The Fruit Growers News - January 2001

Both tours include a 15-minute hayride, and take 45 minutes to an hour. For the month and a half that the tours are in operation, Schaper hires four to five tractor drivers and four tour guides to handle all the children.

“We get a lot of day care centers coming for tours,” explained Schaper, “from as far as 35 to 40 miles away. They’re really looking for places to go and things to do with the kids. The day care center just sends the bill for the tour to the parents. With busing, it can run $7 to $9 per child.” Kindergartens and nursery schools are also good tour customers.

“We’re likely to see the kids again,” added Schaper, “because we give each child a ‘Good Behavior Certificate’ to take home for $1 off on a pumpkin. Many children come back with their parents for apples too.”

Advertising costs are relatively small. The operation uses ads in the local papers, and a weekly ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. They also send fliers to past tour groups and to customers who signed a sheet in their barn asking to be put on the mailing list. The mailing list currently has about 5,000 names.

Apple prices are excellent, particularly for Honeycrisp, which they are currently selling for $17 a peck. An orchard near Rochester, Minn. offered to sell them field run Honeycrisp for $750 a 20-bushel bin. “Grocery stores around here are selling Honeycrisp for $2.39 a pound,” added Schaper.

Other apple varieties retail at the orchard for $8 to $13 a peck. “We probably have some of the highest prices in the country here, near Minneapolis and St. Paul,” commented Schaper, “and it’s because it has become a family tradition to go to an orchard in the fall for an outing. People come to have a good time, and they aren’t really concerned about what the prices are. They’re not here to save money. We never hear anybody comment about prices. We’re selling entertainment and fun.”

Michigan apples can be somewhat of a factor in apple pricing, for early Paulareds, for example. But local varieties like Haralson, a variety developed in Minnesota, have a lot of local appeal, and shipped-in apples from out of state can’t compete with them, according to Schaper.

Unfortunately, the operation’s own crop of salable Honeycrisp, from six acres, was small this year. In a late frost on May l9, the mercury hit 28 l/2&Mac251;. There had been a good bloom, but the skin of much of the Honeycrisp crop was damaged. “The apples developed a ‘frost ring’ all the way around, which made them unsalable,” said Schaper. “I never saw anything like it before.

“There’s not much of a market here for cider apples, either,” he added. “The small cider pressers we used to sell to went out of business when pasteurization became required. So we had a lot of loss on the frost-damaged Honeycrisp.”

The operation is also having some rootstock problems with its Honeycrisp. Early on, they planted some Honeycrisp on M.7, which have done fairly well. But those on Mark rootstocks, besides being lower-producing than was expected, have developed large, fibrous growths right at the soil line which are very attractive to dogwood borers.

“We have to spray Lorsban heavily every year on the lower trunk, and let it soak in,” explained Schaper. “Untreated, the borers could eventually kill the trees.”

The most recent Honeycrisp plantings have been on Bud.9. None of these trees have started producing yet, and winter hardiness is a concern, “although they’re supposed to be very winter-hardy,” said Schaper. “M-26 is also popular with Honeycrisp in this area.”

The apple crop was weak as a whole this year at Minnetonka. Schaper blames this partly on a low bud count due to the previous year’s drought, plus some of the later blooming varieties were hit by the frost.

Minnetonka’s apple harvest begins with Paulared, which will be joined by Zestar, a University of Minnesota developed variety, when their young Zestars come into bearing. Next come McIntosh, then Cortland, Honey Gold, Haralson, Honeycrisp, Fireside/Connell Red, a few Regents, which have not been as hardy as originally expected, and Keepsake, another Minnesota variety which is “an ugly little apple, very hard, which is a very good keeper. It tastes better in January than it does now.”

Pumpkin plantings are heavy to Howden and Baby Bear, planted with a corn planter.

For the hayrides, wagons are pulled by classic tractors for a special touch. “We have a l948 John Deere A and a D; a l939 Farmall H; a l946 Oliver 70; a l955 Ford 860; and a l950 Minneapolis Moline R,” said Schaper.

These tractors bring back memories for many adults, of tractors used on the farm of their childhood or a grandparents’ farm. TheMoline R was produced in a factory in Minneapolis, and some older customers remember working in that factory, according to Schaper.

A donut house, producing apple donuts, is open every day through the fall season. On weekends, Minnetonka grills cider bratwurst. “We serve them with a mixture of apples and onions that have been cooked in cider,” said Schaper. “The brats are very popular with customers.”

A huge pile of hay, built as a pyramid with four big round bales as a base and a couple hundred square bales on top, attracts a lot of kids. “Our biggest problem has been,” said Schaper, “that the kids wear it down.”

Currently, the operation is open to pickers and customers from Aug. 20 through the end of November. Tours run from mid-September through October. “October is our biggest month,” said Schaper. “We get about half our income during October.

“The first of November we go off Daylight Savings Time, the entertainment is over, and the apples are all picked. We just sell out of the barn through November. This year we’re buying in apples to sell.”

Schaper is not anxious to expand his rather brief selling season. “We tried strawberries, but decided to drop them,” he commented.

A larger barn would be an asset, and Schaper has purchased the frame of a l00-year-old barn in southwestern Minnesota. The barn is dismantled, with parts labeled, ready to be erected on part of the pumpkin field.

An aspect of the business that Schaper hopes to expand is the hosting of businesses for seminars and focus groups, and even of church groups, and perhaps weddings. This part of the business has never been promoted or advertised, but it helps to bring in revenue.

“The group can set up a tent in the orchard. It’s rustic and secluded, with pine trees. We build them a bonfire,” Schaper said. Some groups get catered food, and some prefer hot dogs and S’mores over the campfire. Some have music. We provide a hayride to and from the site, a Port-a-John, and hot or cold cider. Some church groups have even held Sunday services here.

“We charge $150 minimum, with $6.50 per adult (13 and over,) and $3.50 per child (2-l2). We’d also like to do this in the spring, and beautify the whole property with gardens and ornamental plantings, with the idea of eventually charging admission to the orchard as a sort of arboretum. If it’s attractive enough, and enough of a fun experience, we can do that. There’s no adjacent land available for expanding the orchard.”

The Schapers bought their 40 acres of land in l97l. “We got into apples sort of by accident. Our acreage was too small to grow corn and soybeans, and too big to be a yard. So we decided to start planting apples in l976, with my wife and four kids helping, and the operation just evolved.”

During the time the orchard was being developed, Schaper worked as an airline pilot. In between flights, he could work in the orchard, and his wife children pitched in.

“I enjoy working with the trees, and getting out in the late winter and pruning,” he said. “It does get pretty intense for about a month in the fall. I didn’t devote full time to it until the past two years.”

If he can make the orchard profitable enough, Schaper hopes one of his grown children may be interested in continuing the operation after he retires.