A solution for food waste shows promise in trial at Beamsville orchard

A University of Guelph tree fruit breeder has found a way to take the pressure off local farmers during harvest season while giving growers in developing nations more bargaining power when selling their crops.

Nov 20, 2018   by Tiffany Mayer, Hamilton Spectator

There's a Honeycrisp tree in Rich Feenstra's Beamsville orchard that gives the impression it's a bad apple.

Its branches are loaded with the darling of fall fruit, while its neighbours, standing soldier-straight beside it, have been picked clean. Yellow caution tape draped over its apple-filled limbs doesn't help the tree's oddball image either.

Feenstra didn't skip over it because there was anything wrong with the near flawless fruit it offered, however. He and Jay Subramanian, a University of Guelph tree fruit breeder based in Vineland, are trying to determine just how good Honeycrisp apples can be when left on the tree weeks after most farmers call it quits on the season. Read more of the story in the Hamilton Spectator.