Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/89919
David Guerdin has several years of experience with his Munckhof apple harvester (left) and now owns two. He runs the thinner at 5 to 10 miles per hour, with the spindle rotating at 180 to 200 revolutions per minute. He counts the blossoms on the tree first, then runs the machine and counts the blossoms again. Usually, he takes off half the blossoms, or a little more. Tree planter The Boileau family's DM Boileau Orchards, which has about 100 acres of land near Havelock, is better known as a packer of apples, but Danny wants to revitalize and fur- ther develop the orchard side of the business, planting about 25,000 new trees over the next five years. It's a struggle, because the land is so incredibly stony. He spreads lots of manure on the land to prepare it, tills it in, then uses a rock picker to remove stones just before planting. He's pleased with his heavy-duty Phil Brown Welding tree planter, which works right through the stony soil, he said. Boileau has also built his own hedger. He wants to use Dan LaGasse at LaGasse Works in Lyons, New York, built the platform (left) that sits on a Kubota tractor. Plant pathologist Vincent Philion shows the wind machine (below) built by his brother, Hubert. it during the winter to shape the trees, forming them into a tree wall against which the Darwin thinner works well, he said. Platforms also work well, and he uses them extensively to prune and thin. At his farm during the tour, workers were on his Munckhof machine that had been stripped of its harvesting conveyors and was being used by workers to thin apples. Platform Tim Petch has about 75 acres of apple orchards near Hemmingford. At his orchard, IFTA tourists saw an inex- pensive platform that is self-propelled and sits on a Kubota tractor. It was built by Dan LaGasse, who owns LaGasse Works in Lyons, New York, where he builds specialized orchard machines. The simple platform machine, 7 feet wide by 9 feet long, sits over a Kubota L3830 tractor, which is steered by a linkage between the platform and the steering wheel. The platform folds away so the tractor engine compart- ment can be opened for servicing. The machine costs about $12,000, not including the tractor. Wind machines Speakers claimed Quebec is the world's coldest area for growing apples. No doubt, cold hardiness is an issue in choosing varieties, but the area has done well growing McIntosh and its relatives, like Spartan, and spring freezes are no greater an issue there than in many other places. Quebec has a normal crop this year, while nearby Ontario, New York, New England, and North Carolina lost more of their apples to spring freezes that followed warm conditions in March. Still, Quebec growers are interested in wind machines, which seemed to protect some fruit in the areas of New York, Ontario, and Michigan where they were used. At Ciderie du Minot, visitors looked at a wind machine built by engineer Hubert Philion, who owns and operates Philion Orchards. While some wind machines operate as a fan on a tower designed to reach up and pull down warmer air, Philion's machine works the opposite way. It grabs cold air from the orchard and shoots it upward. In theory, warmer air is displaced from above and falls into the orchard to replace the cold air. There are commercially available machines of similar design—one from Shur Farms called the Cold Air Drain. Philion said the one he built requires low horsepower, about 15, and runs off a tractor power take-off. It cost less than $10,000, he said. The price and power requirements are similar to commercial machines. The idea is to remove cold air from the orchard by pulling it in from the lowest spot and shooting it up 3,000 feet into the sky at 100,000 cubic feet per minute. Growers asked whether barriers may be needed to pre- vent cold air in areas near the machine from sliding in to replace the air shot upward. Philion said he was testing the machine. • www.goodfruit.com GOOD FRUIT GROWER NOVEMBER 2012 19 Photos by RichaRd LehneRt