I believe Scott’s forum is a fabulous new venue for North American Fruit Growers and foreseeably could expand to a world-wide forum.
At present, I wish to call your attention to novice fruit growers discovering the site. They will tend to take most any advice from what they perceive to be an accomplished grower as valid advice – whether or not it is valid for their local conditions. Further, when such advice fails they tend to believe it is their fault for being a lousy gardener and do not realize the number of parameters that differ between their home and the information source.
In particular, the pH and nutrient content of municipal water supplies vary greatly in the U.S. alone. In the northeast quadrant, water supplies (and rain water) tend to run from near ideal pH to serious acidity. Further, the soils tend to have some mineral fertility although many are bound in clays. Organic and granular fertilizer methods tend to work well. Further, there is a hard freeze every winter and relatively minimal pest control measures can control noxious pests. Ok, you might need a 14’ fence to keep the deer out!
But contrast this with the southwestern US where municipal water supplies have a pH range of 7 to 8.5 and have been purposely buffered with Calcium compounds. Just on the basis of pH alone fertigation is a necessity for serious fruit farmers. And not only is there Calcium in the water supply but also in the soils. Advising a novice to “loosen” their clay soils with gypsum is entirely the wrong idea because their clays are calcium-based. In southern California there is rarely a freeze and so organic pest control measures are generally inadequate for persons trying to produce a marketable crop. On top of that, there is relatively low humidity here so ripening times and lack of a worthwhile breba crop mark another difference.
Now have a gander into the southern US and farther where humidity plays a large role in ripening crops. Notice that fruiting plants native to the tropics or near-tropics have thicker skins (e.g. Mango, Citrus) which are beneficial in their indigenous environment, in contrast to say peaches which need specific cultivars for those areas so that they don’t rot off the branches before they are ripe.
And so on throughout regions of Canada, US, Mexico – and ever more so throughout the world.
Further, people here have a variety of backgrounds. If you disagree with a stated opinion there is no need to demand references or a pitched battle. No one here is your gratuitous researcher. Some of us have in the course of our enterprise studied numerous publications and will repeat what we have learned from them. Asking them to go back and dig out information from their studies 10,000 pages ago is really out of scope.
Finally, I’d like to point out that we are all very interested in growing fruit. It is the subject that binds us. Personally I have respect for everyone’s motivations and methods of application. It is near and dear to my heart. When I see a posting that might not be applicable to the more general public – particularly novices – I will point it out. But please, do not take it personally. It is my opinion about the subject and nothing about you!
