Liking them apples in the Hudson Valley is as easy as apple pie. At one farm, even the most space-challenged loft dweller can own his or her very own apple tree. Another farm saw five cars become hundreds in its very first season in business last year. Apples, that most seductive of Biblical crops, are sexy again.
Two examples of farmers”™ eco-tourist approach to a sound bottom line can be found in Highland. The 55-acre DuBois Farm was slated for subdivision development six years ago when Dave and Jolee DuBois gambled on turning an overgrown orchard back into a productive farm.
Also in Highland, the 11-acre Liberty View Farm is a Certified Naturally Grown endeavor, which among its marketing strategies leases individual trees to people who come in the fall and pick the fruit from their own tree.
Both farms are enjoying success that might have astonished experts as recently as a decade ago, when apple farming was widely viewed as a fading way to eke out a living while waiting for a subdivision.
“Most people looked at the orchard and said that property is way too far gone,” said David DuBois, 42, of the land he purchased six years ago. “It was halfway through the subdivision process and people said, you could get a million for it easy. Just sell it to a developer and you never have to work again. So my wife and I sat down and said what would we do if we were rich? And we realized what we would do is buy a farm.
“When we walked around there was just a feeling, it felt right, it felt like this is home,” DuBois said. It needed better drainage, so he purchased a used backhoe and got to work. About sixty percent of the trees were still productive, so using his lifelong experience working on area apple farms he pruned and cared for the stock. A pumpkin patch, grape arbors a corn maze and some tomatoes were planted. The couple constructed a new home and a barn for themselves on the land using traditional architectural designs.
They opened their U-Pick-”™Em operation last year. “How quickly did it catch on? It”™s mind boggling,” said DuBois. “When we first opened up on Labor Day last year, that first day we had about five cars pull in our driveway. By mid October you could stand there and count a hundred cars in the parking lot at one time. The response was unbelievable.”Â
Today, almost unnoticed in the new barn where visitors enjoy cider and donuts, tacked to wall is a copy of the subdivision map an architect drew up for the property before the DuBois bought the land now known as DuBois Farm.   Â
Billiam van Rostenberg purchased 11 acres in 1999 that he turned into Liberty View farm. In recent years, he has pursued alternative models of growing and selling which he says are increasingly paying off for his own farm and in other locales as part of the informal, but effective, Mid Hudson Grower”™s Network sharing effective ideas.
The 1,600 trees clustered on several acres on his farm are repudiating the traditional view that fruit cannot be grown commercially without chemical pesticides. The Certified Naturally Grown standard of his fruit is a certification with more stringent standards than organic certification, he said, adding it is not a surprise that one can grow fruit that way.
“Prior to 50 years ago, what did we do when growing fruit?” van Rostenberg said. Natural and organic was the only way to grow and he said it is successful today by using select varieties of apples such as Cortland and Empire, that are hardier and thicker skinned. He is wholesaling apples and also selling retail at select health food outlets and farmer”™s markets.
“But the unique thing I thought of that has been very successful, is to let people lease a tree,” said van Rostenberg. He called it “A micro-CSA” referring to community supported agriculture arrangements where consumers buy a share in a farm and collect it at the farm weekly.
On his farm, van Rostenberg and his partner “do all the work,” tending and pruning the trees where customers can come and visit and in the autumn pick the apples on their tree
The tree is leased for $50, “which equals less than 50 cents a pound for a nutritional and healthy product,” said van Billiam. He said the apples retail for as high as $3.50 a pound, but said that he is able to offer such a bargain to those who lease trees and come pick themselves because ““You are saving me as farmer from hiring people to pick, pack, ship and deliver your apples.”
He said he has about 500 trees leased and that number is increasing steadily. He said some companies or individuals are leasing blocks of trees. He said nontraditional farm seasons such as holidays and birthdays are beneficial to him as, somewhat unexpectedly, people “give a tree as a gift,” an idea that he said helps provide cash flow throughout the year. Â
