Here’s Some Solid Advice the Fruit Industry Can Grow On
July 2, 2022 This year’s State of the Fruit and Nut Industry from American Fruit Grower provides a picture of the consensus trends and thoughts of more than 500 of our grower/subscribers, each of whom is owed our gratitude for responding. We’re confident you will find the information, advice, and opinions they provided to be interesting and useful in your own production.
As is the case each year, our annual survey also targets industry suppliers as well as another group of invaluable individuals — the consultants, Extension agents, and researchers who guide the nation’s fruit growers on a consistent basis.
We asked several questions of this group, one of which is:
“If you could offer the average grower one piece of advice, what would it be?”
Here are their answers, several of which reflect the tough times that growers — like the rest of the country — are currently enduring:
• Never consider yourself the “average grower.” Be the best grower.
• Know your product and how much you can produce.
• Try things on a limited basis. Test — don’t guess!
• Mechanize
• Find your own market. Don’t go through a packer-shipper/marketer.
• Be in the field every day. See what is happening there. Work alongside your employees. You cannot manage from your desktop computer without being on the ground. I am 80 years old and have never seen that work yet!
• Diversification
• Don’t wait on ordering your supplies.
• The systems and practices that worked 10 years ago are not going to work 10 years from now. Be willing to invest in new technologies, but don’t fall for hype.
• Keep in mind a five-year average on returns.
• Spray peptides
• Use the best molecules to stop postbloom fruit drop, greasy spot, and glomerella cingulate and lower huanglongbing (HLB) titer. Also, calcium and one or two applications of gibberellic acid a year.
• Find efficiencies
We also asked this group: “What excites you most about the fruit industry?” Most of the responses serve as an important reminder to retain your perspective and keep the big picture in mind:
• Continuous improvement attitude
• Producing American products
• Growing productive trees efficiently
• Young growers coming into the business
• We produce a tasty, very healthy part of the American diet
• Younger home growers
• Fresh demand is increasing
• New technology, new varieties, food as medicine
• New growing systems with labor efficiencies and reduced loss to pests and disease
• The fruit tastes so good!
• The folks that enjoy our products are so thankful
• Taste
• Taking action to get rid of some government regulations (non-USDA-related)
• Sustainability and automation
• We have alternatives and new findings that will overcome these problems
• The constant changes to become more efficient
Stay tuned this month as we will be releasing more results from this year’s State of the Fruit and Nut Industry survey.
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