Catalog | About Cummins | Useful Information | Prices & Salesroom | Available for 2008 | Books | Home
Catalog | About Cummins | Useful Information | Prices & Salesroom | Available for 2008 | Books | Home
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A Note to our Organic friendsPlanting Bareroot Trees >> A note to our Organic friends >> Tree-Training Systems for the Home Orchard >> The Pollination Page >> The extra page >> Helpful links If you live anywhere except the desert, you probably already know the difficulties that are inherent in growing fruit that is acceptable for sale. It is not impossible, just difficult. Disease Resistance goes a long way towards making organic or low-spray input a reality. Most DRC's are not well known, but that is largely due to lack of marketing. In blind taste tests, varieties such as Liberty perform as well or better than well-known apples such as Empire and Red Delicious. The new PRI introduction, GoldRush, is a superb eating apple, and I've sampled several advanced selections from the breeding programs that are excellent. I believe that the future of Fruit Breeding is in Disease resistance. Someday soon, commercially important varieties will not require sprays for scab (30-50% of the average spray bill) or fire blight. Cummins Nursery is not an "organic" nursery. However, we are farmers, and we consider ourselves to be stewards of the land. We treat the soil as our friend. Long rotations and good cover crops. Through careful insect monitoring, we spray only when it becomes necessary, and we use a spray specific for the insect pest. We do not subscribe to the prevalent nursery philosophy of -Who cares, nobody eats a tree. We try to be good stewards of land and water and the air we breathe. Reading Must: Michael Phillips' new book, The Apple Grower, is by far the best publication yet available on Organic Orcharding. For more information on disease resistance view the resistance table of apple varieties. |
