Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/751050
48 DECEMBER 2016 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com A SUCCESSION Good Fruit Growers of the Year W hen the leaders of Zirkle Fruit Co. want to share the story of the company's history and vision, they take visitors up a dusty lane to a Yakima Valley hilltop. On one side of the lane sits a trel- lised block of 6-year-old Honeycrisp trees. The high-den- sity block, planted in 1-foot spacing, replaced a longtime orchard of Red Delicious trees that were an old strain and needed to be replaced. On the other side: a traditional orchard of freestanding Golden Delicious trees. Some 60 years old, with massive trunks each spaced 20 feet apart, the orchard produces only about two-thirds the crop of the Honeycrisp block. Yet the trees produce as good a Golden as any other tree, and no one at Zirkle can bear to tear them out just yet. Together, the orchards represent Zirkle Fruit, past and future — the way things have always been and the way they need to be going forward. A respect for tradition, but a refusal to fear change. Thanks in large part to those traits, Zirkle Fruit and its sales arm, Rainier Fruit Co., are among the world's premier growers and packers. They also have earned Bill and Mark Zirkle recognition as the Good Fruit Growers of the Year for 2016. Both men credit the company's growth and success to the people who grow fruit or work for the company and buy its products. "This is a huge effort for a lot of talented people," Mark said. "Dad and I may strategize for the future, but it's the team, it's the people who run this place." Bill agreed. "It's how you treat your customers, your employees, your coworkers, the neighbors, their families. It makes no difference. It seems like if you do the right thing, it all works out, and in our case, it did," he said. "That's why it's been such a fun ride." A RICH HISTORY The Good Fruit Grower of the Year award is bestowed annually by Good Fruit Grower magazine to an inno- vating and inspiring grower or family in North America and is presented during the Washington State Tree Fruit Association Annual Meeting in December. The maga- zine's advisory board makes the selection. Often, those recognized are growers with long ties to the fruit industry, but to say farming is a Zirkle family tradition would be an understatement. The family grew fruit for more than a century in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley until the Civil War effec- tively drove Perry Luther Zirkle, Bill's great-grandfather, west to begin anew. He settled in Washington's Yakima Valley, where the family thrived for nearly four decades. The Great Depression forced Bill's grandfather to start over again, first working for other farmers, then buying a 60-acre apple block and growing from there. Bill and Mark Zirkle credit teamwork for company's growth and fruitful legacy. by Shannon Dininny / photos by TJ Mullinax Father and son, Bill and Mark Zirkle of Zirkle Fruit Co., talk under a canopy of Golden Delicious apples from this block a new trellised block of Honeycrisp stands.