A New Requirement for Small Businesses (Including Most Farms): Filing a Beneficial Ownership Report with the Department of the Treasury. Deadline is January 1, 2025

The 2025 AEWR for New York and selected fruit-producing states are listed.

Public Employment Relations Board shortens response time to 8 days.

PowerPoints presented at the TIPS & FOE Communication Guidance Webinar are now available.

Conference presentations can be found in pdf format here, pending publication permission from author.

Western NY Fruit Conference "State of the Industry" - Feb 27-8, RIT Inn & Conference Center, Henrietta, NY

  Full info and registration here: https://lof.cce.cornell.edu/event.php?id=1729

 February 28 will Feature Attorney Joshua Viau of Fisher & Phillips LLP, presenting and answering questions about New York Farm Unions & Collective Bargaining 

The Lake Ontario Fruit Program would like to offer this space on our website to help the local fruit industry bring future employers and employees together.  If you are looking for a local fruit industry job click on more details to see what is available. 

Wayne County, NY is accepting  applications for a Farmworker Mobile-Manufactured Housing Replacement program.  The program is designed  to improve the quality of farmworker housing, specifically with the goal of creating safer housing conditions in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 Resources on the issue of H2a employment, public charge/benefits, and health insurance.

CCA Sign In Sheets for 2022 Cornell NYS Tree Fruit Conference

Many farms across the US are experiencing COVID outbreaks as harvest workers arrive from other places. It is easy to get complacent about COVID-19 in New York, our numbers of new cases have been going down and testing has improved. But unfortunately, we are not out of the woods yet.

Now that workers are arriving for the apple harvest, growers in Wayne County are using the state program for free, on-farm COVID-19 testing of farmworkers. Here is a video and collection of photos from on-farm testing at Teeple Farms on September 1st, 2020. In the video, Frank Teeple explains why he chose to get his workers tested early for COVID-19.

Check Out Details for Links to recent LOF webinar recordings & video series.

See details to check out quick "how to" videos on a variety of fruit and orchard topics.

Links to COVID 19 Resources

New Tree Fruit Business Blog. This site is a place to organize resources for the business of growing tree fruit.

Reflective ground cover has been used in fruit-growing regions for a number of years now. The Lake Ontario Fruit Team conducted a field trial in 2018 of reflective ground cover at two Wayne County farms. The infographic contains information about reflective groundcovers including the quality and economic benefits found in the study and additional information on types of groundcovers and suppliers.

Supplemental Coverage Option for Apples - Should you add this endorsement to your apple crop insurance policy?

Elizabeth Higgins, Ag Business Management Specialist, ENYCH

Apple growers in New York are starting to see a new crop insurance option in some counties, Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO). I had a couple of questions about it in Ulster County last fall. Now that we are nearing time to sign up for crop insurance again, let's dig in a little deeper - what is SCO and why might you consider it?

Pest management can be a complex system in perennial crops such as apples and other tree fruits.  "Apple IPM (Integrated Pest managment) for Beginners" is an excellent guide for new growers who want to grow apples, or want to be more familiar with managing pests in apple plantings.  Even growers who have been farming all their lives may know someone coming into the business that can learn from this guide and improve the quality of apples produced.  This 42-page guide will help new apple growers protect apple orchards from pests, in fact sheet format. This series of fact sheets is available in printed color format (see order form below), or in .pdfs https://blogs.cornell.edu/treefruit/ipm/apple-ipm-for-beginners/  It will help you address the major apple pests, but does not guarantee perfect fruit. These fact sheets and scouting guides are a compromise between the most accurate, complex information researchers have to offer and the amount of information a beginner can take in. Read the first four chapters carefully to start this new venture. Then follow the Scouting Calendar as apple stage of growth advances week-by-week. "Apple IPM for Beginners" was partially funded by Federal Smith Lever Funds. Additional full color printed copies can be ordered from CCE-Lake Ontario Fruit Program.