Archived issues:    January 2008                        May 2008                       September 2007                          February 2008                June 2008                   October 2007                          March 2008                                                    November 2007                          April 2008                          August 2007                 December 2007                                                                                                    July 2008 NHC NEWS A Monthly Bulletin of the Northwest Horticultural Council FOOD SAFETY The soaring economic costs associated with complicated food safety programs require continual examination and justification.  Duplicative auditing, unnecessary and expensive testing, and wasteful paperwork all should be wrung from the system.  Only left should be those reasonable measures in the orchard or packing house that demonstrably add to the ultimate consumer’s safety in terms of that person’s consumption of our healthful apples, pears, and cherries. Confidence in the nation’s food safety system has been shaken once again, with tomatoes now in the spotlight.  It is now more important than ever to remind policy makers and the general public that foods are much different in terms of the range of consumer risk.  Commercially grown tree fruits have an outstanding record of being safe. The NHC will continue its work in Washington , D.C. on federal food safety legislation and regulation.  We plan to be represented at such conferences as the SQF International Conference in Denver in early October and the 9th GlobalGap Summit Conference in Cologne, Germany in mid- October.  Presenting our industry’s views on food safety has emerged as a major priority of the Northwest Horticultural Council.  ¨ CHURCHILL Sir Winston Churchill’s fierce political and wartime efforts were coexistent with a love of large country homes surrounded by tranquil gardens and trees. In Churchill & Chartwell (2007), Stefan Buczacki tells the full tale of those English estates that touched upon the life of the greatest statesman of the last century.  (The following material in quotes is from Mr. Buczacki’s fine book.  As early as 1914, a few years after their marriage, Winston and Clementine Churchill rented a summerhouse near the sea called Pear Tree Cottage.  “The eponymous pear tree was espaliered along one wall …” In the 1920s the domestic attention of the couple turned to Chartwell, a country estate that would be the family’s until eventual transfer of possession to the National Trust, which was effectuated sometime after Sir Winston’s death in 1965. “The first recorded purchases [for the garden at Chartwell] were in 1923 when the orchard was replanted with a good range of apples, pears, plums …; strangely for a Kentish garden, then the heart of English cherry growing, there were only two unnamed fan-trained cherries.  The fruits were mainly predictable and reliable varieties popular at the time but included a few interesting apples such as ‘Braddick Nonpareil’ and the Irish ‘Kerry Pippin.’” Much later the grounds of Chartwell were redone and upgraded by the experts at the National Trust.  “Following an unsuccessful attempt in 1992 by the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers, a new orchard of notable old apple varieties (including, appropriately, ‘American Mother’) was planted in front of the greenhouses—outside the main garden—in 1995 by the Kent Men of the Trees….The last survivor of Churchill’s 1930 apple plantings—in the area informally called the studio orchard—an old ‘Newton Wonder’, was finally taken down in 2004 and replanting of the old orchard which had begun some years previously was completed.” We can only be pleased that the Kent Men of the Trees were able to accomplish what had earlier eluded the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers. ¨ Travel Mark Powers July 14-18 – U.S. Agricultural Export Development Council’s FY 2007 Attaché Seminar and Coalition to Promote U.S. Agricultural Exports meeting, Bethesda, Maryland. Mike Willett July 7-13 – North American Plant Protection Organization’s fruit panel meeting, Niagara Fall, Ontario, Canada. Our son, bestowed on me and nursed by me, became a hero unsurpassed.  He grew like a green shoot; I cherished him like a flowering orchard tree… Homer The Iliad   Northwest Horticultural Council 105 South 18th Street, Suite 105 Yakima, Washington 98901, USA Voice: (509) 453-3193, Fax: (509) 457-7615 E-mail general@nwhort.org