Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/215151
Supported Agriculture, or CSA. A CSA is a fruit and vegetable subscription service where people pay in advance for weekly produce deliveries—a box a week of whatever's ripe and whatever the farmer managed to grow. "We try to grow the highest quality fruit we can," said Sidney Kuhn, who recently bought Kuhn Orchards from her parents. Father Dave is now an advisor to owner and general manager Sidney. Last year, she married Anthony Herring, who joined the production team on the 100acre fruit and vegetable farm. They have about 30 acres of apples, 60 of stone fruits, and 10 of "everything else," according to Sidney. During an International Fruit Tree Association tour to their farm in July, Sidney prepared show-andtell "props" to illustrate the keys to producing quality fruit. These included: —Gloves. "We like to keep our guys soft-handed," Sidney said. Bruised fruit is a no-no, and Golden Delicious showing fingerprints won't sell. —Stem cutters. "We use special cutters to remove stems after picking Fuji and Honeycrisp," she said. The nippers are curved so they can reach into the well without poking the fruit. —A size ring. Apples are spot-picked as many as five times for color, and the size has to be 2-13/16 inches or larger. —Lined picking bags. Pickers use two hands and wear the picking bag in front of them, not to the side. "Keep an eye on the ropes," Sidney said. Pickers are told to keep the bottom of the bag flat and not overfill it, meaning the ties at the bag bottom should not be strained. Pickers pick only one side of a tree at a time and don't climb over the trellis wires. —Small bins. The Kuhns use a 12-bushel bin made especially for them that is smaller than standard, contains fewer layers of fruit, and fits better in their box trucks. They have special bin trailers that fit the smaller boxes. —Bubble wrap, used to line the bottoms of the bins. The whole idea is to load those box trucks each day with the kind of fruit that will sell out. They don't want to bring home poorly colored or damaged fruit, even though they can sell it for processing. For peaches, they use half-bushel crates. Pickers pack fruit directly into them, red side up, and no cull fruit —Dave Kuhn goes into them. Back in the 1990s, the Kuhns grew 100 acres of apples for processing, Dave said. Financially, they were doing poorly and had to sell land to stay in business. "We actually took out the apples to stay in business," he said. When Sidney decided to come back to the farm, it was the lure of retail that drew her, and she is very oriented to her customers. "We don't need a focus group to tell us what consumers like," Dave said. Some customers want old varieties, but most really like the new varieties. CrimsonCrisp, from the cooperative PRI apple breeding program, is one new one that's selling well. "It sells at Honeycrisp prices, the only one we have that does that," Sidney said. Pink Pearl is a redfleshed variety that's selling well, too. "We don't need a focus group to tell us what consumers like." • "Savings in hand thinning time and/or increases in fruit sizes resulted in a net positive impact of $123/ha to $1368/ha compared with hand thinning alone." - Baugher, Schupp, et al. Mechanical string thinner reduces crop load in various stages of bloom development in peach and nectarine trees. HORTSCIENCE 45(9): 1327-1331, 2010 Manufactured by; Beamsville, Ontario | 905.563.8261 www.provideag.ca Contact us directly or one of these dealers; Blueline Equipment - 800.827.0972 Scotian Gold Co-op - 902.679.2191 Crown Orchards - 434.979.0619 Louis Gelder and Sons - 269.934.9900 www.goodfruit.com GOOD FRUIT GROWER DECEMBER 2013 81