Savvy farmers all over the country have discovered a practice that might not work as a nationwide agricultural policy, but that has allowed some economically inefficient orchards to thrive: Encourage yuppies and their progeny to come pick your fruit they'll pay handsomely for the privilege, buy more than they'd ordinarily consume, and then shell out for all sorts of other value-added products. Instead of paying workers to pick their fruit, they should try another strategy: making customers...

For instance, if there is only one kind of apple available worldwide, and a disease that targets that specific apple tree kills all the trees, apples will cease to exist. Of the more than a dozen varieties of apples that used to exist in the orchards, only six remain, Routson said. The more varieties of apples, the less a chance of losing apples to time. Because the trees don't always bear fruit yearly, reliance on selling apples from the orchards has been spotty. About 200 cloned trees...

If it had been part of a longer cold stretch, or if the whole winter had been cold, it wouldn t have hurt us any, but we were at the point where many of the plants were thinking that spring was just around the corner when it got real cold, said Mark Longstroth, the Michigan State University Extension office s district fruit educator for southwestern Michigan. Most of the state s $275 million fruit crop is grown within about 20 miles of Lake Michigan, because of its moderating effect on the...

Rather than planting whatever variety is getting the best price, growers are now looking at soil quality and weather conditions in different parts of their orchards to decide which variety to grow, said Scott Hanses, director of sales for Holtzinger Fruit co. Rather than planting whatever variety is getting the best price, growers are now looking at soil quality and weather conditions in different parts of their orchards to decide which variety to grow, said Scott Hanses, director of sales...

The good news was brought to cocoa growers in three of the country's provinces as a kick-starter of a nationwide programme aimed at sharing improved cocoa seeds to farmers to step up production and ameliorate their revenue. While the operation targeted groups of farmers in the East province, it rather focused on small holder growers in the Centre and South rpovinces where the aim was to demonstrate the important place that small holder farmers continue to occupy in the new strategy to...