remained a family-run business. •
Raise a glass to the first and only wild blueberry farm in Ontario.
BY TREENA HEIN
The story of how Ontario’s first and only wild blueberry farm and winery came about perhaps started when a large parcel of land near Wawa was deforested some years ago. The 600 acres of ancient Lake Superior bottom – completely stone-free and extremely flat with a sand/silt soil type – quickly filled in with wild blueberries bushes.
At the same time, in the early 2000s, a seed was planted in a man named Trevor Laing.
“I had worked with a person from the Lac St. Jean area of Quebec where wild blueberry production is king,” explains Liang. “He said that Ontario was missing the boat.
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I looked for some Crown land to buy, but it was a difficult process and I gave up on that route. I came across a parcel of private land that had originally been granted to a mining firm over a hundred years ago and it was ideal. I bought it in 2006 and by 2009, I resigned from the company I co-owned and began pursuing the project in earnest.”
‘Ideal’ describes the land in two main ways. First, it already had abundant amounts of wild blueberries growing on it, with ideal soil types and acidity levels and a flat nature making mechanical cultivation easy. Secondly, part of it lies against the TransCanada
Trevor Laing bought the land he has built into Algoma Highlands Wild Blueberry Farm and Winery in 2006. The operation now includes a winery.
Highway near the town of Wawa, so a blueberry winery and products store would be highly-visible to traffic. Another plus is the proximity of a major Northern Ontario tourist attraction – Magpie Highfalls – that bring tour buses through on a regular bases during the summer months.
The stage was set for Algoma Highlands Wild Blueberry Farm and Winery to be a success. Competition with other wild or domesticated blueberry operations did not daunt
Algoma has also expanded into the value-added market, producing jam, barbecue sauce, and blueberry syrup. Items are sold at the farm store and about 75 retail outlets within Ontario.
Laing. However, he admits that in terms of cultivation of the crop – the very heart of the business – he had no farming experience at all.
“It was all trial and error,” he says. “A lot of people across Canada own farms that were purchased or inherited. Not many people have created a farm from scratch. I feel pretty good about everything to date.”
Laing chose to use a light scrape with an excavator to encourage blueberries to spread, but he says he should have used a mulcher.
“When we develop the fields, there is a fine line between leveling the land and not doing damage to the wild blueberry plants that are already there,” he says. “We have it figured but it was a trial-and-error type of process. Mulching leaves more mulch on the fields for future fertilization and better growth, plus the land is better levelled, making harvesting easier.”
He says they have only about 21 days to get the berries in and labour will always be an issue. Right now, he hires foreign workers to assist during harvest and plans for more mechanical harvesting.
By 2011, Algoma was selling both fresh and frozen wild blueberries. They now sell frozen berries from the farm in 10
B.C.’s provincial government recently announced $5 million in funding to support research, marketing and infrastructure modernization in the tree fruit industry.
Apple, cherry and other tree fruit growers throughout British Columbia will be able to update aging equipment and infrastructure while increasing their marketing and research efforts thanks to a new $5-million Tree Fruit Competitiveness Fund announced recently.
The fund will be open to tree fruit growers, producers, and processors to support three key areas of priority:
• Research: cultivar, disease and pest research.
• Marketing: export market opportunities and market development research.
• Infrastructure: sector-based infrastructure modernization such as new equipment.
“This funding is so important to the future of our industry. We need help controlling new invasive pests like the brown marmorated stinkbug, and marketing is an area where we need to invest in new varieties,” said Fred Steele, past president of the B.C. Fruit Growers’ Association. “This funding will also help with our very successful replant program. This investment, at a time when we are challenged in the marketplace,
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will ensure that we continue to make progress that leads to a bright future for the tree fruit sector.”
Portions of the fund can also be used to address any oversubscription of the B.C. government’s Tree Fruit Replant Program over the next four years. This year, the province provided an additional $300,000 in funding for the replant program, to meet the demand from tree fruit growers.
The B.C. government will be engaging with the B.C. Fruit Growers’ Association and other partners to set up the fund and establish the process for awarding funding. It is anticipated the fund will be active for the next three to four years.
“This fund will help family-run orchards and the sector as a whole with advancements that make B.C. tree fruit more competitive in the marketplace,” said B.C. Agriculture Minister Lana Popham. “The $5-million investment reflects this government’s commitment to partner with B.C. growers to help modernize their practices, and help them share their great-tasting apples, cherries and other fruits, with more customers here at home and around the world.” •
B.C. tree fruit growers will be able to update equipment and infrastructure plus increase marketing and research efforts, thanks to $5 million in new provincial funding announced recently.
Kleber is introducing a new agricultural radial tire for the North American market.
The Kleber Cropker answers the farmer’s needs for use with crops that require narrow tires (between 9- and 12-inch section widths), including beets, strawberries, cane, grapes and other small crops. This tire is designed to provide the benefits of optimized traction, a selfcleaning tread pattern, robust construction and improved plant protection. The Kleber Cropker is designed with a 40 mph D-speed index and a high
load capacity. It has a new lug pattern that helps promotes better steering and reduces “spoon effect.” The lug shape is designed to retain little soil while operating in the field and to allow minimal tire slippage in soft and damp soil. The self-cleaning properties of the new generation tread-pattern architecture help keep the tire mud-free when field conditions are difficult. The Cropker can drive between rows without causing plant damage, which ultimately can contribute to higher yields and profitability.
kleber.com
The M&P onion peeler can handle up to 110 onions per minute, removing tops, tails and pneumatically peeling the bulb. The machine uses a dry peeling process, meaning no water use, and no waste slurry to deal with. The peeler automatically picks up onions from a stainless steel hopper using chain-driven carriers. It can operate on a wide variety of bulb sizes and types with no need to change parts. The operation is continuous with a variable speed drive featuring a digital speed display. The peeler features an operator station with an adjustable seat for comfort, an emergency stop plate for operator safety.
mp-engineering.co.uk
The Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) recently announced the approval of a Minor Use label expansion of Delegate Insecticide for suppression of flea beetles on several root vegetables. Crops added to the label include radish, horseradish, Oriental radish, rutabaga, turnip and carrot. Delegate was already labeled for control of diamondback moth, cabbage looper and imported cabbageworm on these crops. Users should consult the complete label before using Delegate. Follow all other precautions and directions for use on the Delegate label carefully.
dowagro.com
Tolsma-Grisnich
The Vision Control is an intelligent storage computer that regulates temperature, relative air humidity and CO2content during storage by controlling fans, hatches, stoves and mechanical cooling in an intelligent and effective way. The Tolsma YOU (Yield Observation Unit) measures the weight and CO2 content of potatoes that are stored in bulk. In combination with a
Vision Control climate computer, weight loss is rendered during storage. The measuring data of the YOU are displayed in the Vision Control. Additional analyses are shown in an online environment to determine optimal storage strategy.
tolsmagrisnich.com
The Sample Analyzer automates the analysis of samples during the storage or processing of potatoes. The analyzer assesses, in an objective manner, the length, size and weight in water (WIW, UWW) of the sample. In terms of storage, the data obtained is useful for the sales process of a batch. The automatic delivery of this information ensures the fast and independent assessment of quality within the processing business. The analyzer can be operated as a stand-alone machine or as part of a by-pass line adjacent to the storage or processing line.
tolsmagrisnich.com
The Atom 3500, by Andreoli Engineering, has been purposely designed for big orchards: large tank capacity, powerful ventilation system with high efficiency, powerful transmission, superior drive comfort, reliability and strength ensuring thousands of hours of service dayafter-day, season-after-season. It helps reduce spray time, thanks to its
working autonomy, maneuverability and power of ventilation system, and ensures drive comfort in all conditions: independent variable hydraulic suspensions on the chassis, independent pneumatic suspensions on the cab, large pneumatic seat. The Atom 3500 can work on very rough and heavy ground, thanks to its transmission, suspensions and high ground clearance. It has a roomy cab with great visibility, pressurized, protected by specific filters dust, chemicals, vapours, aerosol proof. Atom is available in 3,500 and 2,500 litres tank capacities.
gelder-eq.com
CATHY BARTOLIC | cathy@ontariofarmfresh.com
Every year, Strom’s Farm and Bakery, located near Guelph, Ont., selects a charity with a project specific to the local area and include the charity’s logo in the design for the farm’s corn maze. This was the maze design for 2017.
Creating marketing campaigns for your business that also raise awareness for a social injustice or issue has become more and more commonplace in the last few years.
Bell’s Let’s Talk Day is one that immediately comes to mind. The telecom company initially promised to invest $50 million over five years when it started this campaign in 2010. It has since doubled that total to a cumulative spend of $100 million by 2020 and has so far donated $93.4 million to mental health initiatives.
The campaign has been successful because of a couple of very specific factors – its ease of participation, Bell’s long-term commitment, the team behind the cause and the celebrity endorsements related to the program.
According to Bell, four out of five Canadians reported they were more aware of mental health issues since the start of the campaign.
Closer to agriculture, Strom’s Farm and Bakery has supported various charities with proceeds from their corn maze admission fees and register round-up program. Each year, they select a charity with a local project specific to
the Guelph area and include the charity’s logo in the design for the farm’s corn maze. The charity in turn helps to promote the farm and its activities. It is a win for everyone involved – the charity gets some much-needed funds, the farm hosts new visitors who may not have come out otherwise, and the general public learns a little bit more about the chosen project.
In 2017, Strom’s worked with Start2Finish. Their mission is to break the cycle of child poverty by providing ongoing support to at-risk children. Strom’s raised a total of $7,214.45 for Guelph schools to be able to supply running shoes for their kids. Since 2005, Strom’s has raised more than $61,000. They suggest you find a local project that your customers can relate to and can see the benefits of their donations.
None of us have the budgets of a national mega company but by aligning your farm with a cause you believe in or may have some personal experience with, your marketing dollars will stretch a lot further and the impact will be significantly increased. •
Arysta LifeScience offers a portfolio of consistent and reliable tools to protect your investment. With trusted fungicides, insecticides, miticides, plant growth regulators, a herbicide and a bactericide, you can confidently protect your crops against a broad spectrum of diseases and pests.
For more information about crop essentials from Arysta LifeScience, visit www.gowithwhatworks.ca.
