OCR Text |
Show PROBLEMS IN FRUIT CITED winter pruning according to soil i conditions and thinning. The Ben Lomond concern sizes its fruit and j grades it carefully for quality. Thirty-five to fifty cents a bushel premium prem-ium has been realized for 2'4 inch minimum peaches over 2 inch minimum min-imum peaches, according to Hull. H. J. Randall of North Ogden told how he handled thinning and cherry picking crews. "Successful marketing of peaches begins with producing a quality article in the sizes most In demand," de-mand," declared F. M. Coe in the discussion on preparing peaches for market. In years of apparent surplus profitable prices can be secured only on attrctive fruit, according ac-cording to Coe. Peach, cherry and apricot problems prob-lems heid the attention of two score fruitgrowers at the Utah Agricultural Agricul-tural college farmers' encampment. Size, quality, uniformity and an attractive at-tractive pack were stressed by experienced ex-perienced growers and college men as necessary for Utah peaches to bring money this year. Irrigation of stone fruit orchards was discussed by Prof. Francis M. Coe of the college, who explained ex-plained the role of moisture in fruit plants, how it was held in the soil and how to tell how much water to use without waste. "Many of our stone fruit orchards, or-chards, particularly cherries, are suffering from partial drought due to poor distribution of water in the orchard," said Coe. "Many growers are using but one furrow to a tree row on gravelly soils resulting re-sulting in only part of the soil storing water for the trees' use. Such practice prevents root development devel-opment in the dry portion and fails to store sufficient moisture for the use of the trees. In gravelly gravel-ly soils downward spread is more rapid than lateral spread, and three or four furrows are needed for old trees. Much of the die back in the tops of cherry trees may be caused by this practice." Thinning Is Praised "We have thinned for five years," said John Hall, superintendent of Ben Lomond orchards, North Ogden, Og-den, "and wouldn't grow peaches without it. Thinned fruit is larger, brings better prices, is easier to sell and cheaper to handle. The cost of thinning is more than saved in the reduced cost of grading out culls." Mr. Hall favored moderate : I |