The Plan
Like most other days I have a general idea as to what will be happening but I don't know the specifics. All I know is that I am meeting with the farm’s quality specialist and that I will be learning about all aspects of quality that happen on the farm. My hope for today is that I can learn more about the soil/apple quality and science because that’s what I find most interesting, though something in my gut tells me that's not going to happen. My overarching goal for today though is to ask better questions that fall in the realm of knowledge of the person teaching me. I’m wanting to avoid a repeat of what happened with the bug specialist where I didn’t maximize my learning opportunities because I was asking too broad of questions.
What I Learned
I’m shocked, a good chunk of what Chrystelle and I talked about was actually regarding the apples and their quality/science. We didn’t talk so much about the soil, but the talk of the apples satiated me. The main things I learned about the apples is that the they have
their Brix and firmness levels measured 4 times before they’re sold: once before they are harvested, once before storing, once after storing, and once before packaging. This is just to make sure that the batch of apples fits the customer's needs for every customer has different desires as to how they want their apples. For example, Carrefour may want their fuji apples to have a firmness of 4.5+ and their sweetness 12+ while Pomona 100% Saveur may want the same apple with a firmness of 6+ and their sweetness 13+. So it's important that they are constantly checking that they are meeting their customer's needs. Another thing I learned, that isn't necessarily important but I found interesting, is that on the orchard they spray the apples with algae which helps give more protein to the bud of the flower, and protect it from being damaged by frost. In addition to all this, I also learned that it takes three years of no synthetic chemicals for a crop to be considered organic. Once you declare that your apple will be organic any time before
the three year mark the apples are labeled as “converting” which I believe means it makes more money than regular crops but less than organic crops. Besides all the apple stuff I learned, I also took a tour of the packhouse and saw how everything worked. Before I did all this though Chrystelle taught me about what a quality specialist does. I learned that there are four main aspects to the job: the sending of customer orders to packhouses (the orders include the standards at which the apples must be at), the meeting of all apple distributors and clients within a 70 day period so as to document which producer is distributing what, and what each client wants, the managing of package design type (making sure its good for the apples while simultaneously meeting the clients needs), and the contacting of all facility members so as to make sure quality standards are being kept up. After my time with Chrystelle I then proceeded to follow through with my personal plans for the day and finish Christine's article and watch a 1.25 hour long video about Jill.
Reflection
I feel like today was very productive. I managed to achieve my goal of asking appropriate questions AND was able to learn a great deal about apples. Additionally, I fulfilled the goal I set yesterday for myself which was to finish the written interview I found on Christine Jones and watch another video on Jill Clapperton. Though because I didn’t find what I wanted with regards to Jill I plan on continuing my research on her, this time with an article that I found that I know mentions soil food webs (which is the main thing Pascal wanted me to learn from her). I plan to enjoy the upcoming weekend and keep research to a minimum.