<div dir="ltr"><div>There are a few old orchards in this area and quite a few newer ones. One of the newer ones has more recently added hundreds of peach trees. The orchards in that case along with a large sweet corn operation is a replacement for that families confinement hog operation. It all comes about during a generation change. All of the orchards around here are not really mega volume many semi loads heading to some factory type of things. They make their main income as "destinations" with steady sales along and a lot of weekend events in the fall that also usually involve a lot of pumpkins as well. Some even involve a few old tractors.</div><div>We always had an old sales adage... "Sell the sizzle, not the steak". :-)</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>.<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 3:48 PM Brian VanDragt <<a href="mailto:bvandragt@comcast.net">bvandragt@comcast.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
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My Grandpa was a fruit farmer here in southwest Michigan until the mid 70's. He had migrant workers from Arkansas, and during WWII, German POW's picking fruit. What killed the apple industry here was that cheaper transportation brought Washington apples to our markets (Chicago). The WA apples look nicer, but don't taste as good, but people buy them based on looks. I still have the John Deere AO that he bought new in 1952.
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Brian
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<span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px">On January 11, 2020 at 4:39 PM James Peck <</span>
<a href="mailto:jamesgpeck@hotmail.com" style="background-color:white;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px" target="_blank">jamesgpeck@hotmail.com</a>
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The area I grew up in lost many of its apple orchards due to Washington state which harvests apples with immigrant labor. Will robot apple harvesters bring back apple growing nationwide?
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<a href="https://www.agequipmentintelligence.com/articles/3529-kubota-invests-in-us-harvesting-robot-maker" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.agequipmentintelligence.com/articles/3529-kubota-invests-in-us-harvesting-robot-maker</a>
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<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6621786893652676608/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6621786893652676608/</a>
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</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>-- <br><br>Francis Robinson<br>aka "farmer"<br>Central Indiana USA<br><a href="mailto:robinson46176@gmail.com" target="_blank">robinson46176@gmail.com</a><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></div></div></div>