Suppose your operating income is $80,000 and your expenses are $100,000. Your banker says you have to reduce your costs by 20 percent. What do you do? You can’t reduce pruning and training costs because your fruit quality would go down, notes Yakima, Washington, orchardist Dave Allan. You can’t reduce hand labor costs by reducing wages. Nor can you reduce the amount of chemicals or fertilizers you use without negatively impacting the crop. Instead of doing less pruning, thinning, or tree training—areas that typically get cut when a grower has economic problems—the aim should be to do a better job […]