When board members of the Batlow Fruit Cooperative in New South Wales, Australia, held a strategic planning process to figure out how to sustain their growers, they wondered why growers were leaving the industry. The answer turned out to be hail. Every year, growers were losing some of their crop to hail, and it was taking a heavier toll on them than in the past, Ron Gordon, the cooperative’s field services manager, related at the International Fruit Tree Association’s annual conference in Tasmania. Gordon cited several reasons why he believes that hail damage is more devastating to tree fruit crops […]