hello welcome to Kate's Ag today i'm here at an apple orchard in Ontario Canada
with Greg Ardiel partner in Ardiel Acres Limited
and you're going to be sharing a little bit about your family operation and your apple orchard yeah
that's right so we uh my dad my brother and i all farm together here in the southern georgian bay
area of ontario uh we grow about 330 acres of orchard about half high density half standard
and are consistently uh transitioning towards more high density all the time that's amazing
now what year was your farm founded or we moved to the area in 1920 so 101 years now and what
generation are you i'm fourth generation my brother and i liam what is the timeline of
growing apples it's a long process start to finish our orchards we typically expect to last for 25 to
30 years from planting uh your a couple years from when you order the trees to when you receive them
and then four to six years before you're reaching uh sustainable production levels and then another
20 to 25 years of full production that's incredible and that's also very different
there's kind of heritage apple orchards yep yeah there's still some older varieties and different
uses for them whether it's in the fresh industry or the process and sauce industry now why do you
plant new trees after 25 years uh part of it has to do with variety changes and prayer has to do
with technology and innovation and keeping up with things keeping things modern and current
and becoming more efficient all the time and using best production practices and precision egg
what is the growing season of the apples uh we will typically well from january we'll spend a
lot of time in the shop working on equipment and a lot of office work reviewing numbers of blocks and
yields and making decisions on what comes out and what stays mid-march our workforce will arrive and
we'll start pruning trees that will carry on until uh mid-may when we have a significant green tissue
and then all while lots of uh spraying and herbiciding mowing then we'll get into uh chemical
thinning the trees to reduce the crop load so we get a better volume of uh sizeable fruit and
then uh some summer pruning and opening up the tree canopy and then moving into harvest in
early september carrying us through till almost november oh wow then uh everything will go into
either direct to pack out or direct to store or into controlled atmosphere storage where it'll
be stored up to 10 months and sold through the year do you store any of your apples on the farm
we have a packing and storage with five other families in the area that we own together that's
really great what varieties of apples do you grow our main focus now is gale ambrosia honeycrisp
uh we still produce lots of macintosh empire spartan uh northern spy ida red cortland
can you explain a little bit more about your high density trees and what those are so we are
constantly transitioning our orchards over to high density plantings meeting more trees per acre so
the tree is much smaller that keeps it much more consistent and hedge like like the trees behind us
that allows for better sunlight penetrate penetration better air flow through the tree
reducing disease pressure uh better spray coverage also and higher production and yield per acre
higher production um higher quality of yield will produce a similar amount with our older
trees but we won't get as much fresh fruit out of them oh wow okay and then it allows us to
mechanize things such as using this labor platform you can see behind us to harvest the tops of the
trees as opposed to using ladders yes and that must be really great yeah big cost savings
yes what is the process of harvesting your apples uh we'll go through first and pick the fruit on
the ground and the guys will wear a picking basket where they can pick directly into it
and we'll grade the fruit as we pick it to greater any calls or something that we don't
think will make a packing line and then they'll go into the bin into storage and then we'll go back
through and pick the tops of the platform well thank you so much this is just fascinating good
what is this machine called this is a harvest platform so it allows us to uh pick the fruit
that's above that kind of ergonomic level for the guys to reach yeah you know and so instead
of going up and down the ladder every tree um this just moves along it's all auto steer
so it uses a uh oh wow auto steer yes it uses a vision system to uh take out the roadway so
they can steer itself in different roads so the apples come in they're loaded gently down and
then it automatically adjusts based on the height of the fruit in the bin so it's never bruising
the anything are also grating as they pick if they see something that won't make the
grave they'll toss it on the ground and what variety of apples are these ambrosia
do your apples mostly stay in Ontario or
uh not necessarily it depends a lot on markets um we've actually shipped apples as far as
Afghanistan and Sri Lanka oh wow but uh is there different varieties that are preferred uh when
shipping to different countries yep so much still the sweeter ones trying to be the more popular
yeah and then it just leaves the crate and then another charge will come along and pull
these cool things the apples that are left on the trees what happens we're waiting for more color
okay not enough color they'll be rejected they won't make the uh
grade that we need so we need to have better color on the fruit oh interesting
we'll allow this fruit to color up and then we'll come back and pick it again
that's awesome so that's very labor intensive also have to go back several times very labor intensive
that tractor just unloaded all of these apples from the field
they picked them and put them in these crates leave the crates in the field and then
bring them here move them look at all the apples very incredible
we are now in a new high-density apple orchard and could you explain a little bit more about
the apples and this orchard so we just put in a new uh planting of gala on m9 root stock at
a three by 11 spacing so about 1320 trees per acre you try and renovate about five to ten
percent of our uh orchards a year to keep things current and uh up to date so this is what the
apple tree looks like yep this is a new uh new orchard just started and how old are
these apple trees they spent two years in the nursery and now they've got one growing season
in the orchard where they'll remain for the next 25 to 30 years their life wow that's amazing and
how long until they start producing apples they should start producing in about the third year and
by the fifth sixth year be in full production what system do you have set up here for those apple
trees because of the m9 dwarfing rootstock used they require a trellising system to keep the tree
upright and then trick irrigation will be added as well as you can see in an older block behind
me the black line about a foot off the ground yes yeah in about uh six years these trees will
resemble these ones to the left and are those also gala apples those are also gala do you plant the
apple trees yourselves yep so we do all our own planting using a gps guided tractor with a tree
planter behind and we can usually plant in the neighborhood of uh eight to nine thousand trees
a day wow that's incredible so these trees here are dwarf trees so they will never become very big
and then those are older apple trees yeah across the laneway is uh m106 rootstock and then we size
down to an m26 and now we're using m9 so it all controls the different vigors of the tree
and why do you do that we do that to get a smaller fruiting canopy which allows more airflow
better sunlight more consistency in the row sizing which allows use of mechanization such
as platforms and hedging equipment to help to become more efficient and reduce their labor
costs how deep do you plant the apple trees i usually end up about the 10 to 12 inch ring okay
now we are standing in a different type of orchard what are these kinds of apples
these are northern spice on a m-106 fruit stock so quite a much larger vigorous tree and most of
these go for the pie market for slicing oh really wow that's awesome what countries are they usually
exported to or do most of themselves muslim states right here most of them stay right here
in canada a lot of processing in ontario and some go out east to uh nova scotia oh that's awesome
so these apples are known for being wonderful in pies yeah they're sort of your premium
baking apple and the gala apples that we just saw with the dwarf trees what are they best for
they're uh the best all-around eating apple oh they're very used for everything but they're most
preferred for eating uh we still grow about uh 15 different varieties wow that's a lot trending
towards less varieties because uh agriculture is getting more intensive and so is the management of
it yes so we're trying to downsize to focus more on fewer varieties and then you have more labor
in keeping all the apples separate and yeah definitely adds more aspects to it yeah it
simplifies it to get down to less varieties but it also requires more labor because part of having
multiple varieties means you can spread out your labor force because they all ripe in a different
time oh you have less they all ripen closer together so it requires more labor gosh i didn't
even think about it that way yeah that's really interesting right yeah so these trees would take
much longer to harvest yes they do than the dwarf trees yeah these still require the use of ladders
wow and how long are the ladders you usually have to have uh it depends on the tree from 12 foot up
to about 18 foot wow and then what are the apple trees across over here uh empire are all the apple
trees the same cold hardiness for winters no they all vary somewhat um different varieties
being harder than others so will you will you see a big difference in production of one type of tree
generally uh most orchards are established in an area where you don't have to worry as much about
cold hardiness um because we have the lake effect from georgian bay here yes and that's why orchards
are usually located around bodies of water to help moder moderate that those extremes in the winter
some springs and falls yes definitely so these are empire apples these are empire and what are they
best for uh they're a good eating apple um also used uh in some processing would these apples be
harvested before the spy after they are actually being harvested now yes they'll be before spy
yeah wow that's awesome thank you yeah no problem how old are these apple trees here
these apple trees are 1990s so they're about 31 years old and you will be replacing them they're
on the chopping block so they'll be pulled out not this fall but the fall after soon as we have
trees driving to replace how do you determine what years to replace your apple trees part of
it comes down to the uh yield and what the orchard is still producing and also the variety and a big
part is trying to reduce these larger trees and get to the more modern high density systems how do
you measure apples we measure apples in bins per acre or bins per hectare okay uh you're using a
standard uh 20 bushel bin we so are they measured in bushels yep okay awesome so that's kind of like
wheat yep yep yeah so we'll target around a thousand bushels an acre what are your top
producing varieties of apples uh yield wise gale are very consistent year over year they'll put out
fruit with less complications honeycrisp will tend to go by annual they can produce a lot but if you
don't thin them properly you won't have the same volume the next year what are most of your apples
here in your apple orchard uh we still produce a large amount of macs but mostly for the sauce and
processed markets we produce a significant amount of gala and honeycrisp is uh a lot of acres in
the ground up and coming and we still do a fair bit of northern spy now why are macintosh mostly
applesauce uh they still produce a nice eating apple but it's less favored by the consumer than
it was 10 or 15 years ago so the trend seems to be the more sweeter variety very interesting
what is the maintenance required for the different apple orchards the high density maintenance is
definitely less intensive than the larger more low density plantings the pruning is somewhat
simpler in high density once you've learned how to do it as opposed to
shaping a bigger tree more consistent uh cuts and high density what is your oldest apple orchard
one block of uh spice was planted by my grandfather in 1956. wow that's incredible
so this is your pump house and it controls the irrigation system for all of your apple orchards
yep so because of the topography on this farm it requires a main pump to pump the bulk of the water
going down the hill and it requires a booster pump to go up to up the hill there's about a 270 foot
difference in elevation from top to bottom wow um and then everything's controlled by uh digital uh
controllers you can put all your different uh timings and zone controls uh pressures how long
you want to run for and then automatic filtration system so it doesn't have to be babies out of just
backflip wow how much water do the trees need a year uh it's more based on a per day um so we try
to give them about four liters per tree per day oh wow and then that's also determined on natural
rainfall and what our soil moisture is so we don't just irrigate right through we'll we'll base it
on what the natural yes the environment water is yeah where do you get your water from uh depends
on the farm uh this farm is from a pond some farms are from wells uh another farm is from uh cement
holding assistance so different different sources well water is very important in the
apple growing products process extremely important yeah thank you so much so these pipes will then
yeah so your water comes in out of the pond out here uh there's a pump uh suspended under those
barrels oh okay and then pumps in through here goes through the filtration system
and then either goes down to the lower portion of the farm or gets a boost and goes up to the
other portion of the farm for uh apples and pears above us oh wow and so you also grow pears yeah we
do a few pairs too wow that's incredible yeah um why did you decide to get into pears uh just to
diversify things a little bit yes yeah that's important in farming it is for sure what variety
of pears do you have uh mainly bartlett than a few uh bosque awesome yeah so these are the pear trees
so a little bit of a different harvesting type earlier and also different the fact that they
continue to mature after they've been harvested so you have to pick them early as they'll mature
until they reach the consumer whereas apples once they're picked will generally stay in
the same state okay that's very interesting for pears you pick them prematurely apple you wait
until they're mature and then do your harvesting wow trick standard especially for table fruit uh
no bruising good color what's expected for that variety some red varieties are 100 red others are
mixed red and green or mixed red and yellow on the process side of things a little bit more forgiving
we don't have to wait for the color on the apple because it's being used for sauce or pies
but we do have to get the most size we can so they can be efficient in the processing and not
bruise them as that flesh will be lost to the in their yields when they do the peeling of the apple
yes so sometimes you have to go in and pick all of the ripe apples and then come in a second time
and pick the ones that weren't ripe yet that's right sometimes yeah we'll do two different picks
and how far apart are those picks usually depends on the weather if we've got the right
weather cool nights and warm days it'll help to color that fruit if it's not in our favor it can
actually they won't color and we'll just have to strip them off for sauce
wow so this is your bunk house this is a new host just uh completed for the guys so for your
employees at your apple orchard yep yep so this will house uh 10 men on each end that's incredible
it's nothing like our bunk houses in montana it's absolutely gorgeous yeah it's pretty nice building
yes yeah try and uh supply pretty nice housing for the guys so it's not quite finished we're just
wrapping up wow well you'll come in here to a mud room and locker room for the different
outdoor clothes and then laundry facilities so it's uh just maybe a week away from
you guys wow kitchen with two stoves bridges will be here thank you so much for watching today's
video i hope you really enjoyed and learned a little bit more about how your apple eventually
ends up on your table and the process and all of the hard work that goes into it make sure to
like and subscribe to see more videos to learn about how your food gets to your table a huge
thank you to Ardell Acres Limited and Greg, John and Liam Ardiel for giving me this opportunity to
tour their orchard you're quite welcome thank you so much for watching bye