Our second day just ended after 10 hours of tours of more high tunnel fruit production than I ever imagined. Haygrove may be known for their high tunnels in the U.S., however they have a huge growing operation with sweet cherries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and cut flowers under more than 7,000 acres of high tunnels. The company employs about 500 workers who come mainly from Eastern European countries like Romania, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia.
The first stop of the morning was one of Haygrove’s high tunnel organic sweet cherry plantings. The structure was 28 feet wide and 15 feet high. The sweet cherries were on a Gisele 5 rootstock with three rows per bay. The trees were planted six feet apart in the rows and six feet between rows. Each tree was staked and they used nails off this stake to tie string to branches when training the tree. Drip irrigation went down each row and black plastic was used for weed control. On the right hand side of each bay of cherries was a drive row for a tractor. Some of the major issues for the organic plantings were the increased mite and aphid problems. Brown rot is much less of a problem under the tunnels, which works well with organic production because there is no organically approved control for the disease.
The plastic is put on over the tunnels right before bloom and taken off in August so the trees will get enough light to produce fruit buds for the next year. The plastic over the trees stops the rain from cracking the cherries and they have seen marketable yields increase 25-30%.
The raspberry production was spectacular. Each high tunnel bay had three rows with six feet between rows. All of the varieties are ever-bearing and they mow them down each fall. Haygrove has been raising them organically for three years and have been battling phytopthera and verticillium wilt. They have been using raised beds and trying plants in pots with a peat-based soil. The raspberries can grow to eight to 10 feet tall with the berry production coming in the top of the canes. This makes it perfect to pick the fruit standing up.
They have made a special cart that pickers can stand on and is wheeled down the rows as cartons are filled.Haygrove has 25 acres of lilies under tunnels with nine different varieties grown on raised beds and drip irrigation. This was the first year they tried to go to an all-organic production system, however are going back to growing them conventional because they cannot get a premium price from the retailer and acceptable weed control was impossible using organic methods.
Strawberry production at Haygrove takes on many forms. The main system involves high tunnels with five rows of raised beds on plastic per bay with drip irrigation. They can have production from the end of June until the third week of October. Many United Kingdom growers have switched to table production in greenhouses to make picking easier, but Haygrove has devised a five-row machine that enables their workers to pick strawberries at ground level. The company is also experimenting with several different substrate systems that use hot water to heat the soil for earlier production or forced air heat in high tunnels. They feel this will be much less expensive than putting up greenhouses. Another system involved using telescoping trays with the plants in substrate mater. The trays are kept at ground height when they are first started and move progressively up to waist height when picking begins. So far they are just in the experimental phases, but they hope to settle on a system in the next few years.
The last stop of the day was plums under high tunnels. The main variety grown for the United Kingdom is a European variety name Victoria. A local grower installed tunnels over established trees and didn’t see any significant results the first three years. However the past five years have shown the plums are much less susceptible to wind damage. Marketable yields in a conventional system may reach 80%, but under the tunnels are 98%. Significant frost protection is another benefit of the system and it has clearly proven itself as a worthwhile system.
It was a very education experience and I think the take-home message is that if you want to grow crops in high tunnels you need to understand that it is a totally different growing environment and will need to change cultural methods that work best with this system and be ready to try news things. If you take on this challenge however, the reward will be well worth the risk.
– Matt McCallum, Great American Publishing
