The Fruit Growers News - December 2000

Grabemeyer keeps all the machinery running on his southwest Michigan farm and talks with troubled people in his area. He earned a master’s degree in guidance counseling and taught high school for more than seven years before returning to the farm full time.

Grabemeyer will probably use his listening and guidance skills to help combine the Michigan State Horticultural Society show and the Great Lakes Vegetable Growers Convention and Farm Market Show, in December of 2001. (The first Great Lakes Fruit, Vegetable and Farm Market Expo will be Dec. 4-6, 2001.) “We want to have the best grower show that we can possibly provide and the biggest,” said Grabemeyer about the first combined show. He is now in his fifth year on the hort society board, the first major grape grower named to the board.

Grabemeyer Farms, operated by Grabemeyer and his brothers Donald and David, dates back to 1960. Dave is the primary orchard man while Dan is the main grape guy. “I try to keep all the equipment running,” said Grabemeyer. The farm was started by Frederick First, a wealthy businessman and grower, whose daughter married Herman Grabemeyer, the great grandfather of Bill, Don and Dave. The farm was a dowry of sorts that has settled into the Grabemeyer family.

“This is our 32nd year of mechanically harvesting our grapes,” said Grabemeyer, who harvests grapes for others including Rodney Winkel, a former hort society president who lives nearby.

When Grabemeyer was in college they were growing 50 acres of grapes. “Right now we’re at about 150 acres of grapes on our farm and 500-plus acres of grapes with a partner in Decatur (Mich.),” Grabemeyer said.

One of the biggest recent challenges the Grabemeyers have faced as growers is the fire blight that has ravaged apple orchards in southwest Michigan. He said area growers will decide what trees and blocks of trees will be taken out after the crop year is finished.

“The disaster isn’t just for this year. There are six-year-old trees that have died. We’ll be six years behind on that entire block. That’s a significant economic disaster,” Grabemeyer said. He said that Grabemeyer Farms will weather this disaster but he is concerned about other growers.

“Blight is huge in this area. We’ve got orchards four to six years old that we’ve been putting a lot of money into,” said Grabemeyer.

Grabemeyer Farms used to grow asparagus and cherries, but now stick with four commodities - apples, grapes, corn and soybeans.

Although apple and cherry growers are suffering with low prices, production of grapes has been a bright spot in Michigan. Grabemeyer said grape growers are fortunate because of the grower-owned Welch’s (National Grape Co-operative), the largest grape juice company in the world. “Welch’s has a good thing going. So far we’ve been able to sell whatever we produce,” he said.

Grabemeyer explained that grape growers are benefiting from all of the positive publicity about the health benefits of drinking grape juice and red wine. “Affordable wines are becoming popular,” he said. He also cited the tourist industry in Michigan for helping promote wineries in Michigan and the startup of classy winery operations around the state.

He does caution grape growers about winery markets. “Before planting grapes make sure you have the market for it. It’s a heavy capital outlay to get a vineyard going,” Grabemeyer said.

“We produce about 1,500 tons of juice grapes. I’d be really hard pressed to sell 1,500 tons of wine grapes,” he said, adding that many who grow grapes for wineries are small and have found their niche market.

“Welch’s is what’s made the difference for us. My dad was a Welch’s member in the 1940s. I grew up riding loads of grapes to Lawton to get delivered,” Grabemeyer said.

Grabemeyer believes large commercial growers are in transition. He said many are getting into organics and u-pick farm market, two niches that need to be part of the educational program of the hort show.

Grabemeyer would like to grow the hort society membership by recruiting and attracting young people. One way to do this is to increase the amount of scholarship funds available to students. Four years ago Abbot Labs (now Valent Bio Sciences) donated $1,000 for a scholarship. “I made it my personal goal to have $5,000 in scholarships to offer,” he said. The hort society has offered to match the Valent scholarships and with other contributions at least $4,500 will be awarded at the hort society’s banquet this December, according to Grabemeyer.

Scholarships have become one of his missions. “One of my reasons for doing that is that it’s become too lucrative for kids to drop out of school and work for someone else rather than stay and finish their degree and go back to the family farm or serve the industry,” Grabemeyer said.

It is Grabemeyer’s hope that these scholarships could provide that incentive for young people to stay part of agriculture. “A lot of kids work as scouts for these companies. With a junior or senior with 60-80 credit hours under their belt, we want to provide incentive to stick it out and get their degree. We need good people backing up agriculture. We need research with new chemicals coming down the road and new pest control strategies,” he said.