My father passed away several years ago and he was a home orchardist. I now find myself the caregiver of a wonderful orchard (Hillsboro) that was his pride and joy (He grafted many of the apples/plums himself and even preserved a heirloom apple! The orchard consists of 8 - 13 dwarf trees -- 15'x15' each and also some wonderful seedless grapes!)
I have just returned to graduate school (and also work full time) and while I could prune the orchard myself (I enjoy this sort of thing when I have time...), I am thinking I would be better off hiring someone until I am through school.
Does anyone know of a trustyworthy and reasonable priced pruning resource? Any recommended companies or folks?
Also, my father used to perform dormant spraying. Does it count as organic if he was using copper sulfate?, lime sulfur?, etc? Any reliable resources for this? I have not decided whether I would like to continue the spraying this winter? It would be good to minimize disease in the orchard but then I would need to find a way to dispose/sell/etc the apples.
Any suggestions that can be offered are appreciated!
Thanks

Dear Appledaughter - I have a couple of those myself... I've often wondered who'll end up caring for their Daddy's menagerie of fruiting trees and vines ? I live just SW of Gaston and would be happy to look over the orchard. If your father was a member of HOS, I may have known him.

"Does anyone know of a trustworthy and reasonable priced pruning resource? Any recommended companies or folks?"

... yah ... Let me ask our Webmaster, Steven if he will pass my contact info to you?

I only have an 'opinion' on whether copper sulfate and lime sulfur are considered "Organic?" Both of those have been the extent of my own dormant spraying, and I've always 'considered' them Organic... But I'm not up on the current State Standards regarding Certified Organic?

If you would like to contact me regarding all your questions, please do. I'm also happy to consider the pruning work. With regard to my 'credentials' - please read my posts, or contact Karen Tilou (HOS Arboretum Manager), I'm reluctant to give anyone's phone or e-mail online (hers is in our Pome News - back page), but ask her how I did last Spring? Karen's a master pruner & grafter as well, she may also have some contacts...

appledaughter, I emailed you Viron's contact info. If you want to get a hold of Karen, her email address & the arboretum phone number are on the arboretum page.

Thanks for caring for the orchard,

Steven
HOS Webmaster

Last I knew copper sulphate and lime sulphur are fine according to the organic standards. However, if you try to get certified as organic, you may be given something of a hard time unless you have documentation that that's all that's been used.

I would definitely at least try to do some disease control in the orchard, even if you don't intend to harvest...once you build up a certain level of inoculum, it can sometimes be very difficult to battle back. I remember one orchard I used to work near where they left it unsprayed for two years, and the fire blight got so bad they never managed to recover...they eventually cut all the trees down, burned them and replanted (I don't know that that's indicative of the likely outcome most places, but I present it as a cautionary tale.)