Organic Farmer October/November 2019

The previous farm managers sprayed conventional herbicides.
“It took three years to get anything to grow under the trees,”
Berg said. “We’ve had to do some things slowly over time.”
Farming Practices and Challenges
As Berg and Homanics have discovered, managing such a
diverse orchard is a true test of their skills. “It’s a lifetime
project. Something you do over time,” Berg said about learning
the traits of each tree. With the different varieties and the
different rootstocks, she figures there are about 2,500 variables
on the farm.
For the operators, rainy days and hot days create more work.
To prevent sunscald on days over 95 degrees, when the sun is
hitting the orchard at a direct angle, Homanics and Berg use
backpack sprayers loaded with a product called Surround.
It’s an organic clay coating that they spray on the shiny apple
varieties. It covers the honey crisp apples with white splatters.
When honeycrisp are fully sugared, they are more susceptible
to sunscald than some of the other varieties.
Jeannie Berg bags apples for a customer at Queener Farm.
Without protection, super-hot days can cook the apples on
the tree. The inside of an apple can reach 120 degrees in direct
sun. “It turns them brown, starts to rot,” Berg said. After
harvest, they will wipe the white splatters of Surround off the
apples. If the weather is expected to be hot for only a short
time, a spray of cool water is enough to prevent sunscald.
What can be even more damaging to apple trees and their
fruit than hot days are wet days. “The Willamette Valley
is so damp, fungal diseases are really the challenge. Hours
of dampness leads to lesions,” Berg explained. But she and
Homanics try to stay away from copper as much as possible,
even though it’s a widely-used organic fungicide. “Copper is
quite toxic to the operator,” she said. When she and Homanics
first started working the orchard, the soil tests came back
high in copper. For tree health, they rely largely on potassium
bicarbonate, and yucca extract. “It’s not cheap,” Berg noted
about the yucca. But it’s safe. Safe enough to even taste. She
describes it as being like “a molasses that smells of tequila.”
Yucca is reputed to help plants utilize water more effectively
and help protect them against stress.
Berg and Homanics also use some extracts of teasel and
knotweed. Knotweed—yes, the obnoxious, invasive weed—
is anti-bacterial, anti-cancer and anti-fungal, according to
Homanics. The extract has a 48-hour effective window. They
use it when there is going to be more than 10 to 12 hours of
moisture on the trees to fend off fungal issues.
For fertilizer and orchard clean up assistance, Homanics and
Berg release a flock of chickens into the orchard. The chickens
eat larvae and debris and recycle it into fertilizer. Other
fertilizer comes in the form of kelp, fish and organic milk
mixtures.
Heirloom apple Belle de Bokoop.
To fight coddling moth (apple worm), Homanics and Berg
apply virus bodies of cydia pomonella, plus half-a-billion
nematodes. In the style of European organic orchardists,
Homanics and Berg start spraying the biological control
early in the season. They use low doses and spray weekly. It’s
expensive, Berg says, but it kills the coddling moth without
harming the pollinators.
Continued on Page 36
October/November 2019
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