OCTOBER 2017
CELEBRATING 138 YEARS AS CANADA’S PREMIER HORTICULTURAL PUBLICATION
THEGROWER.ORG
STATE OF THE APPLE UNION
High-density orchards: more rewards, more risk
Thanks to high-density plantings, new production practices and harvest aids, growers are more competitive in a global industry. One such example is Tom Ferri harvesting Honeycrisp apples in a super spindle orchard near Clarksburg, Ontario. Photos by Glenn Lowson. KAREN DAVIDSON Tom Ferri has a quirky sense of humour when he compares his gnarled apple trees with the fruiting walls of his high-density orchard. “This is Jurassic Park,” he says, expertly twisting apples from atop a ladder in his old orchard. “We’re only getting 25 bins to the acre and besides, it’s a safety hazard being on ladders.” Ferri’s reference is to the 1993 Steven Spielberg movie of Jurassic Park where dinosaurs
run amok in a theme park. Not everyone would agree with him but it’s his metaphor for aging trees with old varieties that are handpicked. In the last decade, growers from coast to coast have transformed production practices, adopted harvesting aids and entered a New Precision Age. Ferri and his wife Karen now manage 22 acres near Clarksburg, Ontario in an exceptionally dense orchard of 2,500 to 3,000 trees to the acre. He first saw the super spindle system in British Columbia
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back in the late 1990s and planted his own orchard in 2002. Since then, the gains have been multifold. Smaller acreage is required and full production is reached sooner. Rather than 25 bins to the acre, they are obtaining 50 to 55 bins per acre of high-quality apples. Perhaps the biggest benefit is less labour. “We can use more automation,” says Ferri. “There’s easier management of crop load and lower use rates of crop protection products because the foliage is less dense.” It’s not been without
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considerable investment. Establishment costs of $45,000 per acre are table stakes for converting to high-density. If Ferri had to change anything, he would have planted at 18inch spacings rather than 18-24 inches. Why? For even more yield. “The industry has matured with a new generation of growers,” says Charles Stevens, chair of Ontario Apple Growers. “Ontario has a long way to catch up with high-density systems of a thousand trees and more to the acre. But in the future, it’s a
certainty that robots will be picking apples in high-density orchards.” Abundant Robotics will be testing a prototype this fall in Washington state. Chief executive and co-founder Dan Steere says it’s difficult to locate and identify mature fruit within a canopy and then pick it without turning it into applesauce. Unlike other competitive technologies such as claws or graspers, Abundant uses a vaccum to pull the apple from the branch. Continued on page 3
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