The International Fruit Tree Association’s 2025 Summer Study Tour of Ontario, Canada, wrapped up its third and final day on July 23.
After spending the first day in Southwest Ontario, the tour left London on Day 2 and drove east to the Niagara region, where vineyards and orchards dot the strip of land between the south shore of Lake Ontario and the high ground of the Niagara Escarpment. During the drive, the tour got a glimpse of the “million-dollar view” of the Toronto skyline on the other side of the big lake.
The first stop was the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, a 218-acre campus that’s home to breeding programs for apple, pear and tender fruit. Facility personnel walked the IFTA audience through research blocks while discussing their fruit breeding and marketing efforts and soil studies.
The next stop was Thwaites Farms in Niagara-on-the-Lake, a multigenerational orchard where John Thwaites and his sons manage more than 500 acres of asparagus, peaches, nectarines, seedless grapes and both European and Asian pears. The Thwaites family discussed their successful method of growing high-density pears with the IFTA audience. Read more about it in future issues of the magazine.
The final stop of Day 2 was Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery on the Niagara Benchlands, a popular tourism and wine region covered with fields of grapevines. Proprietor Sue-Ann Staff told IFTA about her winery’s history, her viticultural methods and her award-winning Rieslings, reds and other wine styles.
On the final day, IFTA stuck close to London, where the group first visited the orchard of Michael and Brett Versteegh. The visitors saw a block of super-spindle Honeycrisp and an autonomous AgBot sprayer, manufactured by Dutch companies AgXeed and Hol Spraying Systems, in action. They also heard presentations from Vivid Machines and Innovative Orchard Technologies.
The final stop of the tour was Heeman’s, a family operation and local destination that grows greenhouse plants and vegetables, as well as strawberries and raspberries. In 2019, the Heeman family expanded into craft cider and mead production, made with its own berries and honey and with heritage cider apples sourced from Ontario growers.
IFTA’s next event will be its conference and tours in Fresno, California, in February 2026, followed by the next summer tour in New York’s Hudson Valley in July 2026.
