Fruit growers host tour June 30

COLUMBUS – The 2004 Ohio Fruit Growers Society Summer Tour will return to the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center Unit 2 Research Farm June 30.

Two orchard tours – one focusing on horticultural aspects of fruit production and the second on diseases and insects – will be offered.

Ohio Department of Agriculture Pesticide Applicator Recertification Credit will be available for the disease and insect tour.

Other business. The orchard tours will be followed by lunch, which participants can purchase at the site between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

The group’s business meeting will be at 1 p.m. under the tent.

Other specialists will be available in the tent area for one-on-one information.

This will include a plant pest diagnostic clinic, where you can bring samples and have a plant pathologist diagnose plant problems.

There will also be information how to access fruit Web sites; orchard weather monitoring equipment; and a cider regulation update.

The summer tour also will present more than 30 exhibitors.

There will also be a wagon tour of Secrest Arboretum at 2 p.m. Wagons will load at the Fisher Auditorium parking lot.

Registration. Registration opens at 7 a.m. and the fee is $15 per individual or $20 per family for group members.

Individual and family fees increase by $5 for nonmembers.

The research farm is located on Oil City Road (T-92), southeast of Wooster.

For those interested in arriving the night before, a block of rooms has been set aside at the Best Western Wooster Plaza, 243 East Liberty, Wooster.

Call the Best Western before June 10 at 866-264-2057 or 330-264-7750.

For more information about the tour, contact Tom Sachs at 614-246-8292, tsachs@ofbf.org or Diane Miller at 330-263-3824, miller.87@osu.edu.