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Show Crisp pple business I js no easy task J m WWW" mi ppH mm IWH.llIWiMWIIW.)ll.l",- 'V .y WCTMWigyjI-tr ;. y." ' Wife. t- ft . Um ' r V '- .- 4? ' N ' ( t j 'X 5 - - , '. I ' . ' - ? 4 ' , ! ., ' ',. . . '. if- . ' Pi .! N - ' f t '''..'.', t " i s, ' i ! V . ,M . ..'..'" t ; r " v f u w " ) ! ' : ) ,VMABCELLA WALKER ' ,h;nvoubiteintoabig,crunchy, Whri apple grown locally, with hiSshes on it, do you ever ' no Wem' jt got to be that way? 1 i Tomlinson of Tomlinson ! j, m Lindon can give you a swer: "It's a lot of work." I t l time of year Tomlinson's and apple farmers, are at their , tt The apples are being har-bUS!r har-bUS!r packed and shipped to veSfei During the height of the ' "li ne' season, the workers are i P , L in a full day by the time most regettingoutofbed. irl said that he prefers to pick, 'k and process all at the same fl Some farmers, he said, pick ) ! ' and keep the apples in cold I rage and then do the processing ' "rvtfyday during the harvesting I : Ion big diesel trucks are filled I Tjl crates of apples which are to market from the Tomlinson ! : processing Plant- ' Shirl comes from an apple far ming family. He took over where his father left off. His grandfather and great-grandfather were strawberry farmers in Pleasant Grove and later they turned to apple farming. Lloyd Tomlinson, Shirl's dad, farmed in Lindon and Pleasant Grove. A packing plant was located on 200 East in Lindon just south of the present processing plant. It burned down in 1972 and shortly thereafter, Lloyd passed away. When Shirl returned from his LDS mission in 1974, he began to run the farms and built the new processing plant. In 1980, Shirl bought the businesses from his mother and brothers and sisters. "In 1974 there was not a big market for our apples and they were hauled to Salt Lake to be sold," Shirl explained. "I went out and did a lot of work to find a market for the apples and that is how we became involved with Smith's Food King. "Smith's buys most of the Tomlinson Orchard's apples now. They also sell to Albertsons and Safeway. Smith's Distributing Center in Albuquerque also buys a lot of the apples. Some of the apples, such as Jonathans, go to California where they are made into juice and applesauce, ap-plesauce, Shirl noted. Shirl has 35 acres of apple trees in production. His brother, Kim, leases about 35 to 40 acres of apple orchards or-chards in the Lindon-Pleasant Grove area. His apples are processed at Shirl's plant, also. Their older brother, Terry, purchased pur-chased the old Wells Stake Farm on 200 East in Lindon, while he was living in Texas. He now lives locally and works in Salt Lake City as a computer-programmer. His apples are also processed at Shirl's plant. A couple of other local farmers, Allen Marchbanks and Nyle Smith, have their apples processed at the plant, too. Shirl said that about 30 to 70 thousand bushel of apples are processed at the plant each year. They keep some in cold storage for a short time but not for very long. Right now, with the season at it's height, they are' processing 2,000 bushel a day. They begin work in the plant at 4 a.m. each day and quit at about noon. In the afternoon they haul apples and get them ready for processing the next day. The apples are put onto a conveyor belt and go through the first sort. Then they are washed, dried, sprayed with a thin coat of wax and then dried after which they are beautiful and shiny. They go through another sort and finally are packaged. Smith's Food King wants the apples to be a certain size for the boxes. Smaller apples are put into plastic bags and are distibuted to Smith's that way. Shirl's plant' is the largest i Kim and Shirl Tomlinson inspect a box of extra fancy Red Delicious apples before they are shipped out to market. (See additional photos on page 8.) processing plant in this area. There are larger ones down by Santaquin, he said. Shirl explained the process to get a perfect apple in the fall. In the winter they prune a little. In March and April they finish the pruning and burn the limbs they have cut off. They start with the dormant spray which has an insecticide. in-secticide. The trees must be sprayed every week thereafter. The farmers must spray for every conceivable type of pest and it is very costly. . During blossom time the farmer has to be very careful. Frost can do its worst damage at this time. Shirl uses wind machines to protect the blossoms from frost. The wind machines stir up the air and keep it circulating. These machines can raise the temperature about two to five degrees, Shirl stated. This really helped him a lot this year because a large portion of the Utah apple crop was lost to frost this year. "If it just saves the crop one year, it has been well worth the cost of the machines," Shirl added. Along with spraying, the trees are chemically thinned to get them to produce every year rather than every other year. "Golden Delicious is the worst one for wanting to have a good crop every other year," Shirl explained. They also hand thin each tree to get early red apples. During the harvest they have about 10 to 15 pickers, mostly Mexican, who will average about 2,500 bushels a day. They will earn $60 to $70 per day picking, Shirl said. He uses about 10 people in the packing plant during the harvest season. If you want to know what happens to the great big, gorgeous Red Delicious apples, the very most perfect of all, they go to vending machines. "Utah apples have better flavor and taste than Washington apples," Shirl emphasized, "but Washington has the marketing." He said that Washington state has really pushed the publicity and sales on their apples, more than Utah. In a normal year, Utah will produce one to two million bushels of apples. It is down to probably 400,000 bushels this year because o the frost last spring. "Washington will produce about 20 million bushel so you can see we are just a drop in the bucket in production next to them," Shirl noted. Utah is more comparable to Colorado, he said. |
