Horticultural Options when Starting an Organic Apple Orchard

Disease susceptibility significantly influences organic apple (Malusxdomestica) production in the eastern United States because of weather conditions during the growing season. The northeastern USA has seen a shift away from 'McIntosh', the historically predominant cultivar which is very susceptible to apple scab (Venturia inaequalis), to newer cultivars, due to consumer preference and a shift in market focus from wholesale to retail and niche markets. A multi-disciplinary, multi-state, long-term research project OrganicA Project (http://www.uvm.edu/similar to organica/) was initiated in 2006 at the University of Vermont (UVM). One objective of this ongoing project was to incorporate and evaluate "new" apple cultivars and research-generated knowledge of apple ecosystem dynamics into organic production systems to determine their sustainability and profitability. We examined two major production systems growers could use in changing cultivars: top-grafting (an 18 year-old orchard was top-grafted to 'Ginger Gold', 'Honeycrisp', 'Liberty', 'Macoun' and 'Zestar!') and establishing a new orchard by planting new trees of the same cultivars used in the top-grafted orchard. The information presented here represents a comparison of alternative horticultural methods, techniques and costs associated with these two systems during the establishment years.