International Tree Fruit Research Exchange Between WA and NL

Recently, PNW Ag Network attended WSU CAHNRS’s Center for Precision & Automated Agricultural Systems (CPAAS) Open House event in Prosser, Washington. Here we spoke with Peter Schellekens, Mark van Boxtel, and Dirk van Hees from the Netherlands about their unique international exchange program.

Peter Schellekens: I am from Rotterdam, the Netherlands and I work with a company called FME. It's a Dutch association for technical companies in the Netherlands. We are active in different domains, for instance healthcare and energy transition, but also in agriculture. I'm a project manager in ag, and organized this trip together with a few other companies. It's funded by the Dutch Government and the US government to create international relationships, try to learn from each other, try to share knowledge, and get inspired on how to tackle certain challenges that we have in the food growing industry like labor shortage, pest control, climate change, and irrigation challenges. We've invited around 15 Dutch fruit growers to join us on on this trip to visit some of the American fruit growers in Washington and to learn while having some fun. We've been to Zillah, Selah, Sunnyside, Wenatchee, and now here in Prosser.

PNW Ag: Are you going to different kinds of farms?

Peter Schellekens: It's mostly fruit based; we've been on Royal Family Farms as well. They also do dairy, and we saw a super interesting method in which they use worms to upcycle their old fruit trees and make it into a compost. It gives them this super rich natural fertilizer that puts the trees to work in the in the orchards again to produce new fruit. They closed the loop on that cycle. We've visited a couple of other big growers, like Andrew Sundquist where they have a fully automated irrigation system across the orchards. We've seen autonomously driving tractors and new spraying techniques. All the recent innovations in fruit growing out here, we've visited. The program was put together by Ines from the Tree Fruit Research Commission. She did a really good job in giving us a nice overview of basically everything there is to to do and to know, all that's being developed and all these new innovations. It has been super interesting and we've heard good feedback from the growers as well. They were very happy, and new international relationships were really being developed. You can see it happening in front of your eyes. People matching from from outside of the pond to your side of the pond. There are follow up meetings, pilot projects that are being discussed. It was really fruitful for literally a fruitful week.

PNW Ag: So you are only here for a week?

Peter Schellekens: Yeah, just one week.

PNW Ag: That's one busy, busy week. Who's next?

Mark van Boxtel: I'm from VitalFluid and we create "lightning in the box". We recreate the natural process of lightning and we only use water, air, electricity to do this. In this way we can create plasma activated water that has temporarily disinfecting properties. You can spray this water onto the crops and get rid of pathogens like mildew, scab, fire blight, et cetera. We do that in vegetables, in cucumbers and roses, but also in apple trees and pear trees. We are now busy setting up some trials over here early next year so we can show that it also will work in Washington with the different climate, different humidity, et cetera. We will how that it works and give a sustainable alternative for chemical crop protection agents. That's what we do.

PNW Ag: Are you looking for farmers to help you, or are you going through agents?

Mark van Boxtel: We will do some trials directly with farmers, but we'll also be working with Ines at the Research Center. That way we have both scientific proof and practical proof.

PNW Ag: Are you going to get those farmers through WSU, through other programs, or are you hoping to get the word out on radio and call for certain kinds of farmers?

Mark van Boxtel: We will start with the trials and if the trials are good, it will be word of mouth promotion. With the big network from Ines and the other farmers, we will try and find as many farmers to show them the technology to convince them to buy our equipment.

PNW Ag: And finally, what do you have to share?

Dirk van Hees: I'm also from the Netherlands. I'm a consultant in tree management and fertilization in apples and pears, with Fruitconsult. We have a lot of clients, from fruit growers in the Netherlands to growers abroad in Belgium, Germany, almost every country in in Europe. What was very interesting for me this week was seeing all the different types of tree management, which is quite different compared to how we do it in the Netherlands. Yesterday for example, we visited a research station where they had the new Geneva line of rootstocks, which was really interesting for me because we still use the M9 and the older Geneva type of fruit stocks. It was really nice to see the difference in growing levels, and how trees behave here - how some take up more calcium, some take up more potassium. We saw a lot of innovations this week; it's totally different compared to to the Netherlands so I learned quite a lot. I can work with some of that knowledge with my clients in the future. We're also shareholders of a fruit research center and do trials like you do here, with partnership from Wageningen University testing new techniques. Those new techniques will reduce labor for our clients, which is the biggest issue for growers in the Netherlands.