Diversity was the watchword during Day 1 of the International Fruit Tree Association’s 2026 Summer Study Tour of New York’s Hudson Valley on July 20.
“If you take nothing else away from this tour, I hope you take away diversity,” Cornell University fruit IPM coordinator Anna Wallis told the IFTA tour at Samascott Orchards in Kinderhook.
Samascott Orchards is a good example of diversity, with 1,000 total acres, 200 of them open to the public. The Samascott family grows dozens of produce crops, including more than 100 apple varieties. They also raise cows and chickens, said grower Jake Samascott.
IFTA tours generally focus on cutting-edge horticulture and technology. The Hudson Valley, which runs along the Hudson River between Albany and New York City, features some of that. But to attract consumers from those major markets, the region’s diversified farms have created marketing innovations just as cutting-edge as their horticultural innovations, if not more so, Jared Buono, director of Cornell’s Hudson Valley Research Laboratory, told Good Fruit Grower. Watch for our September issue to learn more about those innovations, and more.
At IFTA’s stop at Klein’s Kill Fruit Farms in Germantown, grower Russ Bartolotta talked about peaches. With about 70 acres, he’s probably the biggest peach grower in the region. Peaches are a risky crop but worth it, because they’re popular and profitable. An April freeze killed much of the region’s peaches this year, but most of Bartolotta’s peaches survived.
“Seventy acres in the Hudson Valley is the equivalent of 2,000 acres in the San Joaquin Valley,” Bartolotta said. “People tell me I’m crazy for growing so many peaches. Well, let them think I’m crazy.”
Golden Harvest Farms in Valatie has diversified with their Harvest Spirits distillery, making vodka, applejack and other beverages from their apples. They make apple vinegars, too, including balsamic apple vinegar, said grower Derek Grout.
At Yonder Fruit Farms in Valatie, Cornell regional tree fruit specialist Dan Donahue and orchard manager Rusty Lamb discussed concrete orchard posts, EverCrisp (MAIA1) coloration strategies, and apple decline. Donahue also discussed rootstock trials and bitter pit. He said that if he were to summarize his conclusions about bitter pit, he would put it this way: “Friends don’t let friends grow Honeycrisp on G.41.”
At Rose Hill Farm in Red Hook, orchard manager Kevin Clark talked about the pros and cons of growing hundreds of varieties of apples and other fruit on about 25 acres. They use many of the hard-cider apple varieties in their own hard cider. Harvest, thinning and management in general are complicated, but customers love to pick the fruit, even if it’s not always ripe, Clark said. •
