Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center
Kyle Nagy is Superintendent and Orchard Operations Manager at
the Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center where they grow 70 different varieties of apples, many of which are designed to incorporate into hard apple ciders. But that’s not all they do.
We’ve done, before covid we had a large apple tasting out here. That was one of my favorite events that we’ve held out here.
We’ve been featured in the Good Fruit Grower magazine a couple of times here. You might recognize those hands… -laughs-
We have a native plant garden out here; we also have an educational market garden that’s used by our interns. We usually have two or three undergraduate interns coming from campus each summer. So, we get them living on site here working in the orchard,” said Nagy.
They’ve also started integrating livestock like chickens for manure use and pest control, and sheep to study rotational grazing to control plants that are toxic to horses and cattle.
While this is very different than a large scale commercial orchard, some of the thing they’re learning are applicable to commercial growers.
“There’s definitely differences between our climates between north Idaho and southern Idaho but there’s definitely a lot of principles and practices that could be utilized that we’re researching up here that could be utilized across the state.”
