It's Time to Harvest
Right now, we’re getting ready to harvest our two-year-old fruit trees. Did you know that harvesting bare-root trees is a lot like harvesting fruit?
Stark Bro's Field Tour
Each year, key members of the Stark Bro's Marketing, Operations, and Production teams load a field bus to review the crop. We call this event the Annual Sales Walk – a sneak-preview of the culmination of the last two years of hard work. We grow our own trees here, and the purpose of the tour is for the different teams to see the size and quality of the trees that Stark Bro's grows. It's always an exciting time of show-and-tell and, when we took “the Walk” last week, we all concurred: the crop looks just the way we want it to.
The Harvest
Right now, we're getting ready to harvest our 2-year-old bare-root trees. Did you know that harvesting bare root-trees has some of the same factors involved in harvesting fruit? For example, the trees have to reach a certain maturity (or hardening-off) stage before we can "harvest" them from our growing fields. This helps them not only to store well here at the nursery, but also to be more successfully transplanted when it comes time for you to plant in your back yard (or other growing space)!
It's All About Timing
Through the growing cycle of summer, the roots are sending nutrients up to feed and nourish the plant. By the close of summer, the leaves of each tree are manufacturing and sending reserves into the root system — reserves that become stored energy for the trees’ performance next season.
Stark Bro's gives every apple tree we grow a late-season urea feeding to supplement and strengthen the tree's reserves. That way, when you transplant your trees the following year, they will perform better. When your trees are strong going into their rest period (called dormancy), they’ll grow better when they awaken the following season!
— Elmer Kidd, Stark Bro's Chief Production Officer (retired)
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