NW Fruit (Western Washington Fruit Research Foundation)

Hello Everyone! We are looking forward to having our Winter Field Day again in 2022, after not having it for the last 2 years. Please check this website the week before the event, in case something happens (such as Covid restrictions increasing) to cancel the event.

This will be an all outdoor event due to concerns about spreading Covid. Rootstocks and scion wood will be sold and you can have small trees grafted for a modest fee as we have done in the past. See our newsletter for more information about the event.

The date has been changed from March 5th to the 12th with the intent of coordinating better with local fruit societies.

Thanks to those of you who participated in this years Apple & Pear Harvest. If you have not had a chance to seek Larry Crum’s Video on Heritage apples there is a link below.

We had sent out our newsletter about September 23, 2021 to everyone who has been a member in the last 3 years and let them know whether their membership is current or not at that time. If your membership is not current you can see methods of renewing your membership here.

Click here to see a video about heritage apples with Larry Crum.

Since the 1st Saturday of July is during the 4th of July weekend we will be having our next webinar on July 10, 2021 at 10 am. Special guest Bob Gillespie, a newly retired faculty member and Program Director for the Agriculture and Natural Resources Programs at Wenatchee Valley College who taught courses in Integrated Pest Management, Field based IPM, Entomology, Plant Science, and Sustainable Agriculture in the Ag Program will be teaching about pollinators and other topics within his field of expertise.

Bob will be helping us at NW Fruit explore ways that we can create habitat in or near the Fruit Garden for pollinators and beneficial insects, spiders, and mites which can help reduce pest levels.

Our members will receive an email with the direct link for the webinar. Non-members can get the link by emailing us at info@wwfrf.org and and asking for the link.

In August we will begin a monthly ZOOM members meeting with an educational talk and question and answer period. This will be a meeting format, rather than a webinar format.

Since the 1st Saturday of July is during the 4th of July weekend we will be having our next webinar on July 10, 2021 at 10 am. Special guest Bob Gillespie, a newly retired faculty member and Program Director for the Agriculture and Natural Resources Programs at Wenatchee Valley College who taught courses in Integrated Pest Management, Field based IPM, Entomology, Plant Science, and Sustainable Agriculture in the Ag Program will be teaching about pollinators and other topics within his field of expertise.

Bob will be helping us at NW Fruit explore ways that we can create habitat in or near the Fruit Garden for pollinators and beneficial insects, spiders, and mites which can help reduce pest levels.

Check back about June 25th to see a video preview of Bob teaching about insects.

Our webinar on June 5th will have a video showing Bob Baines demonstrating his technique for thinning fruit and pruning branches at the same time. This technique is appropriate for apples and pears over the next month or so. After the video Bob will answer questions.

Here is a preview of Bob’s presentation video. The preview is only about a minute and a half, but there is about 30 minutes blank at the end so don’t be alarmed and think it is so long. Sorry about that. (Kim Siebert)

Register in advance for this free webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xepEFGbRT7a9YthUk0jEkg

We will start with Sam Benowitz talking about rootstocks followed by a presentation by Bob Baines called A Guided Virtual Tour of the Fruit Garden, followed by a Q & A session.

Register in advance for this webinar:
Click here

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

The webinar for June 5th will be on “Fruit Thinning and Pruning for Controlling Tree Size”, with Bob Baines,

We will still be having Richard Fairfield talking about the new support structures for the Kiwis and Blueberry netting, but instead of blueberry pruning we will have a video with Kiwibob teaching how to winter prune kiwis. Kiwis need to be pruned twice a year, in January and July. We already have a video with Kiwibob on how to do the summer pruning of kiwis at the bottom of this page. This video on winter pruning of kiwis has never been shown because although he did this class in 2017, I didn’t get around to editing it until now. (Kim Siebert)

If you are a current member we will be sending you an email with the link to view the webinar from last Saturday within a couple of days. Please make sure your email is accepting emails from nwfruit.membership@gmail.com, which is the email we use to send out newsletters and notifications.

We will be covering growing blueberries and our blueberry net structure we use at the Fruit Garden in Mount Vernon. More information to come.

Click here to find an updated version of our Best Varieties handout.