Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/657340
32 APRIL 1, 2016 Good Fruit Grower www.goodfruit.com W hile not exactly new anywhere, mechanical hedging is seeing a youthful surge on both sides of the U.S. as a way for fruit growers to improve fruit quality and produce a more consistent product. Indeed, hedgers also reduce labor costs, but more importantly, they may improve canopy management, boost yields and help growers produce better fruit, not cheaper fruit, said Karen Lewis, a Washington State University regional extension specialist in Moses Lake, Washington. "You do not buy this piece of equipment to save time and money," she said. "You purchase this machine to put into your toolbox for crop load management and canopy management." Mechanical hedging uses motorized cutting arms mounted to tractors to shave trees into flat planes, mak- ing orchard rows more adaptable to harvesting platforms and other tools, improving worker efficiency and more evenly exposing fruit to sunlight, chemical coverage and evaporative cooling. Trials Researchers, for their part, have trials in all U.S. grow- ing areas to study timing and techniques. And though Western growers typically lead the way in high volume innovation, Eastern growers have a head start in hedg- ing. Lewis first saw a hedger in action during a European educational tour and learned that New York growers and researchers had been experimenting. "You know in Washington, sometimes we are late," she told growers at February's International Fruit Tree Association convention in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In fact, hedging was one of the major topics at the 2016 convention meetings and educational tours, coming up at nearly every stop. Speakers showed pictures of per- fectly straight rows with harvesting platforms creeping their way through alleys within inches of the branches. Hedgers have been around for decades, commonly used in grapes. As labor becomes scarcer and more Centerpiece: IFTA Michigan conference Both Eastern and Western U.S. growers hedge their bets with mechanical pruning. by Ross Courtney Ross CouRtney/Good FRuit GRoweR A bud grows behind a mechanical hedger cut on an apple branch. Above, a grower checks out a mechanically hedged apple hedger at a cherry pruning field day in Prosser, Washington, Keeping LIMBS