14 CapitalPress.com
January 27, 2017
Pollen spray could replace honeybees
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
Spray pollination may some-
day replace bees in orchards,
withholding irrigation before
cherry harvest doesn’t do
much and adding hand prun-
ing to mechanical pruning ev-
ery other year boosts yields.
That’s what Matthew
Whiting, Washington State
University plant physiologist,
told growers at the Northcen-
tral Washington Stone Fruit
Day in Wenatchee on Jan. 17.
Precision spray pollina-
tion would negate problems
such as not having enough
honeybees, distribution of
pollen-borne viruses and in-
sufficient pollen distribution,
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
A honeybee works apricot blossoms in an East Wenatchee, Wash.,
orchard, last March. Researchers are looking at replacing bees by
spraying pollen.
Whiting said.
Pure pollen can be kept
alive in a liquid state for two
hours without loss of germin-
ability, he said.
“We are pursuing this fur-
ther. We are using an elec-
trostatic sprayer for 12 to 14
gallons per acre. Electrostatic
because the (flower) stigma
has a negative charge,” he
said.
For years, growers have
debated whether withhold-
ing irrigation a week or two
before harvest yields better
cherries. Whiting said two
years of studies led him to
conclude “it’s a much ado
about nothing.”
While recognizing there
are many variables — in-
cluding soil depth and type,
genotype of the cultivar and
rootstock and types of irriga-
tion systems — Whiting set
up trials withholding water
from seven to 17 days before
harvest and found no effect on
bud density, bloom, firmness,
cracking, size or quality.
Soil moisture dropped but
trees showed no significant
stress, he said.
The only potential benefit
was a 2 percent increase in
soluble solids, mostly sugar,
which could be tasted but only
with Lapins and not Chelans,
he said. In one case, solu-
ble solids increased 10 to 13
percent and firmness dropped
about 6 percent, he said.
Mechanical pruning of
planar or fruiting-wall style
orchards saves labor and can
save 20 percent or more in
annual production costs and
improve worker safety and ef-
ficiency, Whiting said.
Powered by tractors, me-
chanical pruners hedge the
sides of trees and top them.
There are more ragged cuts
and only half as much wood
is removed so a good plan is
to remove more wood by fol-
lowing mechanical pruning
with hand pruning every other
year, he said.
Mechanical pruning is
23 to 29 percent faster than
hand pruning. Mechanical
combined with hand pruning
is 66 percent more efficient
than hand pruning alone, he
said.
Fruit weight is slight-
ly smaller with mechanical
pruning but yield is greater
because more wood and more
buds are left, he said.
Hand pruning cherry trees
costs an estimated $741 per
acre versus $168 for mechan-
ical only and $590 for a com-
bination, he said.
Minimum wage hikes threaten
small, medium cherry orchards
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE,
Wash.
— Minimum wage increases
over the next several years
in Washington and Oregon
threaten the survival of small
to medium-size
cherry growers,
an Oregon State
University eco-
nomics profes-
sor says.
“It’s
very
difficult
to
Clark
establish
a
Seavert,
high-density
orchard at today’s prices with
the increased labor costs and
make it profitable. Yes, it’s
scary,” said Clark Seavert, of
OSU in Corvallis. He spoke
on the subject to hundreds
of growers at Northcentral
Washington Stone Fruit Day
in Wenatchee on Jan. 17.
Washington’s minimum
wage jumped 16 percent from
$9.47 to $11 per hour on Jan.
1 and reaches $13.50 in 2020.
Oregon’s “standard” min-
imum wage for the state’s
most populous counties out-
side metro Portland, increased
5 percent this year from $9.75
to $10.25 per hour and reaches
$13.50 in 2022. The wage in
Oregon’s 18 nonurban coun-
ties is $10, and will increase
to $12.50 by 2022. The wage
in the Portland metro area is
$11.25 and will increase to
$14.75 by 2022.
In Washington, that’s
$1,000 more per acre in labor
by 2020 which on a 200-acre
cherry orchard is $200,000
more per year and “that’s
huge,” Seavert said.
If you figure annual 3 per-
cent increases after 2020, it’s
an additional $20,000 per acre
for labor over 20 years, he
said.
To stay competitive in
short labor markets, growers
will be forced to give the same
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
A crew picks apples from a Bandit Xpress in a Stemilt AgServices
orchard near Quincy, Wash., on Oct. 10. This simple platform does
a better job than some higher-tech machines, its maker says.
Platforms better than
conveyors, expert says
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Ana Capi picks Rainier cherries in Mike Prey’s Orondo, Wash., orchard in June 2015. Increasing labor
costs will squeeze small growers, an agricultural economist says.
rate increases to all workers,
including those on piece rate
or making more than mini-
mum wage for their positions,
Seavert said.
Small to medium-size
growers will be hit harder
than large growers, he said.
Apple and pear growers will
be impacted as well, but he
hasn’t analyzed that yet, he
said.
It means growers will be
driven into mechanization
faster. But while Michigan
tart cherries are mostly picked
by shaker machine, no such
device has been adequately
developed for sweet cherries,
Seavert said.
Ultra-high density plant-
ings of higher-return, newer
varieties and aimed at early
high yield will make a prof-
it but regular high-density
and low-density orchards
most likely won’t, he said.
There still are growers plant-
ing low-density orchards, he
said.
Seavert has developed
new online models to help
growers analyze capital in-
vestments, profitability, leas-
es, and climate change. They
should be fully operational in
a few months, at www.agbi-
zlogic.com, to help growers
next winter, he said. Growers
will be able to chose among
up to 14 weather variables to
run scenarios on how climate
change could impact their re-
turns, he said.
Lynn Long, OSU Exten-
sion horticulture professor
in The Dalles, told growers
pedestrian orchards can help
counter rising labor costs and
labor shortages.
Trees are kept short so
pruning and picking can be
done from the ground with-
out ladders or platforms.
The drawback is losing sev-
eral vertical feet of growing
space.
But keeping pickers on the
ground increases productivity
from 100 to 170 pounds per
hour, Long said. A grower in
The Dalles cut his labor force
in half by using a pedestrian
orchard, he said. Others have
said their picking productivity
increased three times, he said.
Bob Bailey crowned Pacific Northwest Cherry King
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
YAKIMA, Wash. — Bob
Bailey, who grew his family
farm into the largest cher-
ry operation in Oregon, is
the 73rd king of the Pacific
Northwest cherry industry.
Bailey was chosen by past
cherry kings for his industry
service and was crowned at
the annual Cherry Institute
of Northwest Cherry Grow-
ers at the Yakima Conven-
tion Center on Jan. 20.
Bailey, 75, is chairman of
the board of Orchard View
Farms Inc. in The Dalles,
Ore. His daughter, Brenda
Thomas, is president, and
his brother, Ken, is vice
president.
His brother, Tom, was also
involved in the family busi-
ness and was cherry king in
2003. Their father, Don, was
king in 1974. Don and Tom
worked to patent View Fresh,
modified atmosphere cherry
packing in the 1990s.
“I feel really good about
it because a lot of people
I’ve worked with over the
last 30 to 40 years in the
industry are the people who
honored me with this hon-
or,” Bob Bailey said.
Courtesy of Northwest Cherry Growers
Bob Bailey, right, 2017 Northwest Cherry King is congratulated by
Dennis Jones, left, 2016 Cherry King, in Yakima, Wash., on Jan. 20.
Having enough workers
is the biggest challenge the
industry faces today, he said.
Orchard View Farms em-
ployees 100 people year-
round and 1,000 during cher-
ry harvest, which is done
without hiring H-2A visa
foreign guestworkers. Most
of their seasonal help comes
from California, he said.
The company has 2,500
acres of cherry orchards
and packs about 1 million,
20-pound boxes of cherries
annually, making it the larg-
est sweet cherry grower in
Oregon and one of the larg-
est in the nation.
The cherries are sold
through The Oppenheimer
Group in Vancouver, B.C.
Bailey was born in The
Dalles on July 30, 1941, one
of seven children of Don and
Edwina Bailey. His grand-
parents, Walter and Mabel
Bailey, started the farm in
1923.
With his siblings, Bob
Bailey was picking up peach
tree prunings when he was
6 years old. His grandfa-
ther and father ran Colum-
bia Fruit Growers, a coop-
erative in The Dalles that
through several mergers is
now part of Oregon Cherry
Growers.
Bailey enjoyed growing
cherries, ran harvest crews
each summer and graduat-
ed from The Dalles High
School in 1959. He gradu-
ated from Oregon State Uni-
versity in Corvallis in 1963
with a major in business and
a minor in horticulture.
Bailey met his wife, Bar-
bara Strickland, on a blind
date at Seattle Seafair in
1961 and in 1965 they decid-
ed to become the first full-
time farmers in the family,
transitioning his family farm
from apples to cherries in the
1990s. He worked to extend
his cherry season with new
varieties and expanding his
orchards from The Dalles to
Dufur Valley and Klickitat
County in Washington. In
the early 1980s, he built ap-
ple cold storage and packing
facilities and added a cherry
packing line in 1984 which
was replaced with a high-
tech Unitec line in 2016.
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
Harvest-assist platforms are
faster than conveyor systems
for pickers who work quickly,
a tree fruit specialist says.
Conveyor systems work
well in Europe and Australia
where pickers are slower, half
the speed of typical Washing-
ton pickers, Karen Lewis, a
Washington State University
Extension tree fruit special-
ist, told Capital Press.
She also spoke via Skype
at the Northcentral Washing-
ton Apple Day in Wenatchee
on Jan. 19.
Pickers frequently have to
adjust conveyor arms to keep
them close to their work, and
that slows Washington pickers
who often pick two to four ap-
ples at a time, Lewis said.
Harvest-assist platforms,
on which apple pickers pick
into bags and dump their bags
into bins, optimize their high
proficiency, she said.
“We are the envy of the
world with our predominate-
ly Mexican workforce. We
pick an apple every two sec-
onds and that’s not just for a
short period, but over time.
No place picks like that in the
world and we have the num-
bers to back this up,” she said.
Abundant Robotics, Hay-
ward, Calif., has been field
testing a robotic picker it
says has picked one apple per
second. It’s aiming to have it
ready for commercial use in
the fall of 2018.
Conveyor systems have
not been making new sales
in Washington, Lewis said. It
may be because they’re not
what growers want, she said.
Automated Ag Systems
of Moses Lake, Wash., has
sold 400 to 500 of its Bandit
Xpress self-propelled har-
vest-assist platforms from
2013 through 2016, mostly
in the West, owner, J.J. Dag-
orret, has said.
A New York grower, Rod
Farrow, has said he’s experi-
enced a 30 percent increase
in efficiency using the Bandit
Xpress to replace ladders.
Farrow’s pickers still use
bags.
Lewis said pickers color
pick better at night with LED
lights on platforms because
they can see color better than
in the daylight.
She also spoke about
mechanized pruning and blos-
som thinning at the education-
al meeting, which was attend-
ed by hundreds of growers
and co-sponsored by WSU
Extension and the Northcen-
tral Washington Fieldmen’s
Association.
High-density planting of
trees with narrow canopies
where all the apples are within
arm’s reach is vital to mecha-
nization, she said.
Researchers continue
pear psylla, mite fight
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
Washington State University
researchers are continuing
their research on pear psylla
and mites, which can be dead-
ly to trees and damage fruit.
Pear Psylla is an insect
that damages pears and can
kill pear trees. It was first
found in Connecticut in 1832
and spread to Washington by
1939.
Several speakers talked
about it at the educational
Pear Day for growers, spon-
sored by WSU and The Pear
Bureau Northwest, at the
Wenatchee Convention Cen-
ter on Jan. 18.
Louis Nottingham, a new
post-doctoral research asso-
ciate at the WSU Tree Fruit
Research and Extension Cen-
ter in Wenatchee, asked for
grower input on his project to
review a wide range of pest
management strategies re-
garding Central Washington
pears to develop effective,
long-lasting and sustainable
programs.
“We want to create a ho-
listic program that works. The
real goal is to develop some-
thing more sustainable and
soft but also that’s effective,”
he said.
He said he will look at
pear psylla, spider mites, cod-
ling moth, pear rust mite and
beneficial arthropods. He will
test soft versus convention-
al pesticides and will look at
tree washing techniques for
controlling psylla and mites
without insecticides.
Tianna DuPont, WSU
Extension tree fruit special-
ist, said psylla and mites are
what she’s heard most about
from growers in her first year
in Wenatchee. Growers are
concerned predatory bugs ar-
en’t able to control psylla and
mites, she said.