SAVE THIS DATE 



The annual summer meeting of the Massachusetts Fruit Growers' 



Association in cooperation 

 with the Cooperative Exten- 

 sion Service, College of 

 Agriculture, University of 

 Massachusetts, will be held 

 at the Horticultural Research 

 Center at Belchertown, on 

 July 15. 



One of the projects at 

 the Research Center has been 

 top working some Baldwin trees 

 to Red Delicious in order to 

 have sufficient fruit of this 

 variety for storage studies. 

 Walter Weeks and George Olanyk 

 are shown doing the top working. 



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POMOLOGICAL PARAGRAPH 



Mechanical Harvesting of Strawberries 



In a talk presented at the 68th annual meeting of the Virginia 

 State Horticultural Society, David Friday of the Friday Tractor Company, 

 Hartford, Michigan, stated that they have been working on the mechanical 

 harvesting of strawberries for ten years and have made little or no 

 progress. David Friday was of the opinion that-- 



"It will take a new variety that has all of its berries ripe at one 

 time, and the fruit tough enough so that the patch can be combined all 

 at once. 



We had one of Dr. Scott's experimental seedlings (USDA) out of 

 thousands on our farm last year that had 50 per cent of its berries ready 

 to pick at one time, but this is not enough. This means that in 10 years, 

 if you want strawberries to eat, you will have to pick them yourself. 

 Unless there is a breakthrough in mechanical harvesting, some of these 

 high harvest labor crops will be mainly grown around large population cen- 

 ters and offered in pick-yourself patches. This trend is already in prog- 

 ress around Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit." 



Editor's Note - The "pick your own" method of harvesting strawberries has 

 kept a number of Massachusetts growers in business during the last sever- 

 al years. With the introduction of virus free raspberry plants and bet- 

 ter weed control materials, growers may find the growing of this crop 

 profitable if they are sold by this method also. 



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