RubyFrost gets star treatment from Wegmans, other grocers

Provided photo – Brett Kast, right, of Kast Farms in Albion is pictured with his wife Amanda on Saturday at the Wegmans in Buffalo on Sheridan Drive. Peter Weisenborn, a Kast family cousin, stopped by to sample the new RubyFrost apple.

An apple that debuted last year at farm markets is out in bigger numbers this time, and local growers are helping to promote the new variety.

RubyFrost is one of two new varieties developed exclusively for New York apple growers. The apple is a late season variety. After spending some time in storage, New York apple growers and several big grocery chains are pushing the apple right now throughout the state and the Northeast.

Many of the apple farmers are taking turns in stores, answering consumers’ questions about the RubyFrost variety. Brett Kast, a partner and orchard manager at Kast Farms, was at a Wegmans in Buffalo last Saturday with his wife Amanda.
Customers sampled the apple, and Kast said people were overwhelmingly positive.

“It was a great experience to see the hard work you put into it and then see the consumers’ reaction,” Kast said. “Everybody who tried it absolutely loved it.”

RubyFrost is a cross between Braeburn with Autumn Crisp. The new apple is 95 percent red. It is firm with a sweet taste. Kast said the flavor matures while the apple is in storage.

New York apple growers also partnered with Cornell to grow and market SnapDragon. That apple is a cross between Honeycrisp and NY 752. The apple is ready earlier in the season.

The apple growers formed a new cooperative, New York Apple Growers LLC, to manage where the apples would be grown. The new varieties have been planted on 930 acres in apple-growing regions throughout the state. Roger Lamont of Albion is chairman of the cooperative.

The new apples won’t be grown in other states. Michigan and Washington, which are big apple producers, won’t have access to SnapDragon and RubyFrost. The exclusivity will be a benefit to New York growers.

But they need to make consumers of aware of the new varieties. That’s why Kast and other growers are appearing in stores to introduce consumers to SnapDragon and RubyFrost, and to let the public know the apples are excusively grown in New York. For consumers in the Buffalo and Rochester markets, the apples may have been grown only a short distance away, perhaps at orchards in Orleans or Wayne counties.

Kast said most of the consumers who tried the apple decided to buy a bag of the RubyFrost.

“I didn’t have to push too hard to sell the apple,” he said.

For more information on RubyFrost and where it is available, click here.

File photo by Tom Rivers – This photo was taken in 2013 in an Albion orchard on Zig-Zag Road.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressmen Chris Collins (R-Clarence) says will he try again to get legislation passed in Congress to promote the cider industry.

Collins and Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, are reintroducing the bipartisan Cider Industry Deserves Equal Regulation (CIDER) Act. The Act, HR 600, would amend the section of the tax code that deals with wine and related beverages, 26 USC § 5041, to support the growing number of craft and entrepreneurial cider makers, and tailor IRS rules to reflect variations in craft ciders across the country.

“I am proud to introduce legislation that will support our nation’s apple growers and cider makers,” Collins said. “The CIDER Act will help spur growth in these industries by restructuring taxes to fairer rates that take into account the natural variations in the cider making process.”

During the fermentation process, a variety of factors can lead to small changes in the composition of a cider’s alcohol content and carbonation. Because of the narrow way that hard cider is currently defined in the tax code, these small variations can lead to cider being taxed at a rate fifteen times higher than what the statute clearly intended.

The Collins-Blumenauer bill would update the tax definitions to greatly reduce the chance that improper taxation could occur. The bill would also broaden the definition to include both pear and apple ciders.

The changes proposed by Blumenauer and Collins will update the existing federal definition of cider to better reflect the industry and keep American cider competitive in the international marketplace, Collins said.

Production nationally has been robust, more than tripling from 9.4 million gallons in 2011 to 32 million gallons in 2013. Cider revenues in the U.S. have been just as impressive, tripling from $178 million in 2007 to $601 million in 2012.

“Cider making is sometimes closer to an art than a science,” Blumenauer said. “As the American apple and pear hard cider industry becomes more prominent on the world stage, and cider becomes a beverage choice for more Americans’ developing palettes, we need to ensure that cideries have every opportunity to expand and meet the needs of this growing market without an unfair tax burden.”

Collins previously introduced CIDER legislation in 2013. He held a news conference in September 2013 at Leonard Oakes Estate Winery in Medina, trying to promote and highlight the legislation.

Wendy Wilson, the winery’s president, said then that a change in the tax code, taxing hard cider at a reduced rate, would save the winery about $8,000 annually in taxes. That money could be used for more marketing to draw more people to the area, she said.

Failing bridges and infrastructure also a challenge for agriculture industry

File photo by Tom Rivers – SweeTango apples head down the packing line at Lake Ontario Fruit in Gaines in this photo taken in September. Lake Ontario Fruit packs about 1.1 million bushels of apples each year for the fresh market.

Press Release, NY Farm Bureau

New York Farm Bureau outlined its 2015 state priorities for creating a stronger economic climate for every farmer in the state. Farm Bureau President Dean Norton of Elba presented the legislative agenda with NYFB’s Public Policy Director Jeff Williams during a conference call with reporters on Wednesday.

“Investing in agriculture is investing in New York,” Norton said. “Our farms make large contributions to their rural economies and the character of their communities both upstate and on Long Island.”

Norton highlighted a couple of initiatives that look to drive the farm economy including support for a refundable investment tax credit. This would encourage greater investment into equipment and also be helpful for younger farmers who may be in greater need of capital to handle the startup costs of owning a farm. That money typically stays right in their communities. Purchasing construction supplies, machinery, or new technology has a multiplier effect supporting additional local businesses and jobs.

In addition, Norton called for reforming New York’s inherent risk law for equine operations. Many horse farms across the state are increasingly concerned about the rising costs of insurance for horse boarding operations and riding stables. Many 4-H clubs no longer can house horses because of the insurance liability. Forty-six states recognize this concern and it is time for New York to join their ranks. Without reform, running a horse-related business that also supports tourism and the joy of riding is becoming more difficult.

A number of NYFB priorities for this year look to expand access to local food. This includes support for regional food hubs and requiring the NYS Office of General Services to provide OGS warehouse space to house local food product for transport to state institutions and schools. A stronger food distribution system will help connect farms with more consumers, especially in urban areas.

To encourage even greater farmer participation in donation programs and to get more food to low-income New Yorkers who need it, NYFB is advocating for a tax credit for locally grown donations by farmers to food banks. This will help offset some of the production costs while also supporting some of New York’s neediest families who are looking to put healthy food on their dinner tables.

NYFB has long been a supporter of the State’s Environmental Protection Fund. This money provides for the cost-sharing of a number of critical programs farmers use to protect water quality. It is also earmarked for Soil and Water Conservation Districts, farmland preservation, and efforts to combat invasive species.

NYFB is encouraged by the funding increase in Governor Cuomo’s budget and will work with the State Legislature to secure even more money for these necessary programs. The same goes for additional dollars to fund research and promotion programs for many different commodities including wine and grapes, apples, maple, bees, turf grass and Christmas trees.

NYFB also is asking the Legislature to re-establish funding in the state budget for Quality Assurance and Quality Control programs for CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) planners across New York. These are the people who design and implement certified nutrient management plans on farms to help safeguard the environment and public health. It is essential that we invest in the planners so they can all perform at the same high standards. In addition, this would support continued conservation efforts on dairy farms across the state.

Finally, growing locally produced food means nothing if farmers cannot get the goods to market. That is why NYFB is encouraging additional funding for infrastructure improvements. Some municipalities have had to lower weight limits on bridges instead of addressing real structural issues. This causes large farm equipment and transport trucks to go miles out of their way, wasting fuel and driving up transportation costs.

On a similar note, NYFB would like to see the creation of a “Farm E-Z Pass” that would provide a discount to farmers hauling product along the Thruway. This would again reduce road and bridge tolls for farms delivering food to places like New York City, making the trip, and ultimately the food, more affordable for farmers and consumers alike.

“We are the largest industry in upstate New York and we can help a lot of local communities with their job growth and tax base by investing into food and farming programs,” said Jeff Williams, NYFB Public Policy director.

Wilbert Rhinehart, 85, had ‘gift of gab’

Provided photos – Wilbert Rhinehart is pictured with bales of straw in this photo from 2010.

MIDDLEPORT – The Western New York agricultural community is mourning the loss of Wilbert H. Rhinehart, a popular owner of a feed, fertilizer and farm store in Middleport.

Rhinehart, 85, was killed on Saturday in Royalton on Akron Road when a southbound vehicle, driven by 39-year-old James Zak of Royalton, slid into his vehicle, the Niagara County Sheriff’s Department reported.

Mr. Rhinehart is a former hog and chicken farmer who built up a feed and fertilizer business that survived and grew amidst intense competition from corporate giants.

“He was popular and well respected,” said Mike Zelazny, a grain farmer in Medina. “He always took the time to talk to farmers.”

Zelazny’s father Walter started the farm a half century ago. He was a Rhinehart customer, and a big fan.

Wilbert Rhinehart is pictured around 1960.

Rhinehart did more than offer customers a good price, Mike Zelazny said. Rhinehart enjoyed dispensing advice about planting techniques, fertilizer applications, seed depths and populations, and he had lots of ideas for marketing corn, wheat and soybeans.

Zelazny said his father would often go to deliver a load of grain. When trucks were backed up at a mill, Rhinehart was often the center of attention, telling stories and giving tips. Farmers would gather around Rhinehart while waiting for their turn to unload their crop.

Rhinehart was always industrious, his son Butch said. “Wil” grew up in the Great Depression in the City of Lockport. Rhinehart as a kid had chickens and sold their eggs to make a little money. He had friends who lived on farms, and Rhinehart preferred life in the country.

He had chickens and hogs, and sold fertilizer and lime on the side. He would receive 50-pound bags of fertilizer from railroad cars and bring the product home. He would sell it over the winter and spring. He also had a spreader for lime.

At one point, Rhinehart has 10,000 chickens and about 500 pigs. Butch, now 60, would get up at 5 a.m. as a kid to collect the eggs.

Rhinehart would shift the base of the fertilizer business from the family homestead in 1957, when W.H. Rhinehart began in Middleport. The family added a new location about a decade ago with the expanded W.H. Rhinehart store, a warehouse and fertilizer plant on Carmen Road.

Photo by Tom Rivers – Brett Rhinehart and his father Butch said they are proud of the legacy left by Wilbert Rhinehart.

Butch and his son Brett, 34, work at the site with six other employees. Wilbert Rhinehart was a daily fixture at the business seven days a week. He worked Saturday morning before the car accident.

His grandson marveled at Rhinehart’s memory, and his close friendships with so many customers.

“He loved wheeling and dealing,” Brett said on Wednesday at the Rhinehart store. “He had the gift of gab.”

His grandfather detested the Thruway and the main roads. He preferred driving on the country lanes to see what the farmers were doing.

“He knew every back road from here to Ohio and Pennsylvania,” Butch said. “He could remember roads he hadn’t been on in 20 years. He had a photographic memory.”

Rhinehart worked in the business for 40 years with his wife Joan. They would drive together in the morning and ride back together after the work day. The couple purchased the Resseguie’s Feed Mill on Orchard Street in Middleport in 1973. Mrs. Rhinehart passed away on Sept. 10, 2010.

Joan and Wilbert Rhinehart, pictured in about 1965, had four children and built a business together.

Butch said his father tried to keep prices low for farmers. If it was a bad year for a crop and farmers couldn’t pay their bill, Rhinehart would give them another year to pay when prices had rebounded.

His background as a farmer won him respect among his customers.

“Because he was a farmer at one time, they viewed him different as being from Corporate America,” Brett said.

Rhinehart was slow to embrace credit cards for the business, and he didn’t like computers. But he didn’t stand in the way when Butch and Brett pushed to modernize the operation.

“For 50 years he never advertised,” Butch said. “It was just word of mouth and it kept growing. We kept the prices low and farmers talk when the prices are low.”

Photos by Tom Rivers – One of Marcus Miller’s Jersey cows is pictured at his farm on Thursday.

RIDGEWAY – Six weeks. That’s how long it would normally take to build a milking parlor, to put in the piping, the steel, the refrigeration system and all of the pieces.

That’s been Brent Snyder’s experience. He is the owner of Trapper Creek Enterprises in Attica, which installs milking systems.

Snyder and his team worked with Marcus Miller to put in a system in four days. Today Miller expects to milk his herd of 45 Jersey cows for the first time at his farm since a fire Jan. 6 destroyed his milking parlor.

“You’re not going to find somewhere else where there is a fire and 2 ½ weeks later you’re back milking,” Snyder said at Miller’s farm on Thursday afternoon.

Marcus Miller, left, and Brent Snyder are pictured inside the milking parlor on Thursday. The parlor needs hoses, and some finishing touches. Miller expects he’ll be milking his cows at the site today.

Miller is close to being back in business. On Thursday afternoon, he was waiting on some rubber hoses and the inflations used on the milking units.

He’s been working at a frenetic pace since his milking parlor was destroyed in the fire. Miller and the Amish community torn down that parlor on Jan. 6. Within a few days a new building was erected – the same size at 42 by 70 feet.

Miller, 34, needed milking equipment. He went to a farm in Barker that was no longer milking cows. Miller and his friends used some of that equipment and he bought some new pieces to create a working Swing 10 Paraket Stall milking parlor. Miller will be able to milk 10 cows at a time on each side of the parlor.

He is a member of the Upstate Niagara Cooperative. Officials from the cooperative will be at Miller’s farm this morning, testing his rebuilt system.

Some of Marcus Miller’s Jersey herd has remained at his farm on Fruit Avenue. His milking cows were moved down the road while Miller’s parlor was rebuilt. This picture was taken on Thursday afternoon.

Here is how the site looked on Jan. 7, a day after the fire.

Miller’s neighbor on Fruit Avenue, Jim Smith, has been milking Miller’s cows since the fire. Smith, a dairy farmer, is not Amish.

Miller said many of his neighbors have pitched in to help him get his farm going. He estimated about 60 different people have helped rebuild the milking parlor and get the farm back on-line.

“It’s not what I have done,” Miller said. “It’s what everyone else has done.”

Cows tend to be creatures of habit. Miller is looking forward to getting them back at his farm and settled into a schedule.

“They’re ready to come home,” Miller said. “They like a routine and I’m ready to get back into a routine, too.”

Photos by Tom Rivers
LYNDONVILLE – It was perfect weather for Leonard Oakes Estate Winery this morning. Temperatures were in the single digits. The wind was sweeping across the orchard.

Nate Hodgins (top) was one of the 14 people out in the cold for about four hours this morning to harvest the frozen Vidal grapes.

Jerod Thurber, events coordinator for Leonard Oakes, was out harvesting grapes this morning.

Ice wine is a popular dessert wine. The frozen fruit will be pressed several times and a drop from those grapes has a high concentration of acid, giving it double the sweetness of regular wine.

“It’s hyper-sweetened in a beautiful drop of juice,” Thurber said.

The winery puts nets around the vines to protect the fruit from birds and animals. The nets also help on harvest day. The crew knocks the grapes loose, and they opens the bottom of the nets, filling lugs with about 25 pounds of the fruit.

Not too many regions work for producing ice wine. It can’t get too cold where the vines won’t survive, and it needs to get to at least 18 degrees for four hours.

Leonard Oakes has already won state and national awards for its ice wine.

Nick Venditti, a New York City native, helped Leonard Oakes with the harvest this morning. Venditti used to be a wine salesman in the Big Apple, and he sold Leonard Oakes wine in the city.

He now works for Leonard Oakes. Venditti, 27, helped with the last frozen grape harvest two years ago. He has learned to buddle up with thick gloves and a sky mask.

Jonathan Oakes, the winemaker at Leonard Oakes, is interviewed in the vineyard by Channel 2 in Buffalo.

Chris Oakes, the orchard manager, drives a tractor with a load of frozen Vidal grapes.

Three state legislators that represent Orleans County in Albany were all recognized by New York Farm Bureau in the organization’s “Circle of Friends.”

State Assembly members Steve Hawley of Batavia and Jane Corwin of Clarence were both named to the list, as was State Sen. George Maziarz of Newfane. Maziarz’s 3-county district includes all of Orleans. Hawley’s district has all of Orleans, except the Town of Shelby, which is in Corwin’s district.

Altogether, 125 of the 212 state legislators were named friends by Farm Bureau. The “Circle of Friends” honor is based upon each legislator’s voting record on issues of agricultural importance as well as other evidence of legislative support, including sponsorship of bills that New York Farm Bureau has either supported or opposed during the most recent legislative session.

“The selected lawmakers from both the Assembly and Senate were chosen for their commitment to the hard working farm families in New York,” said Dean Norton, president of NYFB. “Each friend has demonstrated that they understand the importance of agriculture to the people of their legislative district, and how farming significantly impacts the economy of this great state.”

Hawley, former president of the Genesee County Farm Bureau, said he appreciated the recognition from Farm Bureau.

“My district in Western New York contains many farms and many families in my area sell crops as a primary or secondary source of income,” Hawley said. “It is of the utmost importance to me that we support legislation that will enhance farmers’ abilities to expand their businesses and sell their products on a wider scale. Farms remain a driving force in New York State and a facet of our economy that we cannot take for granted.”

Photos by Tom Rivers

SHELBY – Walter Zelazny & Sons farm in Medina was out harvesting corn late this afternoon in this field at the corner of Route 63 and Fletcher Chapel Road.

The U.S. is forecasting a record high corn crop this year at 14.4 billion bushels. The cold snap pushed up the price slightly to $3.86 a bushel.

Pete Dragan worked the fields locally for 75 years

Photo by Tom Rivers – This sign was erected last week on Route 98, just south of the village of Albion. It is in honor of Pete Dragan, who owned Dragan Farm for more than 75 years. Dragan died at age 96 on Aug. 7, 2012.

ALBION – Pete Dragan used to joke with his employees that they were attending Dragan College, learning to fix machinery, plant and harvest crops, and get along with other people.

Dragan was a prominent local farmer for about 75 years. He grew soybeans and corn. He died at age 96 on Aug. 7, 2012.

His employees haven’t forgotten Dragan. They put up a sign last week that says, “Dragan College.” The sign is along Route 98, just south of the Village of Albion.

“Pete was a well-known man for starting new things,” said long-time employee Danny Wright.

If a Dragan employee or former worker needed a reference for a job, Dragan told them to put on their application that they went to Dragan College. It was a tongue-in-cheek expression that he repeated often.

Dragan’s daughter Diana Dragan Reed and the farm’s employees decided they wanted to honor Pete with a sign. Dennis Button made the sign and Jim Babcock made the supports. The sign went up last week, and it has lots of people talking about Dragan, who was once a frequent sight in the community with his white farm cars.

“I’m so thrilled that it’s been executed,” Dragan Reed said about the sign. “I thought it would be a great tribute to him.”

She lives in central Florida and has been helping with some of the farm administration. Dragan Farm is in the process of being acquired by two long-time Dragan employees, Steven Swiercznski and his cousin Tod Swiercznski. The sign is great tribute to her father, but she knows he would be most pleased the farm will continue and will keep the Dragan name.

“My father had farming in his blood,” Dragan Reed said. “He wanted to carry on the farm for his employees.”

Dragan Farm works nearly 2,000 acres of wheat and soybeans. It put up a new drying bin this year.

Dragan was active with the farm even at age 96, communicating with employees from his cell phone while he was in the hospital, his daughter said.

“He was talking until the very end, wanting to know what was going on with the farm,” she said. “His mind was very clear.”