March 2020 – UVM Fruit Blog

Farm relief during COVID-19 crisis

Hi everyone:

It was gorgeous outside today, which provided a good chance to get caught up on pruning, pushing brush, and prepping for a growing season that is right around the corner. This is not my usual message about orchard or vineyard management.

Many of our fruit and vegetable farms rely on H2A workers. They manage many farm tasks year-round, not just at harvest. I’ve spoken with Deputy Secretary Alyson Eastman from VT Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets and she has assured me that those workers will be available this year with only a slight delay, if any, for those who would be coming in the next few weeks. Officials at the USDA and Dept of Labor have identified H2a / H2B workers, and other agricultural workers in general, as “essential employees” who must be supported through this situation.

Farms that use H2A or other workers who live in communal housing especially should develop a plan for screening employees for illness and to safely quarantine them if they are symptomatic or test positive for the COVID-19 virus. This means that employers should be proactive- have digital thermometers on-hand and teach employees to use them to monitor for fever. Develop sanitation protocols for worker housing, especially share spaces like bathrooms and kitchens. Stock your housing with essentials: disinfectants that are active against the flu virus; paper products; cough medicine; acetaminophen; etc. Farms should also identify other operations in the area with H2A worker housing so that resources may be shared if workers need to be quarantined. Workers who stay in housing that is not in their work order need that to be amended, but it will be easier to do so if they are staying in another H2A inspected facility.

I am also concerned about farms that do not have backup personnel for skilled tasks, in particular, spraying. If one of us goes down from this illness, a missed spray program during a critical time can threaten the whole crop for the season. Therefore, I propose that we develop a system where we can meet emergency labor needs on our farms through mutual and/or community aid.

I have started a google survey https://forms.gle/s9rJtFBJWH6iGqAQ7 to collect and share this information with our grower community. I could also use our VT Tree Fruit mailing list which is largely dormant but has two-way communication set up so that growers can easily reach out to the larger community.

I have been thinking a lot about the role of our farms, and the vulnerability of our farmers, during this public health crisis we’re in. Our farms are absolutely essential, and I have been impressed with how our food production and distribution system has handled this situation. One of our fellow growers posted on social media that their farm sent 275,000 pounds of apples this week alone to customers all over the eastern U.S. While most of our farms are not of that size, we are capable of producing a lot of food for people- and this year in particular, people are going to need it. So let’s do our best to get a great crop in this fall, and that means getting our orchards and vineyards in shape now. I also want to ask farms to consider how we can best rise up to get food to everyone who needs it. I am not asking anyone to work for free, by any means. But this is a time when our perennial crops can show their resilience. Orchards in reasonably good shape will produce a crop this year, barring any calamities. We may want to consider bringing unmanaged or planned-to-pull-out blocks into at least a minimal management program this year, even if those fruit are donated or gleaned by charitable organizations. I was planning to pull an older, 1-acre block (~15% or our production) from the UVM orchard this year. Instead, I plan to grow it for the new UVM Student Food Shelf. I know that labor and management of these blocks will be a drain on already stretched resources, but this seems like the year where we need all the food we can muster.

The Agency has some good information on COVID-19 for farms and food businesses: https://agriculture.vermont.gov/covid-19-information

Chris Callahan at UVM Extension also has some great on Food Safety and the virus: https://www.uvm.edu/extension/necafs/clearinghouse/home

The Peace and Justice Center has collected a list or regional mutual aid resources: https://www.pjcvt.org/mutual-aid-and-other-resources-related-to-covid-19/

NC State Farmers Market COVID-19 info sheet: https://foodsafety.ces.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Farmers-Market_COVID-19_031320.pdf?fwd=no

NC State U-Pick Farms COVID-19 info sheet: https://foodsafety.ces.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/U-Pick-Farms_COVID-19_031620.pdf?fwd=no

Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development site https://agworkforce.cals.cornell.edu/2020/03/12/novel-coronavirus-prevention-control-for-farms/

Thank you and be well,

Terry

The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the

University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, a USDA NIFA E-IPM

Grant, and USDA Risk Management Agency Funds.

March 21 Grape pruning cancelled

Hello:

Due to social distancing measures and the need to maintain public safety, we are cancelling the Grape Pruning workshop that was to be held at the UVM Horticulture Research & Education Center on March 21.

Here are some good pruning resources that may help guide you in pruning your vineyard:

· Finger Lakes Grape Program (FLGP): How to Prune Grapevines

o Top wire cordon

o VSP trellis

· Michigan State University Pruning and Training Top Wire Cordon Vines

It’s not a bad idea to assess winter bud damage on a few vines and adjust your pruning if appropriate. A visual assessment is easy to conduct. We encourage growers to collect their own primary bud mortality data prior to pruning, if possible. The procedure is fairly quick and requires no special equipment besides a hand lens or magnifying viewer. A helpful video from the Cornell Cooperative Extension Finger Lakes Grape Program that outlines the process may be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RHJ5mY3fAs .

Dr Jim Meyers offered me the following model output that compares observed temperatures against expected bud hardiness on multiple cultivars for our farm in South Burlington, VT. The bad news is there were a few days in February where some damage may have occurred on cold-hardy cultivars, with Marquette (green line) potentially having been damaged on three days this winter. The good news is that grapevines have a remarkable system for ensuring their growth and potential cropping through their compound buds, and that generally grapevines can sustain 30% or more primary bud death before we get too concerned. You may also see that, in the model, Concord was not damaged by temperatures seen this winter. There is a range of bud hardiness among the commonly-grown cultivars in Vermont and the surrounding region, and I don’t see a lot to worry about in this table.

Good luck pruning out there, and let me know if I can help with anything.

Best, Terry

Followup information from Feb 13 annual Apple growers’ meeting

By Terence Bradshaw

I’ve been taking notes during today’s VTFGA / UVM Apple Program annual meeting. This is useful even if you didn’t make the meeting on Feb 13. Here goes:

1. Slides from the talks will be available at: http://www.uvm.edu/~fruit/?Page=treefruit/tf_meetings.html&SM=tf_submenu.html
They should be up there shortly.

2. Please consider taking our pretty short survey on cider apple production. Even if you don’t grow cider apples, knowing that is helpful to develop baseline data for the New England Cider Apple Project.

3. The Vermont Agriculture Food System Plan: 2020 is available at: https://agriculture.vermont.gov/document/vermont-agriculture-and-food-system-plan-2020
Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Anson Tebbetts discusses the report here: https://agriculture.vermont.gov/agency-agriculture-food-markets-news/secretary-tebbetts-op-ed-setting-table-vermont-what-would-you
This report was generated by agriculture professional and stakeholders and vetted by industry participants. So, the apple chapter was written by me and coauthored by the Vermont Tree Fruit Growers Association board of directors.

4. Dr. Anna Wallingford from UNH referenced the Xerces society in her talk on Integrated Pest and Pollinator Management. She also referenced A Pesticide Decision-making Guide to Protect Pollinators in Tree Fruit Orchards.

Where trade names or commercial products are used for identification,

no discrimination is intended and no endorsement is implied.

Always read the label before using any pesticide.

The label is the legal document for the product use.

Disregard any information in this message if it is in conflict with the

label.

The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the

University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, a USDA NIFA E-IPM

Grant, and USDA Risk Management Agency Funds.

Thoughts on spring approaching in Vermont orchards

By Terence Bradshaw

In contrast to the rest of the population, those of us in the fruit growing community hate warm March weather, and this year looks like another which will potentially give us early bud break, at least in the warmer parts of the state in Bennington county and the Connecticut Valley. Reports out of the Hudson Valley and Massachusetts suggest that they may are seeing silver tip on apples, and pear psylla have already started moving. I wouldn’t translate that to suggest that we will see green tip in the immediate future, but it’s coming. This gives growers time to get caught up and ready for spray season, so don’t be complacent.

Given the generally heavy crop in Vermont orchards in 2019, fruit bud density is expected to be relatively low this year. That means that pruning can be a little lighter to compensate for fewer fruit buds. That doesn’t give license to ignore your end of season pruning, but suggests that trees may be breezed through a little quicker if you have wrap up pruning to do. The winter has been generally good for outdoor work, so most orchards should be easily caught-up. My take home: get finished up in the next two weeks, then get ready for spraying season. After the soil dries a bit (and hoping that this early mud season is truly early and not just extended), push your pruning brush or flail mow in-place for high density plantings with smaller pruning wood. Calibrate your sprayer. As soon as you can get into the orchard, an application of urea to the leaf litter (44 lbs feed-grade urea in 100 gallons water per acre directed at the ground, especially under trees) may be warranted to reduce overwintering apple scab inoculum, too. That is not an organic-acceptable practice, so if you are certified, consider applying granular lime or compost tea instead if you wish to improve leaf litter decomposition.

Get your early season spray materials ordered and on-hand for when the season starts. No really, calibrate your sprayer. Be ready to properly oil the orchard if you have had any issues with mite flareups or San Jose scale, the latter of which I have seen not only in orchards but also on fruit in grocery stores. Remember that oil should go on at full dilute or no more than 2x concentration to be most effective; I’ll discuss that further in a future message. So when you calibrate your sprayer, be sure to reserve a setting for high-volume applications, either by switching to higher-output nozzles, reducing travel speed, or both.

Where trade names or commercial products are used for identification,

no discrimination is intended and no endorsement is implied.

Always read the label before using any pesticide.

The label is the legal document for the product use.

Disregard any information in this message if it is in conflict with the

label.

The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the

University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, a USDA NIFA E-IPM

Grant, and USDA Risk Management Agency Funds.