Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/629538
36 FEBRUARY 1, 2016 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com hundred acres at a time. His goal is for the trees to grow 6 to 6.5 feet tall with four to six branches during the first year, and he expects them to be 9 to 9.5 feet tall by the second leaf. With Gala, he's been able to harvest 40 to 45 bins per acre in the third leaf. Jason Matson, farm general manager at Matson Fruit Company in Selah, Washington, uses a steep V-trellis system with trees 1.5 feet apart and 10 feet between rows. He prefers sleeping eyes to full-size nursery trees, and not just because they're cheaper. In order to have trees with the characteristics he wants, he would cut back nursery trees at planting to almost nothing anyway, he said. Another advantage of sleeping eyes is the shorter lead time for selecting the variety. The roots of a sleeping eye are more in balance with the top, he said, so they don't suffer transplant shock. They stay vegetative longer and grow better, in his experience. Honeycrisp With Gala, Matson uses a formal limb positioning system with the goal of producing up to 100 bins per acre. However, with Honeycrisp, he's gone through a progression to find the right system. His first Honeycrisp planting 10 years ago was on a vertical system on a 4-by-10-foot spacing. He hoped the canopy would grow 11 feet tall, but the tops of the trees didn't fill the space. In 2008, he switched to a 4-by-9-foot vertical system, hoping they would reach 12.5 feet tall, but he had the same result. In 2012, he planted Honeycrisp on a 1.5-by-10-foot V-trellis system, aiming for a tree height of 10 feet. "We could get there," he said, "But the tops of the trees are just these spindly little branches. Honeycrisp grows really well for the first two years, and sometimes we can keep them going into the third, but we can't get them any taller than 9 or 10 feet no matter how hard we try. "It comes down to branching," he added. "The first 2 to 2-1/2 years we get nice healthy branches, but after that they're just little spiny things." In 2013, he planted the same system but developed two leaders per tree, for a total of 5,508 leaders per acre. Leader placement is formal, but side branching is not. He's been stubbing back the limbs to try to keep them from setting fruit buds and to keep the trees growing upward. "We're really hoping we will finally get 100 percent canopy development, and at that point we should be able to get 100 bins per acre," he said. Obstacles Asked about obstacles to success, Matson said there never seems to be enough time for tree training and everything else that needs to be done. Establishment costs, at $40,000 to $50,000 per acre, are also a challenge. And it takes patience to develop a successful orchard. At first, his employees seemed to have difficulty under- standing the formal training system. "It was a hair-pull- ing experience," he said. "But now we've gotten there, we don't want to change because now our staff understands what to do. We're so far down this path that it would be very difficult to emulate Stemilt. It's just a cultural thing, and I feel good that our staff understands the goals of the system." Goldy warned that the "plant-in-place" systems (bench grafts, sleeping eyes and budding in place) may be less expensive than planting full-grown trees, but they only pencil out if the grower has the technical skill to bring them into production sooner. "People look at them as a cheaper solution, but it generally delays their production over just buying a nurs- ery-grown tree," he said. "The cost of maintaining these 'cheap trees' in the orchard for additional years while they fill their space greatly outweighs the upfront cost of a good nursery tree." The panel discussion took place during the Washington State Tree Fruit Association's Annual Meeting in December. •