Ask a Specialist: How can I convince my partner, family member, or neighbor to switch to organic practices in their fruit trees?

By raChel henderson

Fruit, in particular apples and other tree fruits, are often ranked as top users of pesticides and other inputs in conventional management. Many of us have access to trees, but not full control over how they’re cared for, resulting in a frustrating situation where those sweet treats aren’t grown the way we’d like. For those of us committed to organics, it’s tempting to try to get people to make changes to their trees. The people making those decisions may be reluctant to change, unconvinced that organic practices will work, or simply unaware of their options.

The first step toward making a change is having a conversation about making a switch, to understand what they’re using inputs FOR. Many people unfamiliar with fruit production may lump all sprays into a single category, and it’s important to know what’s used for what before we attempt to come up with an alternative plan.

Nearly all perennial fruits suffer from some type of fungal disease in our warm, humid summers, and fungicides are one of the most commonly used type of input in fruit production. In organic production, we use allowed inputs that include elemental copper or sulfur. These can be effective, but often offer less complete protection than their conventional counterparts. That’s a common reason many people cite for avoiding the switch to organics, since fungal disease results in much less salable fruit. However, as a rule, organic growers use those fungicide products in conjunction with management practices. We monitor for degree days and moisture levels, and more than anything, clean up anything that will be a disease vector. This leads to a good suggestion for lessening dependence on conventional inputs: a holistic approach can help growers cut out some applications. Organic growers often plant disease-resistant varieties as a first line of defense, which may not be helpful when discussing converting existing plantings but might be an amenable suggestion if a grower is expanding or re-planting. Removing fallen fruit from the orchard is another important strategy — many people would probably welcome volunteer help with this. Late season (or early spring) mowing grinds up the fallen leaves and also helps destroy fungal spores, helping to break the cycle. Applications of compost tea after mowing can help break down leaf litter, besides enriching the soil.

Like fungal disease, our midwestern summers provide a good environment for many different insects. And similar to fungicides, our organic options pack less of a punch than conventional insecticides. For this reason, any organic sprays must be accompanied by a rather intensive monitoring and management program. This starts with positively identifying the culprits, understanding something about their lifecycle, and using traps or other monitoring techniques to determine their presence in the orchard. A lot of work! For the most commonly grown fruit, that information can be readily available. Michigan State University’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program has many readily available resources, both online and in print, that can help establish that base of knowledge. (https://www.canr.msu. edu/ipm) One advantage is that IPM practices are useful even in a conventional orchard setting, helping to reduce the number of sprays needed, and preventing pesticide resistance. These are practices that a grower can benefit from even without committing fully to organic. A management-intensive approach might help reduce reliance on sprays, leading a grower to be more interested in eventually switching to organic options.

Fruit trees, as well as smaller fruit, have shallow roots and are susceptible to competition from grass and weeds, slowing their growth and lowering production. A common conventional approach to this problem is the maintenance of herbicide strips — killing everything that grows around the root zone. Most commonly, in organic settings growers use mulch, periodic cultivation, or a combination of both. Cultivation, of course, comes with its own drawbacks, and you can learn more about those drawbacks here: https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/ combat_herbicide_resistance_by_using_strip_cultivation_for_weed_management.

Mulch can be either organic mulch like wood chips or straw, or a plastic or paper option. If the grower is interested in pursuing organic certification, care needs to be taken to make sure that anything used can be verified by the source as free of prohibited materials, but otherwise mulch can be an inexpensive and relatively low-labor option.

Depending on your relationship with the fruit grower, it can be helpful to offer to take on some of this learning, monitoring, or management, as that is bound to be a limiting factor. It can also help to think of this as a longterm project and hope to help convince the grower to take on incremental change.

Rachel Henderson is a Marbleseed Organic Specialist. Rachel and her husband, Anton, own and operate Mary Dirty Face Farm near Menomonie, Wisconsin. They grow 9 acres of certified organic berries, apples, pears, and plums. They’ve recently added livestock as an additional enterprise for the farm. Rachel is past coordinator of the Organic Fruit Growers Association.

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