Posts Tagged: nectarines

UC research on dwarf fruit trees featured on local news

Kevin Day, a UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor for Tulare County, has been comparing the quality of fruit on stone fruit trees pruned conventionally, in hedge rows and other configurations for 17 years. Now he and his colleague Ted DeJong, UCCE specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, are taking a new look at small-sized trees, reported KSEE Channel 24 news in Fresno.

The idea is keeping the fruit trees short so ladders won't be necessary for harvest and other orchard operations, while at the same time maintaining excellent yield and fruit quality.

Day talked to the KSEE news crew in a peach and nectarine orchard at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier. 

"This is good news for farmers and farmworkers," said reporter Theresa Sardina. "This means safer working conditions for workers and less money out of farmers' pockets."

Day said the researchers are trying to better understand the labor savings aspect of small fruit trees, but he believes they will be proven to be significantly more cost effective.

"You can save a minimum of 25 if not up to 50 percent on any particular labor operations," Day said.

The lead agricultural technician at Kearney, Rudolfo Cisneros, was also interviewed for the story.

See the video on the KSEE Channel 24 website.

Private eye for peach pie

The Fresno Bee profiled a local business over the weekend that pursues confidential research projects to help clients - such as fruit breeders, growers and sellers - identify fruit varieties that look great, taste delicious, grow easily and store well.

Fruit Dynamics monitors 10 stone-fruit breeding programs, evaluating 400 to 600 unreleased cultivars each year for the fresh and processing fruit markets.

Tree fruit growers are looking to the company to boost their industry, in which profits have dipped due to high production and competition from a greater diversity of fruit choices, such as relatively new California blueberries.

Fruit Dynamics owner Eric Gaarde has been collecting fruit variety characteristics since the 1990s, the article said.

"Their database is, without a doubt, the most unique fruit database in the world," UC Cooperative Extension tree fruit farm advisor Kevin Day told reporter Joan Obra.

"What they've done across geographic breeding lines is absolutely unparalleled," Day was quoted in the story. "It's staggering, the data they have."

Day offers information on tree fruit fresh-shipping, production practices, fruit growth and development, pruning and training systems on the Tulare County UC Cooperative Extension website.

Fruit Dynamics maintains an extensive tree fruit database.

Master Gardener shares rare fruit source with Chron readers

A Master Gardener with UC Cooperative Extension in Santa Clara County, Laramie Treviño, turned San Francisco Chronicle readers on to a source of fast-producing, unusual fruit trees in a feature story printed over the weekend.

Treviño profiled C. Todd Kennedy and Patrick Schafer, rare fruit enthusiasts who run their online-only nursery as a "personal charity," the story said. Tree prices are $19.50, low considering they are already a good size and most will produce fruit within one year.

Kennedy and Schafer have constructed an unusual business model for Arboreum.biz.

• Two dozen varieties are offered each year, and then those types are unavailable for a few years thereafter
• Only enough inventory is propagated to ensure that its stock sells out
• The company has no catalogs, no printed growing tips, no listed fax or telephone numbers
• Surplus fruit trees will be available at Filoli Garden Center when the estate reopens Feb. 9. Filoli is a historic country estate about 30 miles south of San Francisco that is open to the public.

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