Something completely different

By Patty Mintz

There are many strategies that can be used to grow great apples. Suprima Farms owner Richard Hennigar has one he calls ‘the python’.

It’s how the Sheffield Mills organic apple producer affectionately refers to one section of his orchards.

“The origin is not snakes,” he says smiling, “it’s Monty Python. In most of their famous sketches, there comes a point that is so bizarre you don’t think it can get any crazier. Then someone comes out with the line, ‘and now for something completely different.’ That captures the essence of my experimental block, which requires the input of nothing but human energy to grow the crop.”

Hennigar didn’t set out to discover something new and offbeat; it came to him through a variety of circumstances, including his dislike for the untidy appearance of tufts of grass which grow around the trunk of each tree.

“The look of it always bothered me. After a couple of years, I stumbled on the idea of trying heavy-duty waxed cardboard as a collar around the base of each tree to keep the grass down.”

By the time he got around to checking on the trees the following year in late July, the orchard grass was so high he had to bend it down out of the way to get into the trunks of the trees to place the cardboard. Because the grass was old, it remained down, and that’s when the light went on. “I thought, why do we mow orchards? So the grass won’t shade the lower limbs and keep the fruit from colouring properly and to make it easier to work around the trees during harvesting.” But who says the grass has to be cut?

By bodily bending the grass – in essence what the cardboard collars would achieve -- by methodically moving over the ground on all fours, accomplished both.

“I discovered I could bend it very quickly by moving around on my hands and knees or dragging myself along on my elbows. I realized I could bend the grass on an entire acre in 12 hours.”

The third generation apple producer perceived a number of benefits.

“First of all, I don’t need $50,000 worth of mowing and tractor equipment, which use fossil fuels and requires an operator several times a year. Twelve hours of labour is more cost effective and, by not mowing, we’re getting the entire biomass contribution to the fertility of the orchard. It makes great apples because the trees get extra nutrition.”

Hennigar performed the labour himself for a few years then hired other people to help out, including seasonal worker Rick MacNab of Wolfville, who found the experience “rather weird at first.

“Sometimes Richard marches to a different drummer, but I wanted to withhold judgment.” Once MacNab got the hang of it, though, he felt humbled, “because you’re down on your belly crawling on the ground. It’s almost like swimming through grass. I found the best way to do this kind of job was to throw yourself into it, physically.”

An upside is the full-body workout one gets from such work. “It’s very good on the stomach muscles. You find you have muscles you haven’t used before,” and discover, perhaps, a talent for dexterity.

MacNab says he pulled back the tall grass from the tree limbs by rolling on his back and using all four limbs, much like a gorilla might do if one were to be found working in an apple orchard in these parts.

“It’s not a job for everyone, but I quite enjoyed it.”

The procedure was videotaped recently by Kimberly Smith for the Kings CED Innovation Council.

Even at the risk of possible ridicule Hennigar doesn’t shrink from the unusual. It may run in his family. His father, Dean Hennigar worked with Dr. A.D. Pickett, a Kentville Agriculture Centre entomologist who was one of the key scientists in the development of integrated pest management, an environmentally sensitive concept that the centre spent decades pioneering.

“The benefit for growers in the area is that we use very low levels of chemicals compared to most apple growing areas of the world,” says Hennigar.

Integrated pest management is certainly an asset at Suprima Farms’ 30 acres of organic orchards, which feature a dozen scab-free varieties. “Even one step better,” says Hennigar, “is that I don’t spray anything, even organic sprays.”

With the demise of so many family farms, it behooves producers to think outside the box. It’s an attitude that helped give birth to ‘agri-tainment’, a philosophy that turns Noggins Corner Farm into a mini-Disneyland on fine autumn weekends.

Hennigar isn’t exactly Barnum and Bailey, but he does go to considerable lengths to boost his apple sales. He started 14 years ago by launching Suprima Bars, aka Shivers, made from frozen Nova Scotia sweet apple cider and fruit puree.

“The schools are still a major market for us and we’re hoping to expand now that nutrition standards are being enhanced.”

Today, he’s searching for organic commodity markets for his windfall and tree-picked juice apples, although the return for such fruit would be small, only a few cents more than the current 4.6 cents a pound paid by the Port Williams processing plant for bulk juice apples.

“It’s a challenge. I’m exploring market potential all the time,” he says.

His aim is to get as much of his crop as possible in the “top end” price range – upward of $2.50 a pound, a feat possible only by direct marketing value-added organic apples and related products, which is basically what Hennigar is doing.

For the past seven years, Hennigar has been a loyal presence at Wolfville’s flourishing Saturday farmers’ market, which recently moved to its winter quarters in the Acadia University Students’ Union building.

“It’s a significant part of my business,” says Hennigar, who also sells his products through other vendors at farmers markets in Halifax and Cape Breton. His goal is to find a marketing associate in every farmers’ market in Nova Scotia. Another plan is to expand his organic sweet apple cider production.

If that’s not ambitious, Hennigar is preparing to pit his sweet, crunchy Novaspy apples against the Honeycrisp, the industry’s current darling.

“If I can preserve the crunch in Novaspy I think I can win the battle with the Honeycrisp because Novaspy has more flavour.”