May 1st 2012 Issue

Fruit drop is not simple to manage

Thinning in spring and stopping preharvest drop are two sides of the same coin.

Dr. Rongcai Yuan made important contributions to understanding fruit abscission processes. He died a year ago of cancer at age 45. Photo by Steve McArtney Scientists have made great progress in recent years homing in on answers to mysteries surrounding why apples fall off trees—so they can help growers make more do it when there are too many on the trees in the spring or to stop them from doing it before harvest. One leading figure in this work is Dr. Steve McArtney, a North Carolina State University horticulturist who is the Southeast Apple Specialist for that university working jointly […]

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May 1, 2012

Production, Apples, Research, Richard Lehnert

Richard Lehnert

After growing up on a Michigan dairy farm, Richard Lehnert began writing about farming in 1962, while still a junior studying journalism at Michigan State University. He worked at newspapers for a year before joining the staff of Michigan Farmer, where he spent 26 years, the last 15 as chief editor. He was a member of the staff of Good Fruit Grower from 2010 until 2015. Read his stories: Story Index

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