Sep 29, 2011
UK farm needs a few good sweet cherries

A couple of years ago, G.H. Dean & Co. decided to invest “quite significantly” in sweet cherries. As part of the plan, the family farm in Sittingbourne, England, will plant up to 120 acres of cherry trees in the next few years, according to Managing Director Oliver Doubleday.

G.H. Dean has been growing cherries for decades, but Doubleday would like to be more strategic about future plantings, putting in “good-size” blocks that contain as few varieties as possible.

“The traditional approach, where you muddle all the varieties together, doesn’t work,” he said.

A heterogeneous block that contains early, middle and late varieties is “hopeless” to manage. Inputs have to be applied at different times, which gets needlessly confusing, Doubleday said.

“By having a more intelligent approach to the orchard design, we ought to be able to optimize our timing” when it comes to tasks like spraying, he said.

If you’re only going to grow a few varieties, you want to pick winners – cherries that are going to sell. Doubleday listed Regina, Karina, Skeena and Sweetheart as varieties with potential.

He doesn’t plan on building a packing facility for all these new cherries, however. It would only be used two months out of the year.

When Doubleday was a boy, starlings were a major problem for the cherry crop. Crop losses of 40 percent weren’t uncommon. The starling population has decreased significantly since then, he said.

Doubleday’s family has farmed in the Sittingbourne area of southeast England for about a century and a half. The family holdings sit on nearly 3,000 acres of arable land, he told members of the International Fruit Tree Association (IFTA) in July. About 350 of those acres grow fruit, including apples and pears.

The family operation started as a brick works, thanks to good soils in the area (some of which are still used to make bricks). In the 1930s, taking advantage of studies done at a nearby agricultural research facility – East Malling Research (EMR) – Doubleday’s grandfather built an innovative cold storage facility. It cost him 6,000 pounds, a “significant sum” at the time, but it was paid for within the first year, Doubleday said.

Following in his grandfather’s footsteps, Doubleday installed new refrigeration equipment five years ago. It wasn’t easy for him.

“I don’t like spending money,” he said.

By the time the IFTA bus tour visited G.H. Dean in late July, the cherries had already been picked. Everything was two weeks ahead of schedule, Doubleday said, including the apples and pears.

He gave a few tidbits about the farm’s apples: Braeburn is difficult to grow there. Root pruning works well (they tend to do it before Christmas). They don’t overthin.

As for pears, Doubleday quoted an old saying: “You grow pears for your heirs.” A pear orchard can take six to eight years to start yielding, he said.

Most of his apple and pear trees come from two nurseries: Verbeek in The Netherlands or Carolus in Belgium. He generally hires a contractor to plant the trees.

“I don’t have the labor to do all the work all the time,” he said.

Fruit picking is now aided by self-driving platforms. In the past, local workers did most of the picking, but these days much of the local population is unwilling to work for fear of losing unemployment benefits. Doubleday doesn’t blame them. They’re making a rational decision. He does blame the government policies that put them in that position, however.
Nowadays, most of the fruit picking is done by Eastern Europeans. The farm provides housing for them. England has farm-worker housing standards, but they’re not strict, he said.

In other topics, Doubleday talked about putting organic matter back into the farm’s soil using mulches and compost (he likes cheap compost). And using techniques developed at EMR, he’s hoping to reduce the volume of water used to irrigate the farm’s fruit crops – with no reduction in yield, he said.

G.H. Dean also dabbles in agritourism. The farm gets paid by the government to preserve one of its old orchards as a historical site. Nearby is a church that dates back to at least 1314. It’s a local attraction, and some services are still held there, Doubleday said.

By Matt Milkovich, managing editor




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