Syracuse in focus (SIF)

Gordon Tripp, farmer, holding a Snapdragon and a Honeycrisp variety of one of CNY’s most recognizable crops, talks in the audio clip below about his childhood dream job.

1. How did you get started in the orchard business?
The orchard was originally started by my grandfather, Charles Owen, back in the 1930s. It got sold in 1969. Another orchard ran it for a number of years. Then they decided they didn’t want to run it any more. Then my son wanted to know how to grow apples, so we went back into the orchard business. Since then we’ve re- planted the whole orchard with about 13,000 trees. We also run a farm market.

2. Since you have been in the business, what has changed the most?
The biggest is the people and what they buy. When we first started, a lot of people did home preserving and they would come in and buy bushels of apples and take them home and make apples sauce or apple pies. There was more home use. Now it’s more of a recreation. There is still some home use aspect, but now people may come in buy a pack of apples. Most people come as an outing. They come to pick apples and go for a walk in the orchard. It’s not like it used to be.

3. Talk about this year’s crop
This year’s crop is probably, quality-wise, one of the better crops we’ve had. Weather conditions have been almost perfect for growing. It was kind of a light crop and that is because we had a heavy crop last year. When you have a heavy crop it doesn’t set a lot of fruit the following year.

A couple of varieties are little bit light, but quality-wise it’s excellent.

4. What is the hardest part about the job?
The hardest part of the job is dealing with the regulations and things like labor issues. A lot of people think we just pick apples in the fall, but we work year-around. We start in January trimming our trees, and they all have to be trimmed by the first of April. Then we plant new trees and take care of existing ones, clearing off the brush off and get ready to spray and fertilize. Then we get ready for the fall harvest.