The Permaculture Orchard: Beyond Organic documentary came out this summer after being filmed in 2013. Following a organic permaculture farmer in southern Quebec.

They have posted a 1 year update responding to some questions brought up from the video. Some of you might find it interesting. As for the documentary, some interesting information, much you can find elsewhere but at only $25 for a high definition digital download it is beautifully filmed and a nice way to spend an hour or two on a cold winter day.

http://www.permacultureorchard.com/fall-2014-update-video/

Bottom line, if you are growing the right crops for your area, and using good cultural practices, you should not have to spray or deal with ugly fruit.

Good point Drew! What would one plant to attract what to combat Japanese Beetles. Does PC even have natural enemies? If they do they must not be very successful.

I found the videos very informative, interesting and not at all preachy. Just a friendly grower sharing his approach, thought processes, and goals -- then speaking freely about his successes and failures. His experimental nature is refreshing. Thanks for sharing!

I agree. I expected some hippie "pie-in the sky" hoopla. but this dude was pretty honest and forthright. I couldn't believe they even bothered to show those twisted up cat-faced wormy apples. The guy is obviously intelligent and I couldn't help wondering how he believes this works adequately. I actually felt bad for the guy because he got into this because he cares and believes he can make it work. I regretfully do not feel as though this will be a successful enterprise.
I wish him luck and I hope he is successful because folks like that deserve it.

My point is that what will grow organically without pest/disease problems in a given place is always going to be only a fraction of the fruiting plants available (just like the weeding out that cold hardiness performs). Part of the problem is how set in our ways we are as humans… that we want to grow/eat the same things regardless of where we live.

I don't blame them for feeling this way, given the general shortsightedness of the likes of Monsanto selling products that become obsolete by design within a decade and/or are very detrimental to the environment, but synthetic chemicals are part of the glue that holds our existence as a species together.

To suggest that there is something wrong in the nature of people to want more than the indigenous species of their particular environment is an interesting perspective, but sometimes the natives aren't really very productive and are inefficient sources of food even if they don't require spray.

I would still like to see more money invested in breeding apple, peach, plum, etc varieties for insect resistance. How do you make the funding for this happen?

Educate the public. Government funding is too inefficient and wasteful to be very useful for anything but basic research. But if people want cleaner foods, and a demand develops for it, and it has with the demand for organics. It makes it more worthwhile for companies to spend the money on research.
My problem with synthetics has nothing to do with Monsanto. I don't really have a problem with them. My concern is we still don't understand ecosystems very well and are throwing hand grenades at it with synthetics. the disruption of the ecosystems is concerning to me.
We don't know what we are doing. The arrogance of man is a huge deficient to the species. Man even thinks it can change the environment, which is a huge joke! Yes, to a small degree, but hit with an S happens, and mother nature doesn't take orders from man. We really need to figure out which hill to die on. To choose our battles wisely.
The way I see things we are in the age of ignorance, as the amount of ignorance of man is at extremely dangerous levels. We end up doing more harm than good. I'll use one example, and try not to go for the obvious one, did you know we use more energy to recycle a plastic bottle than to start from scratch? How is that saving anything???
Oh but it makes us feel so much better. Emotion is a huge deficient. Logic is thrown out the window. How can we do that to the polar bears!? (when populations are growing out of control, and man is on their menus). Wow, what we do just floors me. You know a polar bear will follow a group of men, and pick off the last one. Often nobody notices for awhile. Hey where's Johnny? So best be in front in polar bear territory.