Located in Adams County, the hub of Pennsylvania’s fruit industry, this facility encompasses almost 180 acres on two separate farms. According to entomologist Larry Hull, who supervises the facility, researchers use about 100 acres, growing apples, nectarines, peaches, pears, cherries, and a few plots of plums and apricots. They also lease 20 to 30 acres to local farmers to rotate grain in unused fields.

Left: Research assistant Terry Salada tests the firmness of apples kept in a controlled-atmosphere storage facility, part of an effort to help growers and processors maintain high-quality fruit. Right: orchard worker Tim Baker (right) and entomologist Larry Hull check a sticky trap in a research orchard. The trap uses sex pheromones to lure insect pests.

The Biglerville facility is home to six full-time research and extension faculty: entomologists Hull and Greg Krawczyk; plant pathologists Ken Hickey and John Halbrendt; pomologist George Greene; and postharvest storage specialist Nate Reed. Unlike other Penn State farm operations, each scientist runs an independent farming program. They employ their own technicians, buy their own tractors and sprayers, and maintain their assigned acreage. “We collaborate with faculty at University Park, but we initiate almost all the research projects here,” Hull explains. “We also work with the U.S. and Pennsylvania Departments of Agriculture, grower groups, and the chemical industry to test new pesticides and plant growth regulators. We can have about 50 projects under way at any one time.”

Penn State has had researchers in Adams County since 1916, when entomologist C. H. Halley started a field lab to study insects threatening the fruit industry. By 1918, the first research center opened in Arendtsville. The lab expanded in 1956 when the University bought a 70-acre farm in Biglerville, and grew again when 54 acres of adjacent property were purchased in 1961.

Because the center’s farms are surrounded by land owned by commercial fruit growers, researchers must take special precautions. “We have to make sure the pests we are studying don’t affect other growers,” Hull says. “We also have to keep our own research from affecting other researchers’ projects. I want to see more insects in my trees, Ken Hickey wants more diseases, but George Greene doesn’t want either one in his orchards.”

Research ranges from pesticide evaluations to integrated pest management programs. Hull and Krawczyk collaborate on a project that uses sex pheromones to prevent male insects from mating with females. Hull is evaluating how this disrupts the insects’ reproductive cycle. Pomologist Greene designed and built a computer-controlled fruit storage testing center that Hull calls “the best in the world,” where Reed tests controlled atmosphere environments composed of several gases to maintain high-quality fruit.

Many of the facility’s faculty and technicians have worked there for more than 20 years. This experience has proven valuable, as the center has assumed most of the fruit research and part of the extension education efforts for Pennsylvania growers. The center hosts a grower field day every other year and holds a plant protection field day each fall. Hull estimates that he sells about 50 percent of the fruit grown each year, hiring migrant labor to bring in the harvest. The fruit is sold to local processors, and the money gained from sales makes up about a third of the center’s operating budget.

As Pennsylvania’s fruit industry becomes more diverse, the mission of the Biglerville facility will become crucial to the state’s growers. Last year, researchers played a significant role in fighting plum pox virus, a virulent threat to the state’s stone-fruit industry (see the Summer/Fall 2000 issue). By continuing to develop new chemical controls and more efficient production methods, Biglerville researchers provide an invaluable service to a major agricultural industry.

Faculty and extension staff referenced in this article are John Griggs, manager of the Lake Erie Regional Grape Extension Center; Larry Hull, professor of entomology at the Fruit Research and Extension Center in Biglerville; and John Yocum, senior research associate in agronomy and manager of the Southeast Agricultural Research and Extension Center. Research is funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, the Pennsylvania Peach and Nectarine Board, the State Horticultural Association of Pennsylvania, the USDA Viticultural Consortium, the Lake Erie Regional Grape Research Program, and private industry.

The Fruit Research and Extension Center in Biglerville plays a crucial role in Penn State’s efforts to support the Pennsylvania fruit industry.