Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/543863
www.goodfruit.com Good Fruit Grower AUGUST 2015 15 PROCESSING While the Coenes have been in transition for some time, the transition choices they are making show their intentions. They are moving to high-value, fresh-market varieties. At one time, Coene said, Windmill Farms did some direct marketing and was known locally for its excellent sweet cider. "Twelve years ago, we had a seasonal farm market, selling just our own fruit," he said. "But it was evident that modern retail markets needed to offer more—not just more products but entertainment." And, he said, running a retail market got to be a burden, especially as he got older. "Honeycrisp also came along and forever changed the apple industry—it was so unique, so good." So then they began the transition—abandoning cherries and peaches and focusing on growing bet- ter apples for fresh market. The processing market was there to help them. No way were they going to push all the old trees and invest in a complete changeover. Today, they have invested in high-density, tall-spindle orchards planted to New York 1 (SnapDragon), Gala, Fuji, and Honeycrisp, mostly on a 3- by 13-foot spacing and M.9 rootstocks, about 1,100 trees per acre. They have invested in fencing to keep deer out. "We've struggled with deer pressure the last 10 years," Dave Coene said. "We've used nuisance permits, dryer sheets, soaps, and repellents, but it was obvious we needed to fence our orchards or lose them," he said. Three years ago, they built a "one-sided fence," trying to wall off the side where deer pressure was greatest. The deer learned quickly to walk around the ends, so they added two more sides. That didn't work, either, so now blocks are completely enclosed. Since it is much cheaper per foot to fence large blocks than small ones, the goal is to fence a large area and not just individual blocks as they are planted. Dave Coene is also convinced "the future is in some kind of club variety. We've planted quite a few SnapDragon." It is important that supply be restricted to the size of the market, he said. The thing that killed Empire as a variety, he said, was supply became too large and the price declined. Otherwise, it was a good apple. Many growers fear the same fate for Honeycrisp. • At Windmill Farms, the Coene family—Dave, Tom, and Bob—are transitioning to modern apple varieties, like SnapDragon, but two-thirds of their apples go to processing.