Good Fruit Grower

May 1

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O ne of the tree fruit industry's newest technologies is making its debut—amazingly—in a fi ve-acre maze shaped like an apple and created, not out of corn, as most mazes are, but of apple trees. Mazes are popular attractions. But how would one manage an orchard with all the twists, turns, and dead ends of a maze, especially the spraying? That's the clever part. Instead of having to wend their way down alleyways with conventional equipment, the managers of this new orchard will spray it with a permanent fi xed-in-place system exactly like the one called the Solid-Set Canopy Delivery System. The SSCD system is being researched at Washington State University, Michigan State University, and Cornell University. It looks so promising that some growers are ready to go with it right now. The system going in at Royal Oak Farm Orchard was designed by John Nye at Trickl-eez Irrigation in St. Joseph, Michigan, the same person who put together the array of plumbing lines and spray nozzles in the researchers' experimental orchards. Paul Norton gives credit for the idea to his grandfather Peter Bianchini, the patriarch of the four-generation family that owns and operates Royal Oak Farm near Harvard, Illinois. "We were consider- ing building a corn maze," Paul said, "but there seemed to be plenty of those. We're less than 20 miles from Richardson's, the largest corn maze in the world. That's when my grandfather said, 'Why not apple trees?'" Dennis Norton, Paul's dad, said that when customers come to Royal Oak Farm Orchard, their goal is more than just to buy fruit. They want to "make a day of it." They drive 45 minutes, if they come west from Milwaukee, or two hours if they come northwest from Chicago, to visit the farm on the Illinois-Wisconsin line. They come to pick their own fruit, eat lunch at the restaurant, shop at the market and bakery, and engage in family activities such as hay wagon and carousel rides. Kids feed and pet animals in the petting zoo, play on playground toys, and engage in other activities that make Royal Oak an agricultural entertainment destination. Agricultural entertainment Starting next summer, visitors will be able to stay another couple of hours and fi nd their way through what is likely the country's only maze made of apple trees. A-Maze-N' Apples is in the fi nal stages of grow- ing, with spray lines to be installed this summer, and it will open in late summer of 2015 as a combination maze and you-pick orchard. People will pick the apples and carry them out through the winding corridors. Luckily, there are shortcuts so apples need not be carried the full two miles of the total maze. The maze was designed by Maze Play, the company that also designed the 33-acre corn maze at Richardson's Adventure Farm in Spring Grove, Illinois. Maze Play created the apple shape using a computer program and provided GPS coordinates so Royal Oak employees could place each of the nearly 3,000 trees (in nine varieties) that make up the maze. Royal Oak was founded by Peter and Gloria Bianchini in the early 1990s. Dennis Norton married their daughter, Renee, and they liked the farm so well the couple joined in the operation about 15 years ago. Their son Paul and daughter Sarah, and their spouses, joined in, and now Paul and Meghan have six young children, and Sarah and Justin have one. All are involved in the business, living in four homes on the farm property. The farm grows apples (16,000 trees in 30 varieties), peaches (300 trees), and 15 acres of berries and pumpkins. Some produce is sold prepicked, especially peaches or the most expensive apple varieties 28 MAY 1, 2014 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com Novel spraying system is incorporated into a maze built of rows of apple trees. by Richard Lehnert These manifolds are the entry point for spray material that will be piped into the orchard for distribution through the solid-set canopy spray system. A-MAZING new technology Workers planted trees at GPS points precisely indicated on the computer-generated plan. PHOTOS COURTESY OF DENNIS NORTON, ROYAL OAK FARM ORCHARD

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