Though Mary and Vernon Zahradnik raised livestock for decades, they always dreamed of direct marketing their products. Hence, they “retired” into apples, planting the first trees in their orchard in 2003 and racing to get veggies in the ground when a spot in the Iowa City Farmers Market suddenly opened to them the next spring.
Today they have over 4,500 apple trees growing over 50 varieties. Their daughter Emma Johnson, who joined the team with her husband, Marcus, in 2009, has a hard time picking a favorite.
“You can eat seasonally with apples,” she said. “It’s kind of a full tour. I feel like the flavor always matches the season.”
The Buffalo Ridge Team makes sure to pick apples at their peak, testing sugar and starch content to find an ideal window for ripeness and storage. Emma believes Iowa’s Midwestern climate is great for growing fresh apples, with plenty of water, quality soil and cool nighttime temperatures, which she said give color, sweetness and a fuller flavor.
The state’s moisture does pose some problems for apple growing however, mainly in regards to “scab” fungus and bacterial fire blight. Changing climate has created huge problems for apple growers around the world, with earlier starts of spring and unpredictable weather threatening the viability of crops everywhere. Projections predict more intense rain events in Iowa, which will intensify problems faced by farmers of all sorts in coming years.
Though their other produce is grown organically, as a relatively novice orchard, Emma said the farmers have been unable to produce a viable apple crop using fully organic practices. They instead utilize “Integrated Pest Management,” doing their best to minimize and optimize use of any non-organic inputs.
“We’re not spraying just to spray,” Emma said.
This means monitoring the weather closely to avoid using pesticides when unnecessary and managing beneficial insect populations to control the bad. They don’t dip their apples in fungicide and wax after harvest as many farms do, and attempt to only spray non-organic chemicals only before the fruit sets on the trees.
“We’re trying to grow produce in the most sustainable way possible– for us,” she said.
This project has been funded at least in part with Federal funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The contents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the view of policies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organization imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.