Our Farming Practices
(click on the apples below to find out more)
Our Farming Practices
At Hoch Orchard, we strive to produce high quality fruit with minimal pesticide use. Our farm is entirely under an organic program now. In 2009 about 2/3 of the farm will be certified with the remaining 1/3 in its last year of transition. We ripen our apples naturally without plant growth regulators or ripening agents. Our apples are cleaned and packed on our family farm. We do not apply wax, food grade shellac, or any post-harvest pesticides to the apples. Our fruit is about as clean and natural as is possible in our Midwestern climate. Our organic fruit is not free from spray. Our organic apples are grown using products approved by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB).
We also practice Integrated Pest Management by monitoring pest population levels. This allows us to produce high quality fruit while using a minimal amount of organic fungicides and insecticides. We want to produce the best apples possible while being environmentally friendly and economically feasible.
Before we switched to all organic practices, we used a minimalist soft synthetic program to protect our apples. We were certified by the Midwest Food Alliance as an environmentally friendly farm. Check out their website at www.thefoodalliance.org
Today our production practices are all organic and we are certified by the Midwest Organic Services Association also known as MOSA. Becoming certified is long process that involves very strict record keeping. Orchards have to be thirty-six months without a prohibited substance before they can be certified organic. Part of the certification process requires creating a farm plan. A short version of the 2007 transition plan that we submitted to MOSA in our innitial application is below. If you are interested in more details of our farming practices and some of the steps we followed in our transition process then continue reading. Following the original plan are the annual updates to the Farm Plan.
Hoch Orchard and Gardens Farm Plan
February 26, 2007
Fruit Production Philosophy
Inputs
We have been practicing Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for over twenty years in our apple orchards. We started with simple pheromone traps in the mid 1980’s. Today we have taken IPM to the highest levels possible with weather data loggers and computer modeling. In the late 1980’s, before organics started the big increase in demand, we started to investigate organic fruit production. In 1990 we planted a small block of trees specifically for testing organic production practices.
Our farm goal is to produce high quality fruit with minimal inputs in an economically feasible system. We started testing the newest soft synthetics as soon as they became available after the enactment of the Food Quality Protection Act. FQPA made it possible for environmentally soft products to come onto the market quicker than the broad-spectrum products. In 2004 we stopped using organophosphate insecticides on our fruit trees and have only been using the softer alternatives since. In 2006 we were still using the old carbamate (Sevin) in our fruit thinning program but have decided to eliminate that from our conventional blocks in 2007. We have been testing new plant growth regulators that are much softer alternatives to Sevin.
IPM
Implementing state-of-the-art IPM practices has allowed us to reduce our pesticide use to very low levels. In 2006 we divided our bearing orchards (about 25 acres) into 13 separate monitoring zones. The zones were mapped out and pest levels recorded on a weekly basis. These zones were evaluated and treated independently, allowing us to focus our sprays only where pest pressure went above the economic threshold.
Pheromone traps for codling moth are used to identify population spikes. We monitor the population and note when it goes over a threshold of five moths caught in one trap over a period of one week. We then measure the accumulation of heat units to predict when the moth eggs will hatch and plan a treatment just prior to hatch. With apple maggot fly we use red spheres coated with tangle foot and an apple perfume to help get the flies attention. We use these traps both for monitoring the population level and for trapping large quantities of the females to reduce the population.
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We also use weather data loggers from Spectrum Technologies to keep accurate records of temperature and leaf wetting periods. The data logger is placed in the canopy of an apple tree. The logger has to be brought into the office and down loaded onto my pc. We use the weather data to calculate degree day units and predict when pests will be hatching and infesting the fruit. We also use computer modeling to let us know when disease pressure is increasing and to plan fungicide application when the pathogens are at their most susceptible phase.
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The apple scab model will look at the amount of time the leaves were wet and take into account the temperature and then report on the time and severity of an infection period. We then use this data to spray lime sulfur on the organic blocks after there has been an infection. Lime sulfur works well in a post infection program. This helps us minimize the amount of sulfur we have to use.
Enhancing the Orchard Environment
We try to create a balanced environment in our farming system. We implement many different practices to increase the numbers of beneficial insects and other organisms that help keep pests at low levels. Songbirds, bats, parasitic insects, raptors and other predators help us stabilize the pest levels. Even when weather conditions allow certain pests to spike, our balanced orchard ecosystem keeps that spike at a much lower level than what often occurs in a conventional orchard. This situation allows us to use the new soft products that cannot knock down high pest populations. We utilize these soft products to nudge the population down while allowing the indigenous beneficial insects to survive. Of course, the OMRI approved products also work well in this environment.
Our orchard floor is treated as a key factor in our fruit production ecosystem. We modified one of our mowers to side discharge the cuttings under the tree. This puts a light mulch over the apple roots and stimulates the earthworms to move under the tree canopy and pull the organic matter into the soil. Our primary fertilizer is composted turkey manure from Sustane. This product is low in nitrogen but is full of micro-organisms that inoculate and strengthen the soil activity.
Proper timing of mowing has a big effect on the orchard environment. A practice that creates a good home for beneficial insects is alternate row mowing. We mow every other row in the orchards during the growing season. We wait until the mowed rows show signs of flowering before we mow the rows with the long grass.
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Here in southeastern Minnesota there are many indigenous plants that thrive in the orchard if they are allowed to complete their flowering and reseeding cycle. Vetch, Queen Anne’s Lace, Red Clover, White Clover, and residual Alfalfa are just a few of the plants that inhabit our orchard floor. Continual mowing creates a monoculture of grasses. Timed mowing produces a colorful multilayered diversity of plants. These plants provide pollen and nectar for beneficials.
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Bird houses provide shelter for nesting songbirds. Wrens, tree swallows, and bluebirds help reduce the levels of flying insects. Numerous homemade birdhouses built from recycled pallet lumber are placed throughout the orchard.
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Farm Transition Plan
Overview of Farm
Converting the entire farm to organic production was not a consideration in the past. We have for many years hoped to transition a section of the farm into a certified organic program. We felt that this would allow us to offer both an organic option (that would vary drastically in its packout from year to year) while also relying on a soft conventional program in order to keep a consistent market presence and have fruit available for our wholesale accounts every year. We are now considering converting the entire farm to organic production for two reasons. The primary reason is that we have made the investment in a cider facility and commercial kitchen. We should be able to produce several types of value-added products that will both keep us in the market place in years when the weather does not give is very much fresh packed fruit, and will allow us to utilize the low grade fruit. The second reason for considering converting the entire farm to organic production is the improved pest control products that have come onto the market in the past five years. We have many more options to push down the pest population spikes and give us more consistent production levels than we would have ever imagined in the 1990’s.
Orchards
We plan to operate three orchards in 2007. Our main farm ‘farm one’ has about 30 acres, farm two – 10 acres conventional, and farm three – 8 acres organic. Farms two and three are rented. The majority of the apple blocks on farm one are in various degrees of transition. Two blocks of trees will remain conventional in 2007. Both of these blocks contain many different cultivars. I plan to wait to transition these blocks until I have more experience with rates and timing of the sulfur based disease control system.
Farm two consists of three blocks. All the blocks have disease susceptible varieties. There is a four acre block of semi-dwarf trees and the remaining two blocks are full size trees. I hope to transition farm two eventually. But first I have to purchase a second tractor with a spray cab. The are roughly 15 acres of disease susceptible varieties on farm one. This is all I am able to spray within the needed timeframe in a post-infection program using only one spray rig. I will need two spray rigs to control apple scab using a minimalist soft sulfur program. If I try to maintain too many acres with one spray rig I will be forced to go on a preventative spray schedule which will require more sulfur per acre.
Apples
We harvest, store, grade, pack, and deliver all the fruit produced on Hoch Orchards. Some of our packed apples are delivered to the Coop Partners Warehouse and distributed by CPW. But most of our fruit is delivered to the store door with Hoch Orchard trucks. Most of the apple trees on ‘farm one’ are in transition with the first fruit eligible for certification in 2008. 2007 will be a challenging year because we will have conventional, transitional, and certified organic apples in our packing facility.
Berries
We have about an acre of berries in transition. About half of the plantings are certifiable and the rest are in the last year of transition. We are also planning to plant another acre of berries onto certifiable ground this spring. Most of the 2007 plantings will bear in 2008 but we are planning to experiment with a small plot of annual berries that will produce in the late summer. We do not plan to certify any of the June berries because we would then have both transitional and organic berries at the same harvest time. We plan to wait until 2008 to certify all the old transitional plants and the new plants planted in 2007.
Integrity of Organic Products
Bins
We plan to purchase 50 new 18-bushel harvest bins for 2007. These new bins will be used for only organic or transitional fruit. We plan to label the bins for ‘Organic Use’ and number them. Old bins will be washed and numbered and labeled ‘Organic’ before they are used to harvest organic fruit. We do not intend to use bins for both organic and conventional fruit. As more of our crop becomes certified organic we will wash and convert more of the old bins.
Packing Line
The apple packing line will be used for both conventional and organic fruit. The line consists of a dry bin dump, 4 foot feedbelt, 4 foot inspection roller, 10 foot washer, 6 foot feedbelt to sizer, spinsizer with three grading tables, three small baggers. All surfaces that contact the fruit will be washed and dried prior to packing apples. A log book for recording apples packed and cleaning of the line will be kept. A check-off cleaning log sheet for each component of the line will be used.
Coolers
Cooler #1
Orchard run (not yet washed or graded) fruit will be stored in the field bins. Cooler #1 (24x30x16H) is set up for quick cooling and long term storage of bulk field bins. Bins are labeled with date harvested, variety, and block. Organic apples will be in clearly marked bins and will be segregated from the other bins. Organic bins will be stacked in designated areas. They may be stacked next to conventional bins but there will be air space between. Conventional bins will not be stacked on top of organic bins.
Cooler #2
Packed organic fruit and organic cider will be packaged in only cardboard cases, palletized, and stretch wrapped before going into the short-term holding cooler. Cooler #2 (15x30x8H) is used to hold packed fruit. Many different varieties of fruit are held in this cooler. An inventory of varieties, different packages, wood and cardboard cases are all kept in this cooler. Varieties are segregated on pallets and store orders are pulled from this inventory.
Cooler #3
Cooler #3 (5x10x8H) is primarily used to quick-cool and store berries and other soft fruit. We do not intend to certify the berries and stone fruit in 2007. Cases of cider are sometimes held in this cooler late in the apple season. This cooler is not large enough to hold pallets so none of the organic apples or cider will be held in this cooler in 2007.
Pesticide Residues
We work hard at Hoch Orchard to minimize the possibility of having pesticide residues on our fruit. Persistent products such as organophosphates, carbamates, pre-emergent herbicides, and synthetic forms of nitrogen have been phased out of our crop protection program. Pesticide applications are usually stopped a month or more before harvest. The softest least persistent chemistries make up the majority of the pesticides used on our conventional blocks. Many of the products we use on our conventional blocks are the same organic products that we use in the transitional blocks. We often combine soft synthetics with organic products to give more consistent control and less environmental impact than the organic products alone.
Some conventional orchards rely heavily on the regular application of persistent pesticides and sometimes apply them up to the minimum legal day to harvest interval. They create an environment with residues on bins, packing and harvesting equipment, tractors, wagons, and in all the buildings on the facility; we feel that is not the case at Hoch Orchard. While we will do the best we can to segregate organic product from conventional products during our transition, we feel the risk of any pesticide residues being found on either our conventional or organic products is very low.
2008 Farm Plan Update
April 8, 2008
Our first bearing organic apple blocks should be certified this year. By this summer, four blocks will be at least 36 months since a prohibited substance was applied. These blocks will produce our first MOSA certified apples. The new apricot block has a few fruit buds so we are hoping to also have organic apricots this summer. The old berry beds should be certified this year along with the new berry plantings that are already certified. All our berries should be certified this year!
Change in Transition Plan
We have slightly changed our farm transition plan. Instead of taking several years to begin transition of the orchards, we decided to put the entire farm into transition this year. We do not plan to apply any prohibited substances to the fruit crops this year. In 2007, we found the segregation of transitional apples from the conventional apples took a lot of effort and required a huge amount of extra space. We felt it would be very difficult to segregate certified organic, transitional organic and conventional fruit in our limited facility.
A second factor in our decision to put the whole farm into transition was the difficulty we had sourcing consistent quality fruit for processing. The fruit we bought had variable quality and we couldn’t get enough to fill the demand for our cider. Putting the entire orchard into transition will increase the amount of processing fruit produced on our farm. We do not plan to buy any apples for cider in 2008. All our cider will be either certified organic or made with transitional fruit from our farm.
Weed Control Under the Electric Deer Fences
We have several thousand feet of slant-style deer fence. This style of fence requires a wide swath of weed free ground. We currently control the weeds using glyphosate (Roundup). We plan to apply this prohibited herbicide under the fence this year and a few more years into the future as we phase out the slant fence. Our new plantings of apples will have an eight foot woven wire fence that is not energized, thus no herbicide is required. We are putting together a plan to replace the electric fences with woven wire fences over the next three or four years.
The fences are twenty feet or more away from the orchards providing a good buffer strip. The herbicide is applied carefully with a backpack sprayer with the wand being aimed down and away from the trees. Contamination of the organic orchards would be highly unlikely and would cause visible damage to the trees if it occurred.
We are also working on a vinegar burn-down herbicide that we are making on the farm. We hope that this experiment will provide a natural herbicide that could reduce or eliminate the use of glyphosate under the fences.
Cider Facility
We produced just over 9000 gallons of cider in 2007. About ¼ of the fruit was purchased from other local orchards. We expect to produce about the same amount in 2008 of which about 1000 gallons should be certified organic. We do not plan to purchase any apples for cider production so all the fruit going through the facility will be from our farm and will have been grown using organic practices. We plan to develop an organic label and get it to MOSA for approval this summer.
Our plan for distribution is to package the organic cider in cardboard cases and send it to Coop Partners Warehouse for distribution. The cider made from transitional apples will be bottled into both gallons and half gallon jugs and packed into either wooden cases for direct to store deliveries, or packed in cardboard and sent to Coop Partners Warehouse.
Inspection and Certification
About half of our berry production this year will come from older plantings that have completed the transition from conventional production. These plantings need to be inspected and certified before the end of May so we can sell our entire berry crop as MOSA certified. I was assured by MOSA staff that if I got my materials in by early April there would not be a problem in getting an inspection scheduled for early May. If possible, we can inspect all the berries, the orchards, and the processing facility in one visit in early May, even though my anniversary inspection date is not until the late summer.