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NEW ENGLAND FRUIT MEETING 



Foi^ financial reasons, the 1967 New England Fruit Meeting and Trade 

 Show will be held at the New Hampshire Highway Hotel, Concord, New Hamp- 

 shire, instead of Suffolk Downs, Boston. The meeting is scheduled for 

 January 5 and 6, 1967. 



Travel time from Amherst to Concord, New Hampshire, is the same as 

 from Amherst to Suffolk Downs. 



The hotel is accessible to all major highways. Routes 3 and 93, 

 which lead to Concord, are accessible from anywhere in Massachusetts. 

 Persons coming from western Massachusetts and southern Vermont, may find 

 Routes 9 or 10 to Keene , New Hampshire, and then Routes 9, 202, 89 and 

 93 to the Highway Hotel most convenient. 



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SOME FRUIT PROBLEMS AND RESEARCH PROGRESS IN 

 THE MID-ATLANTIC REGION^ 



A. H. Thompson 

 Department of Horticulture, University of Maryland 



Perhaps the most serious fundamental problem to be found in the Ap- 

 palachian fruit growing area, is that of lack of adequate soil water. 

 Thousands of acres of orchards are growing in this region on thin shale 

 soils which have never had an adequate reservoir of soil water to sustain 

 profitable fruit production under conditions as we know them today. The 

 problem has become acute in this, the fifth consecutive year of drought. 

 Not only has precipitation in these past 5 seasons been inadequate to 

 size the crop, but it is also clear that the cumulative effects of 

 drought are markedly shortening the economic life of our orchards. The 

 statement is now being repeated in fruit circles of the area, that plant- 

 ing on thin shale land can mean as much as 10 years off the productive 

 life of an orchard. It is clear that future orchards must be grown on 

 soils deep enough to hold an adequate reservoir of water, or in cases 

 where orchards are planted on shale land, that sufficient irrigation 

 water be avilable to use annually. 



Annual applications of nitrogen to both apples and peaches in Mid- 

 Atlantic orchards have pretty well taken care of the need for this ele- 

 ment. Among other elements, magnesium and boron are on a stand-by basis 



iThis article is a summation of the talk presented at the Annual Summer 

 Meeting of the Massachusetts Fruit Growers' Association, Horticultural 

 Research Center, Belchertown. 



