HomeMy WebLinkAboutLucknow Sentinel, 2009-03-18, Page 26Page 10 - Farm Progress, March 18, 2009
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Fruit farm is filled with beauty and mystery
BY RACHEL SANDRSON
Kincardine News Staff
On Bruce Road 1 there
are 38 acres of fruit trees,
where in the spring time
blossoms decorate the
branches with beauty and
mystery.
Keyzer's Fruit Farm, for-
merly Hall's Fruit Farm,
grows 15 different kinds of
apples, pie and sweet cher-
ries, six kinds of plums, six
kinds of pears and raspber-
ries. Raphael Keyzer took
over the farm on Aug. 1,
2008.
With the cherries ready
for harvest in July and the
apples at the end of July, the
summer and early autumn
are busy :times for harvest.
But, the spring is the season
of beauty and wonder, when
the bees set out to pollenate
each blossom and create
delicious fruit.
He said September was
the busiest time . for the
farm. The workers at
Keyzer's work quickly:113
ing to get the fruit off the
trees and loaded onto
trucks.
"I have toget ever thing
off the trees before it ends
up on the ground," said
Keret "At the same. time I.
have to make the stores.
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Photo by Rachel Sanderson
Keyzer's Fruit Farm owner Raphael Keyzer with one of
the Red Delicious apple trees.
Y.
"Niagara area" he adde.
The icples ate tested for But, his wife saw the
ripenessby having a chemi- farm Y and said, "If we
cal solution, mostly ice, make it, we are 20 ' years
sprayed ra on the inside of the ahead," because the farm
P y� .. ..kinds
apples. The solution turns already had different
black, but the amount of of fruit trees. He plans on
white area shows how putting down roots here-
inuch starch is in the apples "1 like the environment,.
and how much longer they it's quiet and peace
must be on the trees. In the future, Keyzer
The apples are picked would = like to get some nut`
before they'ie : ripe, so they trees at the farm, but for
wwill ripen and stay fresh for now he said, he'll take
customers. Once the crop is what's here. •
off the tree, the ones that
aren't sold are put into cold
storage.
s Pick
up or dellimiAd •
5iI4242i 18
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640 Willoughby SL Lucknow
Phone: 519-528-3913. web: www.cliffsplumbinq.com
Smarter from the Ground Up
waterfurnace,. c�
One medium . sized : apple
contains no fat, cholesterol
or sodium and has more
Custonters at the faun are fibre than a serving of oat-
able to pick their own cher- meal.
ries, but Keyzer said they Canadian growers pro-
can't pick their apples. duced about 506,000 tons of
The money making 'big apples in 1997, worth about
wig' .at the farm are the $182 million. The leading
apples. "Everything
depends . on the apples," he
said.
Keyzer's sends fruit to
grocery stores in Wingham,
Paisley and Walkerton, but
the harvest is too large only
for local markets.
The largest market for the
juice apples is Mennonite
country, but he's trying to
develop more connections.
"The trend changes," he
said, adding at one time the
pie cherries were popular
and now the market has 40 degrees Celsius.
gone down. He said the'Apple trees grow best on
same applies to the varieties hilltops and on the sides . of
of apples. hills because these areas
Keyzer has always want- provide good water
ed a farm and after his saw drainage and also allow
mill business crashed, he colder, heavier air to fall to
and his wife started looking the valley below, during
to buy fruit farms. frosty spring nights when
"I always thought we cold air could damage the
would have to go to the blossoms or young fruit.
�ryY�v'+ly t � , v y v
.10.1•,1, ;i,+►��,'/,"e,��, `;,��0.;.eeea44/0Aa,
apple Producing province is
Ontario, followed by British
Columbia, Quebec, Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick.
More than 7,000
Canadian farms grow
apples on over 30,000
hectares of farmland.
Apple trees are best
adapted to places where the
average winter temperature
is near freezing for at least
two months, though many
varieties can withstand win-
ter temperatures as low as
•