A Vision of the Future

A Vision of the Future. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Well the 109th Washington State Horticultural Association’s Annual meeting and NW Hort Expo is in the record books. Attendance was up around 1400 at the Wenatchee Convention Center. Kicking the event off was the 34th Annual Batjer Address with Terrance Robinson, Professor of Pomology at Cornell University talking about “A Vision for Apples and Pear Orchards of the Future.”

ROBINSON: Since I started in my career we have seen a tremendous change in the way orchards look and the way they are managed. It has been a huge change and I ask the question if we’ve experienced that level of change in the past 30 or 40 years, what will happen over the next 20? And I ask that question because the orchard you plant today is one you are going to live with for about 20 years. I like the analogy - it’s almost like getting married. If you make a good choice every day you wake up and you’re happy, you’ve got the greatest spouse in the world. If you make a bad choice every day you wake up and kick yourself.

He says it is important to ask the right questions at the beginning.

ROBINSON: What should the orchard look like now to try to take advantage of some of the new thing that will come along in the next 20 years is a big challenge for all of us orchardists around the world. Now I think it is a pretty exciting time to grow apples because there is a confluence of several major technologies and advances in apple growing that really make it pretty exciting.

More tomorrow.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.