Fifty More Chances

March 13, 2015March 15, 2015 / elizapples / 1 Comment

Earlier this month, I was sitting in a circle with thirty other East Coast orchardists discussing theories, observations, research, what’s next and experiments in the realm of holistic/organic/alternative orchard management. We concluded this year’s meeting with talk about marketing and the different techniques used by the group to sell apples. Being a user of social media (I use it more than most in that group), I piped up to tell everyone how in the past year, a blog post of mine was picked up by a larger blog (Epicurious.com), turned into an interview, and was read and retweeted by MC Hammer to his 3.5 million twitter followers. The title: “Why We Should All Consider Eating Ugly Fruit.” Thanks to social media, a single blog post with a readership of a few hundred turned into hundreds of thousands of people seeing a title about eating ugly fruit (#eatuglyapples).

As a result of this public exposure, I received quite a bit of mail. Most of the mail had to do with people being terrified about biting into worms and wanting more guidance/hand holding on the worm subject. I tried my best to get back to all of these people and when I said as much at this orchardist meeting, someone asked me: “Responding to emails takes so much time. Do you think the time spent in correspondence is worth the energy when it comes to selling apples?”

My answer was “Absolutely!” I do believe that consumer awareness can change how and why we grow food and at this point, we should never overestimate the awareness of others about the food they eat. At 31 years old, I’m hoping to have many more years ahead of me and the sooner awareness happens and people start thinking about why they aren’t eating ugly fruit, the healthier our environment becomes. After delivering this answer and soap-box speech, someone in the circle said:

“Fifty more chances… Eliza has fifty more chances to make this happen. That’s why this type of gathering is so important. We’re giving each other more chances.”

At first, that statement hit me hard. It’s true. In 50 years, I’ll be 81 years old and hopefully settling into some sort of apple-derived retirement. In those 50 remaining years, I have 50 more chances to bring about awareness for cosmetic diseases and maybe see some consumer change during that time. 50 seasons (100 if I travel between New Zealand and the USA every year and avoid all traces of winter) are all I have left…and suddenly, it dawned on me that my time here on this earth is very short. All of those extra years I thought I had, my [dwindling] advantage of youth, has been reduced to only 50 more seasons.

And then I stopped being so self-centered and started to understand what he was actually saying…

Alone, I have 50 more chances. But with the help of others, my chances go up exponentially. In seeking out collaboration, networking with others, and forming real and lasting relationships with our surroundings and with other humans, we are earning more tries at what we’re trying to accomplish in this life. A season filled with peers and enriching relationships turns into a season with far more potential chances for accomplishing our goals.

There’s so much power in interdependence, yet on the whole, very little positive collaboration seems to be happening in this realm (aside from that annual orchardist meeting I spoke of above). Why is that? Well, from my personal standpoint, I can tell you that over the past few years, I’ve had ideas, theories and physical work taken (stolen?) from me and projected onto larger platforms without any credit or acknowledgment. One must question why no acknowledgement was given, and to me, the answers are likely found in ego, greed, vanity or self interest/promotion. Instead of working together, instead of reaching out to combine powers in order to achieve a greater good, we as humans often tend to head down a path of selfishness or self-preservaation. It’s alright to take care of ourselves first, it’s basically the survival of the fittest, but we must realize that the stealing of words/ideas/etc without acknowledgement, or some similar action used to get a temporary leg-up in life, could cost you and everyone else some extra chances in achieving a greater good.

The truth is: It does bother me when people take my words and other people’s words and use them as their own without any acknowledgement. Perhaps it’s because I laboriously went through half of my life citing other people’s works in scientific papers to let those grading my homework know where I got this information. Perhaps it’s because I’ve got a big ego. Regardless, I often beat myself up when I get aggravated about this. Why can’t I just put it to rest and do what I love with the end goal being to better this world where I’m currently residing? Why should I care about someone stealing my ideas for their own?

It’s because I deeply (on a cellular level, it seems) care about what I do and want to see this system change for a healthier future. Tied to my ideas are many many other ideas, supportive theories, and people who have helped or inspired me. If people were to give credit, a works cited of sorts, they would essentially be funneling information seekers (aka- potential innovators) to the source, which can often be the grail for information and resources. In building upon other’s work without acknowledgement, we are hampering true progress and innovation.

“Trust and mutual respect among employees and users are the foundation of our success, and they are something we need to earn every day.” That comes from Google’s code of conduct. They are one of the most powerful and innovative businesses of our time and what are they doing? They are fostering respectful relationships among their employees in order to bring out the best in each other’s skills. Take note, ag world. Let’s start to collaborate, eh?

Currently, I’m trying to strike a balance between making relationships/collaborating (more chances) and holding my cards close to my chest (no increase in chances). In a sense, I’d like to think the team I’m a member of is something of a Google. I have some wonderful role models in my life who depend on trust and community in order to live a full life, and I’m reaching deep into that resource. In the end, though, it’s a conscious decision of who is surrounding you. How many chances will I end up with for metering my collaborations? That’s the risk, isn’t it? Given this world we’re in, we’ve got to somehow maintain a balance between competition and working together in order to bring about some effing change.

In any event, I’ve gotten a little off topic from marketing/social media/#eatuglyapples. I don’t care if people start using #eatuglyapples; As a grower, I need that awareness spread in order to increase my chances at changing the food system. We’ve got a long way to go. #Eatuglyapples.

The Dula Beauty, my family apple. Picture pulled from USDA archives.

The Dula Beauty Apple, my family apple. Picture pulled from the USDA archives. I find it amazing that when this picture was painted, there was no need to cover up the cosmetic fungal diseases. That’s what fruit looked like.

Eat Ugly Apples

March 13, 2015March 13, 2015 / elizapples / 2 Comments

This is a post I wrote for AskHRGreen.org

When you walk through the produce section of a grocery store, it’s always the same view once you get to the apples. Large, glistening orbs of pristine red, yellow and green apples are neatly piled on the shelves, their looks alone inviting the shopper to add them to their cart. So you pick one up and scrupulously examine it to make sure nothing is wrong, add it to your cart, and move on with your purchases. As an apple grower in Southwestern Virginia, I’d like to use four words to tell you what I think about these pristine apples at the grocery store: I won’t eat them.

It’s not just because they often taste bad (Red delicious – seriously?), but also because how they are grown. You see, that pristine, blemish-free beauty is a result of management – apples do not naturally look like that in Virginia. Left to its own devices on a tree (and it depends on the apple variety), an apple would likely be covered in a smattering of cosmetic diseases. These diseases do not alter the taste of these apples (aside from sometimes making them sweeter) and are not in any way an indicator of your apple having a worm. Yet we Americans have been trained to eat beautiful fruit and reject the blemishes. Because we fear these harmless blemishes, millions of gallons of fungicides are sprayed on apples (organic and conventional) every year across the United States to make them go away.

That person on the tractor in a white tyvec suit who is being followed by a white plume of chemical spray – that’s me, Eliza Greenman, age 30. No matter how much I try and cover-up with all of the necessary gear, I get those chemicals on me at a higher concentration than what lands on the fruit. I’m one of the youngest orchardists in the country by a generation and hope to have a long life ahead of me so I’ve started a campaign to reduce the threats on my health as the farmer, your health as the consumer, and the environmental impacts from farming practices. Eat Ugly Apples.

Making the conscious choice to eat ugly apples is better and cheaper for you as the consumer, protects environmental quality and it’s better for me as the farmer. It’s time we challenged the social norm that currently has us demanding glistening orbs of perfection from the growers. This takes some awareness and I’m here to help.

Good to Do:

Consider eating varieties of apples that you’ve never heard of before. There are 7,000 different known varieties of apples in North America and many of these are better suited for growing in the hot and humid Virginia climate. For example, apples called “Russets” look like potatoes and aren’t very susceptible to many of the cosmetic diseases. They taste amazing. Ask for them and keep asking for them!
Learn the blemishes. I’m convinced that corporate agriculture named these diseases to sound much worse than they actually are. Sooty blotch, fly speck, apple scab and powdery mildew are the top four cosmetic diseases. My pictures above should help you identify them.
Spread the ugly apple gospel! Bring down those naysayers with assurance that they will not get sick from eating sooty blotch or fly speck. Naysayers still rejecting the blemishes? Peel it!
Take ugly apples social! Tweet, Facebook and Instagram the handle #eatuglyapples when consuming a beautifully blemished specimen. Let’s get this out there.

Thank you, and may you have many ugly apples in your future!

Heterozygosity. It’s Why I’m Concerned for Broad-Acre Permaculture

March 9, 2015September 17, 2015 / elizapples / 12 Comments

Over the last few years, I’ve watched and read of many people who have put in highly diversified, large scale orchards in the name of creating a commercial-scale food forest (or something to that extent). By “highly diversified,” I’m talking chestnuts, apples, grapes, hazelnuts, persimmons, paw paw, sea buckthorn, lonicera, black locust, etc. Some people call it “Agroforestry” while others are calling it “Silvopasture,” yet both of those systems traditionally involve the harvest of timber crops rather than fruit and nut harvests. The difference between a timber crop and a fruit crop is HUGE when it comes to planning out a landscape, and this difference alone is why I am predicting the economic hard times of many broad-acre permaculture farms. Employing some basic horticultural/orcharding knowledge to repair what has been overlooked is necessary in order to progress and evolve into a better agricultural system. This blog post is designed to air out my concerns and get people thinking about these overlooked topics in order to bring about faster innovation and success. Note: This blog post is intended for future and potential commercial growers. Not homesteaders.

The reason why I’m predicting hard times? It’s called heterozygosity: Plants grown from seed may not exactly duplicate the characteristics of its parents. What does this mean? Well, let’s use apples as an extreme example… When you eat a red delicious apple and then plant the seeds, you will not get a red delicious apple tree. In fact, if you plant the seeds from a red delicious, its offspring will produce entirely random results and you’ll likely get something very far from the looks and taste of red delicious. The apple might be green and tiny with a sour taste, or orange and triangular shaped with tastes of honey. The variability is huge, and that’s why we graft. Grafting is basically a form of cloning and every single red delicious apple tree grown in the world comes from the genetics of one single tree. (I’m not going to get into “sports” in this conversation).

A small sampling of the shapes and sizes of apples, due to extreme heterozygosity

Diversity fuels sustainability and is a basic tenant of ecology, so planting out row upon row of the same grafted tree variety is not seen as a very ecologically-minded process. In fact, as we continue to graft the same thing over and over again (Just yesterday, I learned that 60% of all apple trees planted in New York State are Macintosh), we are hindering any co-evolution for disease and pest resistance and we growers become more reliant on chemicals to produce a crop as nature evolves around us and becomes increasingly resistant to what we throw at her.

The genetic characteristic of heterozygosity found in varying degrees across many, many tree crops is allowing for a myriad of genetics that might stand up against the current coevolution of nature. In this light, many permaculturalists are advocating planting trees from seed in order to select for a diversity of genetics that will work with your site, climate, etc because that is one of the only ways we’ll create a truly healthy and sustainable agricultural system. Yet, this is agriculture and those of us farmers heading towards growing perennials on a commercial scale need to make a living doing this. Like, a living off the crops…not off of classes, workshops, speaking engagements, etc.

So, what’s the problem in growing food-tree crops from seed on a massive scale? Heterozygosity. You see, though you’re selecting for better genetics, you are also opening yourself up to a bunch of other unknowns about the tree…like when these fruits and nuts will actually ripen. In the case of apples, your ripening/harvesting window in certain areas can run between June and October. That’s a 4 month-long period! Now, imagine that you just planted thousands of trees across broad acreage without paying ANY attention to when your crops will ripen. Imagine trying to harvest those crops with any sort of efficiency. Hint: It’s nearly impossible unless you have a huge crew of free labor. And according to the Department of Labor, once your free labor has the skills to competently do a task, they must be paid minimum wage (or else you are breaking the law).

I once managed a 5 acre orchard with over 100 varieties of apples. These varieties were planted in a patch-work style across the orchard without much sense or order. During harvest, apples were ripening across the entire orchard rather than row-by-row and when I left that orchard, I learned to always clump varieties together that will ripen at the same time (or close). In doing this, you’ll save money in harvest costs, sanity, and also be able to actually provide a merchantable crop other than renting out your rows to finish your animals/other’s animals on an absurd amount of nuts and fruits.

In regular agroforestry or silvopasture systems, you are harvesting timber in addition to growing alley crops or livestock. Trees can grow at different rates, but if you planted them all at the same time, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to harvest them at the same time. That sort of planning ahead for timber crops should not be applied to tree-food crops and we need to stop pretending like it can.

A Silvopasture System For Timber

This is a fact: If you plant trees with intention of harvesting their fruit/nut crops for markets/value added without a harvest plan, you will be screwed when they come into bearing.

In Central Asia, edible”silvopasture” (harvesting apple/walnut trees for timber/firewood is illegal) is an integral part of their apple and walnut harvest. The basal area (term used to describe the average amount of an acre occupied by tree stems) of the apple and walnut trees in the forest allows for healthy pasture underneath the trees where livestock are grazed before and after the harvest. The results: You get an apple crop (home processing), a walnut crop (one of few ways to make money there), meat and milk products from livestock (to feed your family) AND the livestock are cleaning up the pre-harvest drops (usually full of pests), keeping the grass low for actual harvest off the ground, and eating the post-harvest drops/leaves (to get rid of pest and disease). These forests are rather broad-acre (thousands of acres) and are broken into parcels which people lease. Walnuts and apples don’t ripen uniformly within these forests, so having these small parcels leased to families ensures a complete harvest because their livelihoods depend on it.

Apple-Walnut “Silvopasture” in Kyrgyzstan.

Planning out a broad-acre planting of anything? Farmers, regenerative agriculture designers and permaculture designers heed warning. It is very important to have your rows timed according to harvest if you or your client intends on making any money off the system. Stefan Sobkowiak of Miracle Farms has done a wonderful job of this in his permaculture orchard which has allowed for people to go in and pick a variety of different fruits from a single row. In the coming weeks, the rows change to account for ripening. He’s not on a broad-acre scale just yet and has integrated u-pick into his business plan, but it’s the same type of thinking needed for broad-acre perennial plantings.

I’ve seen a lot of pictures of a vast diversity of trees planted on contour swales, keyline, terraces, etc. People wanting to incorporate livestock into the mix have these grand visions of running livestock row by row to create fruit/nut finished meat. Now, wouldn’t that be nice if everything in that row ripened at the same time so you’d only have to send your livestock down that row once after harvest? You can also add some extra value to the scenario by listing off specific varieties (which have stories) that went into this meat. That’s efficiency and truly forward thinking and planning. It’s where permaculture and regenerative ag needs to be.

Some of you reading this might have this feeling of dread because you just planted out a acres of extreme, unharvestable chaos. If you leave your landscape be, you won’t end up with the commercial perennial agricultural system you sent out to create that talks bushels per acre, yields, and everything else an investor or someone replicating your model should ask about. Instead, you’ll likely end up with a food forest preserve that you might be better off treating in the same fashion as those in Central Asia. The model of having others come in and lease parcels of your food forest to harvest isn’t a bad idea either. Perhaps some will consider this as a future model.

I’m interested in creating and using low-input management techniques to grow fruit and nuts in an ecologically savvy way that will change the face of current agriculture. I’m interested in bushels per acre, harvest efficiency, timing. When a corn-grown kid from the FFA wants to know bushel numbers and pricing for these agriculture systems, I want people to be able to present a serious and factual case for him or her to consider changing over.

How do you fix and prevent this?

Some questions to ask your landscape designer:

1.) How many bushels per acre of (insert crop) do you anticipate for harvest once this system is mature?

2.) Will these trees be planted in a way that will allow for a streamlined harvest rather than a hunt-n-peck scenario?

3.) What varieties of these fruits and nuts are you thinking of? Can you please give me harvest dates for these varieties in my area (or extrapolate)?

Tips for those of you who have an unharvestable situation:

1.) Start your research on ripening times for varieties/band your research with others/hire a consultant who can give you this information. Try to procure scionwood from people who have harvest information. There are 7500+ known varieties of apples out there. How much do you want to bet that a couple hundred of them ripen at the same time?

2.) Learn how to top-work or hire someone who is an expert to do it for you once you’ve found varieties suitable for your layout. Or, if you already have trees producing in a haphazard pattern on your landscape, start taking notes of when each tree is ripe and be prepared to top work them into a pattern that makes some harvesting sense.

3.) Planting from seed? Start reading up and learning about true plant propagation and breeding. You can get a good idea of what to plant out from your nurseryin a few year’s time with conscious breeding and innovative techniques.

4.) Encourage and support nurseries and individuals to venture off the beaten path and start really breeding/fruit exploring for low-input management techniques. Support their taking of notes.

5.) Don’t balk at these plant breeders for patenting a plant/tree which they’ve put many hours, dollars (from their own pockets) and observations into in order to improve the agricultural system. That’s the cost of innovation. Heck, universities are doing it on tax-payer dollars.