August 2018

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New Technology and Buyers’ Guide

Featured stories covering new technology in this issue, plus our annual Buyers’ Guide.

Click here to view a PDF version of this issue.

The nozzles on a Quantum Mist sprayer can tilt and move into the exact position you want, but since they can move, it's important to check regularly that they are tightened down in the desired position, said WSU's Gwen Hoheisel. (Good Fruit Grower/Shannon Dininny)

Vineyard sprayers: Applying knowledge

A high-tech ball for berries

Photo by Leslie Mertz. Although WineSeq was launched just a year ago, Biome Makers has already processed more than 3,000 soil samples from 200 client vineyards and wineries worldwide, including 120 in California.

Wine tech award winners

Although growers are sometimes tempted to pick Juliet when they are bright red, the cherries are not ripe until the color deepens to the rich merlot hue shown here. Photo courtesy of the University of Saskatchewan Fruit Program.

Tarts with a touch of romance

Drape Net staff member, Ingrid Pilk, pulls the over-row netting down from the top to fully cover this row of Envy apples during the 2018 International Fruit Tree Association New Zealand Study Tour on February 19, 2018, in the Nelson area. Pilk was part of a two person team demonstrating how fast she and the tractor driver (on opposite side of tree row) could install and remove the product. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower)

Going undercover with drape netting

Washington State University researchers test out the three-tiered automated apple harvester Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2017, in a commercial Jazz block near Prosser, Washington. (Ross Courtney/Good Fruit Grower)

Shaking it up in the orchard: Video

With some of the first cherries to ripen in the Othello area, grower Rich Callahan is used to getting hit hard by birds, so he decided to try out a new technology known as Sonic Nets this year that promises to use constant noise pollution instead of startle sounds to keep birds out of the orchard. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower)

Battling birds with lights, sounds — Video

Coral Beach has seen success with laser control of birds at its orchards in Coldstream, British Columbia. (Courtesy Coral Beach Farms Ltd.)

Be gone, starlings

Before you dig

D’Anjou pears from the 2015 harvest being packed in Peshastin, Washington. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower)

MCP treatments can be tricky

Workers cut away fireblight infections in pear orchards on Friday, June 15, 2018, near Monitor and Cashmere in the Wenatchee Valley, Washington. Nearly everyone in the pear industry in the Wenatchee Valley, even workers who have been here 34 years, is calling 2018 the worst fireblight season they have seen. (Ross Courtney/Good Fruit Grower)

A bad blightmare of a year

Food Safety Act - FDA

Good to Know: Food safety Q&A

The new buzz for blossoms

Guilherme Fontanella Sander, a young grower from Vale do Sol, Brazil