April 15th 2013 Issue

Orchard ground covers

Soil quality studied under four ground cover systems.

For 21 years now, Dr. Ian Merwin has tended a 320-tree apple orchard on the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake near Cornell University’s Ithaca campus. He’s been studying the long-term effects of four different orchard floor management systems. A key question is, are there better arrangements than trees in herbicide-treated strips separated by alleys of grass, the system used by most apple growers? Merwin studies the effects on tree growth and yield, runoff and leaching of nutrients, and soil quality. The results have been surprising. In a nutshell, you can grow apples almost equally well over the long term in […]

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April 15, 2013

Production, Apples, Pest Management, Weeds, 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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