01/20/09 Extending the Day

Extending the Day. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. I love summertime. I love the long, long days we have. Farming operations use every bit of the sunshine to grow some fantastic apples, pears, grapes and more. But what if you could enhance that sunshine. Extenday can help you do that. VOELKER: It's a reflective fabric used in orchards and vineyards. It's a full season product. It's made to reflect light back up into the tree. It increases yield and fruit size and color if you need it. That's Aaron Voelker with Extenday. The material is suspended in the rows and while it's not designed to inhibit weeds it does slow their production a bit and according to Voelker you need to get the product down early. VOELKER: You want to be out there during cell division helping increase fruit size and then you can drive on it, irrigate on it and push it over right before harvest. Extenday comes in various widths and they will work with the producer to figure out what the exact needs are. VOELKER: We're trying to cover between 65 to 80% of the drive row. Another reason we want it between 65 and 80 is so that if a farmer wants to use it in multiple crops. Say he wants to use it in cherries full season and then in his apples for color like Gala's, might have wider row spacing on his cherries we might go in at 65 there so it will fit into a narrower row spacing on his Gala's. For more information visit their website at extenday.com. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.