Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/105709
NH T4050V 4WD w/Cab NH Boomer 40 4WD (NEW) NH T4040F 4WD w/Cab (NEW) 0 NH T4030V 4WD (NEW) Photo by RichaRd LehneRt 76'' HIGH 44'' WIDE NH T4040V 2WD (NEW) % O Cash BackR ! NH T4040F 4WD (NEW) S The Farmer's Friend! E NH T4030V 2WD (NEW) UNNYSID NEW HOLLAND, LLC 526 W. YAKIMA VALLEY HIGHWAY SUNNYSIDE, WASHINGTON www.ssnh.com 509-837-2714 NH WorkMaster 55 2WD (NEW) NH T4050F 4WD (NEW) Local enough to know you, but large enough to meet all your needs! A California Corporation 75 1938 - 2013 Ye ars 49 Dave Wilson - 19 Celebrating 75 Years as your Farmer Proven ™ Source for Quality Fruit & Nut Trees Hickman 19701 Lake Road Hickman, CA 95323 209.874.1821 36 800.654.5854 www.davewilson.com FEBRUARY 1, 2013 GOOD FRUIT GROWER Reedley 21200 E. Dinuba Ave. Reedley, CA 93654 559.638.6675 There were enough apples on David Rennhack's farm to allow a demonstration of the DBR harvester. This Jonagold crop was light, but quality was good, especially the size. In recent years, he's made dramatic changes on the farm. He's taken out most of his tart cherries—and will eliminate the rest—and is planting more apples and sweet cherries. He's torn out most of his older apple varieties—the Jonathans, McIntosh, Empires, and Idareds— and now has 70 acres composed mostly of three high-quality varieties—Honeycrisp, SweeTango, and Jonagold. In 2008, he began making 4- by 12-foot plantings, using the tall spindle design and trellis on all new plantings. "I planted 20 Honeycrisp trees in 1994," he said. "When I saw my customers' reaction at the fruit market in 1996, I was convinced of the direction I wanted to go." Less than 10 percent of his apples go through his retail market. The rest are packed by Applewood Orchards in Deerfield, Michigan; by Pepin Heights Orchard in Lake City, Minnesota; or are sold to Peterson Farms in nearby Shelby, Michigan, which makes and sells fresh slices. Sold on service "I've seen 30 to 35 wind machines go in here in Oceana County in the last four or five years," Rennhack said. "The majority of them are Orchard-Rite. The service is really good. "After farming here 30 years, I know where a lot of my freeze damage occurs," he said. Still, he relied on Cascade to advise on the siting of the machines. The shape of the protected area is egg-shaped, he said, because prevailing wind and wind drift alters the shape from what should be a circle around each tower. Last spring, with three machines providing some protection, "I know we saved fruit. We could see the edges where the fans protected. It was pretty brutal. We had temperatures in the low to mid-twenties." Despite the freezes, Rennhack had some fruit—much of it with a poor finish and frost scars—but fruit nonetheless. As a result, he was selling his own Honeycrisp apples at his farm market—something most other Michigan farm marketers weren't able to do. The 2012 freezes were a mixture of convection and advection types, coming with cold winds and not providing much of an inversion layer from which to pull warm air. Despite that, the fans offered some protection. "I know we saved some fruit; it was not as bad as in 2010 in the orchard with the new fan," he said. Rennhack had tried other frost protection methods in the past. He had cold air drains, but sold them all. They didn't do much for him, he said. "I also had a tractormounted fan, but I could never see that it helped much." • www.goodfruit.com