The “Great Apple Tour” of Quebec: Our Key Takeaways
Jennifer Stanton and Mike Basedow
The province of Quebec contains roughly 12,000 acres of apple orchards, split over a few different regions of the province. The Monteregie region is home to about 6800 acres of apple orchard. The region is located in Southern Quebec south of Montreal, and has a similar production climate to the Champlain Valley. While we saw many similarities to New York production practices, we wanted to highlight some of the takeaways from our tour of Monteregie.
The Monteregie region is located south of Montreal, just north of New York’s Champlain Valley.
Apple production statistics for Quebec, by region.
Multi-Leader Orchard Experiments
We saw a few experimental plantings of trees being grown in multi-leader systems. These systems are being heavily managed to produce fruiting walls which will hopefully allow for greater mechanization to reduce labor costs, and open up the tree canopies to produce higher quality fruit. One farm was growing Bibaum® Ambrosia on M.9. The Bibaum® trees came from the nursery with two balanced and symmetric leaders on one trunk. Having two leaders on one tree allows for a reduced planting density while still getting the advantages of higher density plantings. Washington State studies by Stefano Mussachi suggest Bibaum trees offer some advantages in terms of tree-growth control, fruit size, (275 g for Bibaum® and 271 g for spindle), and sugar content.
Bibaum® Ambrosia on M.9 rootstock. Ambrosia is a very popular variety in Canada, and this was very evident in the orchard blocks we visited!
Mechanical Hedging
Many of the orchards we visited were also experimenting with mechanically hedging their tall spindle plantings to produce narrow fruiting walls. Again, the goal of this orchard design is to increase fruit quality by allowing more sunlight into the center of the trees. Presenter Laurent Roche (of CTIFL, the French Center for Research on Fruit and Vegetables) noted how hedging should be performed in the dormant season and again in the summer to help shape the fruiting wall and top open up the canopy in the summer to increase fruit quality and to set fruit buds for the following growing season. Laurent also discussed how M.9 and G.11 are currently two of the most popular rootstocks in France.
Mechanically hedged Ambrosia and Gala orchards in Monteregie East. Note how narrow the limbs are relative to Mike’s arm, and the concrete trellis posts being used in this orchard block.
Mechanical Blossom Thinning
Laurent, along with speakers from IRDA, MAPAQ, and Petch Orchards, discussed thinning trials using the Darwin string trimmer. The particular trial at Petch Orchards included an untreated control, thinning with just the Darwin at bloom, thinning with the Darwin and NAA at petal fall, thinning with NAA alone at bloom and petal fall, and Petch’s standard treatmetn of NAA at bloom and NAA and carbaryl at petal fall. The Darwin combined with NAA at petal fall gave better thinning than the Darwin alone (the Darwin alone thinned to 65% of clusters containing only one fruit; the Darwin and NAA thinned to 75% of clusters containing only one fruit), and gave comparable thinning to NAA alone (NAA alone produced 78% of clusters with just one fruit). The grower standard performed the best under this year’s conditions (85% of clusters contained only one fruit). The presenters noted that all treatments were still overcropped this year due to inadequate thinning conditions and an excessive return bloom following last year’s spring freeze. A key discussion point was the note that the Darwin thinner will not replace all of your chemical thinning. Instead, it can be used at bloom to start the thinning process, at a similar timing as we would be doing our bloom thinning with NAA, NAD, or caustic thinners with the pollen tube growth model.
The Darwin mechanical string trimmer.
Crop load results.
Precision Orchard Management with Vivid Machines
Vivid Machines, an ag-tech company based out of Toronto, is also working with some of the local orchards and researchers on adapting their technology to meet local orchard needs. Their system consists of an ATV mounted multispectral camera system that scans the orchards multiple times per season. The system has multiple uses, including blossom density estimation, crop yield estimation, along with measuring fruits for the fruit growth rate model to assist in thinning decisions. One of the current outputs includes heat maps of the orchard. These maps can then be linked to variable rate sprayers. The company is also looking to see if their system can detect diseases, such as fire blight, before the human eye can. Cornell researchers are also working with Vivid Machines in the Lake Ontario region through the PACMAN project.
The Vivid Machines camera system mounted on an orchard ATV, and examples of the heat maps being created by their system.
Irrigation Management
Paul Deschênes of IRDA presented on the importance of irrigation in high density orchard systems. He discussed how soil type, compaction, and other soil quality characteristics affect orchard water needs and the monitoring and irrigation systems that would be right for your orchard. He showed different tensiometers that can be installed within the orchard to actively monitor your soil’s water content. He recommends installing tensiometers at two separate depths, one within the rooting zone of the trees, and one deeper at about 20 inches to get a sense of water availability further in the soil profile. We generally recommend maintaining soil water potential at about –20 to –60 kPA at the rooting zone during the height of the summer to prevent water stress, particularly in small fruited varieties like Gala and NY-1. Deficit irrigation is currently recommended for Honeycrisp, where too much water can lead to excessive fruit size at harvest.
Sprayer Calibration
Mikaël Larose of IRDA demonstrated different methods for calculating flow rate and ultimately GPA through an airblast sprayer for more precise sprayer calibration. The flow meter pictured below collects real time flow rates from each individual nozzle, allowing greater accuracy in determining your sprayers GPM. This particular unit is made by AAMS, and connects directly to a computer.
Pesticide Handling Safety Systems
IRDA invited us to their experimental orchard, which is hosted on the grounds of Mon-Saint-Bruno National Park, where we got to see sprayer safety technologies. Pierre-luc Hébert, IRDA’s Operations Director, demonstrated their sprayer mixing pad and tank loading system. This particular system allows you to add your pesticides into a separate tank at waist level, rather than having to lift pesticides over your head or climb onto the side of the sprayer. It also has backflow prevention within the lines. This system also allows the handler to push rinse water through the sprayer without having to come into close contact with the spray tank itself.
Cider and Agritourism
Much like the Hudson Valley, a portion of the apple production in Quebec is close to Montreal and its suburbs, allowing many opportunities for agritourism. Many growers sell direct to their consumers with retail farmstands and pick your own opportunities. Hard cider is also a growing industry, and many ciders are being made with only Quebec apples. The orchard we visited has a test planting of cider specific apples, including Porters Perfection and Harrison, though they made mention that many of their ciders are being produced with their dessert varieties like McIntosh, Cortland, Spartan, and Lobo. The cidery is also producing a rose cider, getting the red pigments from Dolgo crabapples. Ice cider, a very sweet, higher alcohol dessert cider, is made from freezing the cider to remove some of the water to concentrate the juice, and is also popular across the province.
Porters Perfection in a hard cider variety trial.
We’d like to thank all the folks at IRDA, MAPAQ, and the participating orchards for putting on this tour, and for providing translation services so we could attend.
If you have any follow up questions on any of these topics, please feel free to reach out to Mike at 518 410 6823 or mrb254@cornell.edu.