Pennsylvania IPM Grower
| Francis Botek Pennsylvania IPM Grower |
|
photo by Carrie Koplinka-Loehr
Francis Botek is striding from evergreen to evergreen at Crystal Spring
Tree Farm, shaking his head in a half despairing and half playful way at
the brown, drooping tips of the branches. "May 14th," he says,
"it was 21 degrees and there was a quarter-inch casing of ice on these
seedlings! In 31 years of growing trees, I've never seen frost damage like
this." He predicts that in a few weeks this sloping hillside will look
even more pathetic, and that some trees might never recover.
Christmas tree growers like Francis and his son Chris are at the mercy of
nature, and yet they have a few tricks up their sleeves. Francis chooses
varieties that are, in most years, suited to the climate of his Lehighton,
Pennsylvania farm-firs such as Douglas, Frazier, Concolor, and Balsam. He
grows white pine, Southwest white pine, red pine, and Colorado blue spruce.
These are no backyard varieties. As a certified nurseryman, Francis offers
live, balled trees, choose-'n-cut for local customers, and premium wholesaled
trees for markets in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. Last Christmas,
40 of his Douglas fir trees decked Radio City Music Hall, and in previous
years he has provided the Commonwealth's capital with holiday greenery.
It takes about ten years and a lot of know-how to grow trees to harvest.
The low, green forests of Crystal Spring Tree Farm may look like paradise
to an outsider, but a seasoned grower like Francis senses all the particulars.
"You see this tree here?" Francis quizzes, pointing to a Douglas
fir. "It's the perfect tree. You know why? It breaks bud really late,
so the frost doesn't nip it." Sure enough, the tips are just emerging
from their papery casings. "And," Francis continues, "it's
resistant to Cooley spruce gall adelgid, a major pest."
To combat pests, many tree growers in Eastern Pennsylvania rely on helicopters
to spray pesticides up to four times a year. Francis, however, is an advocate
of IPM. His farm borders a school where children play outside on the fields,
so he avoids cover sprays. "I don't take a firefighting method,"
he explains. Francis learned to scout for pests by attending several short
courses at Penn State. When he finds a pest, he spot sprays. In 1995 he
spot-sprayed one insecticide and applied a soap spray that was extremely
effective. "Some growers will add insecticides to fungicides. But if
I don't think a pesticide is needed, I don't spray it," he says.
Of course he gets support. Several times a season, Rayanne Lehman, an entomologist
with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, treks to Carbon County.
She scouts for pests at his farm as part of the Christmas-tree IPM hotline
that Pennsylvania has offered for three years. "These people are wonderful,"
says Francis. "They're always willing to help us." One day Francis
marched Rayanne all the way up the hill to show her one tree-out of thousands-that
he thought had spruce spider mites on it. When she asked him how he found
it, he replied, "I could smell 'em."
Francis mixes humor, knowledge, and experience into each part of his business.
He takes special pride in a "seed orchard" that he hopes someday
will produce trees with superior characteristics: late bud break, good form,
and insect and disease resistance. He plants exceptional trees here, then
culls any that show problems. The trees are never sprayed with pesticides,
and he babies them along. "I used to be a meat cutter," Francis
admits, "but my heart was out here. You know what they say: if you
enjoy what you're doing, you'll never work another day in your life."
return to IPM in the Northeast Region 1996 Report, Table
of Contents