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Organic orchard resources

Posted By gkoehler On March 29, 2011 @ 4:57 pm In | Comments Disabled

Resources for Organic Growers

  • OrganicA Project [1]: A research and demonstration project housed at University of Vermont to provide information for New England apple growers interested in organic apple production.
  • Applenet [2] is an online discussion group for alternative methods of commercial apple production.
  • Upper Midwest Organic Tree Fruit Growers Network [3]: Informal group interested in growing and marketing tree fruits organically. Their Web site has sign-up for an organic orchard e-mail message group, weekly phone conference, quarterly newsletter, and related information.

 

Organic Apple certification

For growers with over $5000 annual sales, products can only be called “organic” if they have been USDA organically certified. Essentially (with only rare exceptions) only products that either

  1. have organic approval statement on their EPA label
  2. appear on either the OMRI organic spray materials list [4] (Organic Materials Review Institute)
  3. or appear on the Washington State organic materials list [5] are allowed to be applied to crops if they are going to be labeled organic.

The registered certifying agency in Maine is MOFGA Certification Services [6]. Certifying agents from other states can also be used in Maine.

 

Article printed from UMaine Extension: Insect Pests & Plant Diseases: http://umaine.edu/ipm

URL to article: http://umaine.edu/ipm/programs/apple/organic-orchard-resources/

URLs in this post:

[1] OrganicA Project: http://www.uvm.edu/~organica/

[2] Applenet: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/applenet/

[3] Upper Midwest Organic Tree Fruit Growers Network: http://www.mosesorganic.org/treefruit/intro.htm

[4] OMRI organic spray materials list: http://www.omri.org/omri-lists

[5] Washington State organic materials list: http://agr.wa.gov/foodanimal/organic/materialslists.aspx

[6] MOFGA Certification Services: http://mofgacertification.org/

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