River Falls High School student s apple orchard takes root riverfallsjournal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from riverfallsjournal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Gabe Olson-Jensenâs fascination with pomology the growing of fruit took root early and soon will result in an orchard at River Falls High School.
The Wisconsin FFA and the USDA recently awarded the sophomore $10,000 for his project âImplementing Organic Practices in Modern Apple Growing.âÂ
In seventh grade, he became interested in fruit trees and contacted University of California-Riverside requesting information about citrus seedlings. He ended up being mentored by the citrus program director and learned the process of grafting.
At 14, he began working at Maple Leaf Orchard, a Pierce County farm near Spring Valley, where he credits the owners in teaching him much about apple farming practices. He then began research on his parentsâ acreage, planting 75 apple tree rootstocks, grafting all to produce Honeycrisp apples.