Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/418083
46 DECEMBER 2014 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com SWEET Rosa Lynn T he new apple variety Rosa Lynn is named after the wives of the two people who discovered it in an orchard at Royal City, Washington. In 1998, José Ramirez, orchard manager at Stein-Manzana, and Dain Craver, general manager, noticed a tree in a mixed apple block that seemed different from the rest. They picked the apples, loved the sweet-tart flavor, and found that it had exceptional keeping quality even when kept unrefrigerated. Its parentage is an unsolvable mystery. The tree was growing in an old block of apples with Winesap, Rome, Golden Delicious, and Red Delicious in it, alongside a block of Fuji and Gala apples. Ramirez said the block was prob- ably the place a previous orchard owner planted leftover trees. After evaluating it, Ramirez and Craver thought the apple had commercial potential and named it after Ramirez's wife, Rosa, and Craver's wife, Gari Lynn. When his youngest daughter was born six years ago, Ramirez and his wife named her Rosa Lynn, after the apple. Stemilt Growers in Wenatchee packed and marketed the variety initially, but then decided to focus its efforts on its own proprietary varieties, Craver said. Rosa Lynn is now marketed by Sage Fruit in Yakima. Craver travels the country doing in-store demonstrations to introduce the apple to consumers. He gave out samples at the Produce Marketing Association's annual convention in Anaheim, California, this fall. Ramirez said Rosa Lynn has been received so positively that they plan to expand their plantings. They grow the variety organically. —G. Warner got a job picking strawberries. Bending over the whole day long pushing a small cart and picking the fruit made his hamstrings hurt and his feet numb. When a representative of a farm labor contractor came looking for people to go work in Washington State, Ramirez paid his money and got in the car. "It was kind of an adventure," Ramirez recalls. "My idea was to get rich quick and go back home." Royal City Ramirez and several more workers were dropped off at a partially burned down house at Manzana Orchard in Royal City, where they lived for a few days. Fearing it was unsafe, they moved into the farm shop. When the weather turned too cold, they had to look for proper housing. Ramirez worked at the orchard's packing house until the bank foreclosed on the business in 1987. Sunfresh, Inc., ran the orchard for a year. Then current owner Keith Stein of Idaho bought the orchard, which he renamed Stein-Manzana, and began replanting and expanding. Ramirez got a job as a laborer and had a second job in the evenings at a potato packing plant at Warden. At the orchard, he was soon promoted to tractor driver, then assistant crew boss, and crew boss. In 1994, Stein bought two more Columbia Basin orchards, Silver Hawk and Quail Ridge. Ramirez was transferred to oversee those orchards. When the orchard manager at Stein-Manzana left, the company advertised the position and hired someone to do the job. Ramirez said since he had little education, the owners probably thought he wasn't capable of doing it. But the person they hired backed out, finding the thought of managing 300 acres with 13 different varieties of pears and 12 apple varieties, along with peaches and nectarines, too overwhelming. Dain Craver, then a consultant and now general man- ager of Stein-Manzana, told Stein that the best candidate was already working for him at his other orchards. "I kept pushing for José," Craver recalled. "I told them, 'You've got a great guy here in José Ramirez. He's got good tree sense, and we can teach him all the computer stuff.'" Ramirez took the job, decided he wasn't going back to Mexico any time soon, and began learning English at Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake. He gained legal status in this country through the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which granted amnesty to certain seasonal farm workers who were here illegally. A couple of years later, he took the first Hispanic Orchard Employee Education Program class that Wenatchee Valley College held in Quincy, which taught basic horticulture, English, and math. He then did the more in-depth second level of the program as well as further HOEEP classes about orchard management, tree physiology, and pest management. The classes helped him understand why things were done, not just how. "Everything started gelling," Ramirez said. "It made sense." He went on to help the Washington State Department of Agriculture with their pesticide safety workshops and gave talks at the Hort Association's Spanish-language sessions at the annual meetings. Ramirez now oversees a year-round crew of about 30 people at Stein-Manzana. "I have people working for me for over 20 years now, and they came the same way I did," he said. "Some are my assistants, and some are people I really depend on. I tell the guys this is an opportunity to succeed. It's a good thing. It's not a bad thing, because it's preparing yourselves." Thanks in large part to his tutelage, some of his employ- ees have gone on to manage other orchards. "I don't like to lose people," Ramirez added. "But if they have an opportunity to move on to better things, I don't have a problem with that. It's the way of life. My focus and energy in life is to help and have someone benefit." Own orchard As Ramirez worked in the tree fruit industry, his dream gradually changed from being rich and famous to own- ing an orchard. In 2007, he had an opportunity to buy an 80-acre parcel of land at Royal City with water rights for 64 acres. Ramirez and his wife, Rosa, put their life savings into it and obtained low-interest loans for beginning farmers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He has 34 acres of orchard planted with Honeycrisp, Gala, Red Delicious, and Fuji and is growing nursery trees there in collaboration with Craver. He's found it time-consuming to have a full-time job as manager and farm his own place in the evenings and weekends. It leaves little time to be with his wife and their four children, Nelson (15), Alex (13), Kevin (8), and Rosa Lynn (6). "It changes your perspective for sure," said Ramirez, PHOTO BY TJ MULLINAX José Ramirez manages 300 acres of orchard of which 50 acres are organic. COURTESY OF SAGE FRUIT Gari Lynn Craver (left) and Rosa Ramirez stand by the original Rosa Lynn tree that was named for them. The tree was discovered in the Stein- Manzana orchard and later transplanted into the Ramirez's yard. José Ramirez with his daughter Rosa Lynn in front of the apple tree she was named after. "I have people working for me for over 20 years now, and they came the same way I did. ... I tell the guys this is an opportunity to succeed. —José Ramirez