April 1, 2026

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April 1, 2026, cover of Good Fruit Grower magazine

Nutrient and Water Management

Featured stories about nutrient and water management — and more — in this issue.

Rhizomorphs, the black shoestring-like strands attached to the trunk of this blueberry bush, are a symptom of armillaria root rot. The fungal disease is uncommon in Michigan blueberry fields but was found infecting bushes in a field where oak trees previously grew. (Courtesy Tim Miles/Michigan State University)

Bouts with different blueberry diseases

Chelsea Durfey Campbell discusses how her family’s Sunnyside orchard has connected irrigation, soil moisture and microclimate sensors to a Washington State University AgWeatherNet dashboard through LoRaWAN in December at the Washington State Tree Fruit Association Annual Meeting in Wenatchee. (Ross Courtney/Good Fruit Grower)

Democratizing technology for farms large and small

Grape growers facing a season without buyers for their fruit can cut back on irrigation and pruning to keep vines viable without cropping them. In this idled Mercer Ranches Syrah block near Alderdale, Washington, shown in February, viticulture director Richard Hoff (at right) intentionally lowered the blades of the prepruning machine, almost to the cordon, and will not bother sending a crew to hand prune afterward, as he normally would. (Ross Courtney/Good Fruit Grower)

Hitting pause on a vineyard

Check the fruit first to fight the flies

Workers harvest Honeycrisp from Huron Fruit Systems platforms at DeMarree Fruit Farm in Williamson, New York, last September. The DeMarrees leave a headland of 32 to 35 feet between blocks to accommodate the wide turning radius of the platforms. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower)

Making room for orchard automation

A young Top Shelf blueberry bush grows in a precision device called a weighing lysimeter in 2023 at a U.S. Department of Agriculture research site in Corvallis, Oregon. Lysimeters measure changes in plant weight to determine evapotranspiration, which researchers use to build crop coefficients for precision irrigation. (Courtesy Dave Bryla/U.S. Department of Agriculture)

Watering blueberries by the numbers

Elias Rubio with HMC Farms demonstrates the method for rolling up a new netting system the farm is trialing on its plums during the International Fruit Tree Association tour in February in the San Joaquin Valley of California. (Kate Prengaman/Good Fruit Grower)

California crop management uncovered

Forest Lodge Orchard imported a Monarch electric tractor from California in 2023 and had a New Zealand company build a custom electrostatic sprayer to run off the tractor’s battery. Importing emerging technology poses a risk, owner Mike Casey acknowledged, including from Monarch, which went out of business earlier this year. Overall, though, he has found strong return on investment from going electric. (Courtesy Forest Lodge Orchards)

All-electric cherry production

April 1, 2026, cover for Good Fruit Grower Magazine

April 1, 2026 — Digital Issue

An autonomous platform from Bonsai Robotics, which acquired farm-ng in 2025, mounted with a WEED-IT smart sprayer for a demonstration in February during the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California. (Kate Prengaman/Good Fruit Grower)

The role for robots in agriculture

Members of the HiRes Vineyard Nutrition project at their final team meeting in May 2025 at the Cornell Lake Erie Research and Extension Laboratory in Portland, New York. The research team will share findings from the five-year project in June during the American Society for Enology and Viticulture annual meeting. (Courtesy Donnell Brown)

Brown: Nourishing innovations

Trunk diseases spread slowly, eventually stopping the grapevine from growing and giving the growers their first clue of a problem, years after infection. (Courtesy José Ramón Úrbez-Torres/Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada)

Take action on trunk diseases

Antonio Mendoza, left, and Antonio dela Torre prune Coral Champagne cherries in mid-February from a platform at Finley Cherries near Benton City, Washington. They intentionally let the cuttings pile up on the platform structure, to make it easier to remove them for mulching. (Ross Courtney/Good Fruit Grower)

Everything but harvest

Good Stuff, April 1, 2026

1985: Report on Dutch tree fruit highlights Dwarf meeting

1959: Northwest Dwarf Tree Association Proposed

Ted Vollo, a young grower from Summerland, British Columbia