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Is your labor situation better or worse this year?
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Welcome Home, IFTA |
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The International Fruit Tree Association will hold its “Welcome Home” Conference this winter in Michigan, where IFTA was born more than a half-century ago.
The conference, Feb. 28-March 7, will use the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, Mich., as headquarters. The conference is being organized by two co-chairmen: Michigan State University Horticulturists Phil Schwallier and Greg Lang.
On Saturday, Feb. 28, a special “pre-conference” workshop – paid for with a separate fee – will focus on management of high-density plantings of apples and sweet cherries.
The “technical session” starts Sunday, March 1, and continues with technical conference reports on March 2 and 4. The session March 2 includes the Art Mitchell Symposium on plant growth regulators.
March 3 is devoted to a tour of orchards in the Grand Rapids area.
There will be a “post conference” tour of orchards in the Traverse City area March 5-7. Traverse City is about 200 miles north of Grand Rapids, so the tour will require two overnight stays and end about noon on March 7, Schwallier said.
IFTA was born 52 years ago in an empty apple storage near Hartford, Mich., on the family farm of Wally Heuser, who planted the first commercial apple orchard in Michigan on dwarfing rootstocks in the early 1950s.
The key players surrounding the birth of IFTA were Joe Mandigo, a district Extension horticulture agent who wanted to show growers what dwarf apple trees looked like and how they should be pruned; Heuser, whose family had such an orchard and an empty apple storage in which to hold a meeting; and H.B. Tukey and Bob Carlson, professors from MSU who had studied dwarfing rootstocks and enticed their student, Heuser, to use them. Carlson brought the rootstocks from England.
The organization was Michigan-oriented at first, but after 10 years added “national” to the name, then “international” in 1974. Four years ago, the word “dwarf” was dropped.
More details on the program will be published in future issues and on the Web site www.ifruittree.org.
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John Clark
University of Arkansas
John Clark, a breeder of stone fruits, grapes and berries at the University of Arkansas, has just finished his term as president of the American Society for Horticultural Science. As the ASHS’s annual conference in St. Louis in late July, he handed over the gavel to Bill Lamont Jr., who works at the Plasticulture Center at Penn State University. Clark is also on the Fruit Growers News editorial advisory board. We caught him as he was preparing for the conference and asked him about ASHS.
What does ASHS do?
ASHS was formed in 1903 to promote the science of horticulture by bringing together the people who are involved in teaching, research, Extension and industry. We publish three refereed journals – leading journals in the world. While our name says American, a third of our 2,800 members are from other countries and we publish papers from authors around the world.
Our annual conference draws about 800 to 1,200. It creates an opportunity to meet face to face with others and share information of common interest. It also allows the society to honor the true achievers in horticulture, such as this year’s ASHS Hall of Fame Inductee Jules Janick of Purdue University.
How do you promote the science of horticulture?
We work from an information source standpoint, and even if active in Washington, we don’t lobby. We support broad-ranging programs that cut across a broad range of horticulture. We believe that ASHS members can provide an unbiased source of information for the public, including our nation’s leaders. But as you know, horticultural crops – specialty crops – have been getting a lot of attention and we were very interested in the Specialty Crops Research Initiative. We kept our members informed on issues and served as a resource.
How do you raise funds?
Members pay dues, and some money comes from the annual conference. A major part is from “publication income” where scientists pay for publishing papers as well as payment for access to the journals worldwide. We also have an outreach operation. Articles in the journals are summarized in press releases that go out to the general public keeping them informed about new discoveries in the world of horticulture.
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