A Sustainable Orchard
Our Home Grown Produce Practices
At Cherry Hill Orchards we have been practicing conservation and stewardship of our environment long before conservation enjoyed the attention it does today.
We hope you will support our commitment to environmental stewardship. Your continued patronage not only allows us to protect and preserve the land, but offers you and your family a SAFE homegrown alternative to imported fruits and vegetables.
We believe that our advanced orchard practices are very environmentally friendly. Below are some pictures of what we are doing to protect and conserve our environment.
Rows planted in a contour with sod cover between the rows both slow down water run off and prevent erosion of our valuable top soil. This photo taken in the early spring shows how our soil is protected by grass cover over the winter.
Advantages to using grass buffer strips include:
- Keeping the orchards cooler during the summer.
- Slowing down and containing rain water.
- Capturing silt and fertilizer that could otherwise wash away and end up in the Chesapeake Bay.
Keeping Pests Away
Consistent with our ongoing desire to produce our crops in a manner which is both safe and friendly to the environment, we use a technique called IPM (Integrated Pest Management).
One part of IPM is pest mating disruption. Mating Disruption uses specific insect pheromones to confuse and disrupt the mating process of the insect needing control. Thus reducing or even eliminating the need to use pesticides on these destructive pests. This process consists of several components.
Lady bugs are an important part of our method for controlling orchard pests biologically.
Pheromone monitoring traps help to monitor insect pests. This is the key to a successful mating disruption program. By monitoring traps weekly we have an understanding of whether pest control is being achieved through the pheromone distribution ties.
Solar Powered
In the fall of 2011, we added 750 American made solar panels at two of our facilities. Installed by KCGreen Energy of Lancaster, we are now able to produce over 230,000 Kilowatt hours of power a year. That is enough to power 20 average homes and covers the electrical needs of our operation.
