Fruit, Soil Health Teams tour orchards, campus

Also at the Lansing Orchard:

• Anna Wallis shared her work on Tree Fruit and Berry Pest Monitoring Networks
• Greg Peck showed his new plantings of perry and cider apples, NC140 rootstock trial, a systems trial, and a cherry shaker demonstration.

The afternoon program shifted to Cornell Orchards, where stops featured field talks by Horticulture Section faculty:

• Chris Watkins and Yosef Al Shoffe on the latest post-harvest technology pioneered by Cornell that keeps apples crisp and tasty until the following season’s harvest.
• Lynn Sosnoskie on electric weeders and other new tools for orchard and specialty crop weed management.
• Lailiang Cheng on the nutrition and stress physiology research he conducts using container-grown apple trees.
• Marvin Pritts on berry and small fruit opportunities for growers.

The joint tour wrapped up in Bradfield Hall, where attendees learned how fruit growers can benefit from analyses conducted by the Cornell Soil Health Lab of their soil’s chemical, physical and biological characteristics led by the lab’s director Bob Schindlebeck, assistant director Kirsten Kurtz and their staff.

Wallis and Peck organized the tour in collaboration with the other PWT co-chairs, which was attended by more than 30 Extension educators, faculty, staff and students.