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Apple Maggots (IPM)
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Peach Tree
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Lay of the Land
Environmental students travelled to the 30-acre, third generation Nicewicz Farm located on 100 acres of land in Bolton, MA and the Nashua River Watershed. At 1200 trees putting out about 4,000 bushels (40lbs/bushel)/year, apple trees are the farm’s dominant crop. A non-native species, apple trees are easy prey for pests such as the the apple maggot, leaf miner, apple scab, and plum curculio and so require pesticide management. The Nicewicz Farm has implemented Integrated Pest Management (IPM) – a method of monitoring pest life cycles, population density, etc. and utilizing traps to optimize the effectiveness and minimize the amount of species-targeted pesticide applications. As a result Nicewicz uses 75% less pesticides compared to the older technique of broad spectrum pesticide applications. The farm also reminds us of the diversity of apple varieties: their 17 to the 1,000’s that exist worldwide.
