One-third Income Increase

Patti wholesales these products to nearly 20 gift shops in North Dakota. She also sells the products in gift boxes from a shop on the farm. The trade in processed products comprises about a third of the volume of the berries picked by the Patries and their workers.

A schoolteacher by profession, Patti wanted to manage an on-farm business that would also involve the couple’s three children. The Patries’ children — Clayton, 23, and now working away from home; Miles, 21; and Anne, 18 — have worked in every aspect of the business. Now, Patti and Anne manage the raspberries while Loren and son Miles take care of crops and cattle.

“Growing and marketing the raspberries has provided good cash flow in the summer,” said Patti. “The side business has given me a job and provided a way for our kids to save money for college.”

Patti was raised on a fruit farm in Michigan. But deciding what crop to grow in North Dakota was more difficult, she said, since few fruit trees and shrubs can weather North Dakota’s harsh winters and short growing season.

North Climate Berry

The Patries learned from a Manitoba raspberry farmer that these plants are hardy enough to grow well in the north. The berries were a good choice for their farm, too, since there were no other commercial raspberry growers within a 100-mile radius of them.

They put in their first 2,000 raspberry plants in 1990 at 1,500 plants to the acre. They now grow two acres of summer-bearing berries and four acres of a fall-bearing variety. The summer-bearing Boynes variety ripen from mid-July to the end of August. The fall-bearing Autumn Bliss can be picked from late August till the first hard frost, usually in mid to late September.

Labor intensive, raspberries require annual hand-hoeing and pruning. Patti prunes the summer-bearing canes by hand in the fall following harvest. To control disease, she removes and burns all the canes that have fruited. The next season’s berries will be on new canes that grew the previous year. In April, they thin rows to a width of 18 inches by removing the least healthy canes. Keeping the rows narrow allows ventilation between the plants and prevents fungus from getting started.

Pruning By Swather

Water-saving drip irrigation is used on the raspberries when needed. “We did not use the irrigation much during the 1990s because we had sufficient rains that produced bumper crops,” said Patti. “However, 2002 was very dry. We used $1,000 worth of rural water to keep the berries alive, and we had 42 percent of the production we had been getting in each of the previous two years. It was disappointing and proved to us that rain is much better than irrigation water.”

Proper pruning and removal of old canes keeps diseases at bay, but for added protection against disease Patti sprays the plants in spring with liquid lime sulfur, a natural product. “It covers the branches and deters disease,” she said.

Cutworms And Mites

Cutworms and spider mites can damage raspberry plants, too. In fact, the Patries lost half of their first plants to cutworms. They used insecticide to protect later plantings. “Spider mites suck the juice from the leaves, which eventually turn a bronze color and fall off,” said Patti. The plants tend to winterkill as a result. Spider mites are controlled with a miticide.

A raspberry crop costs about $3,000 an acre to establish, including the plants, planting labor, irrigation, spray, clover seeding, and advertising. The fall-bearing canes produce berries in their first year of growth.

Pick Your Own

The u-pick business works well for the Patries because the raspberry patch is next to the house. “That means we don’t have to set hours where we have to go to another place to meet people who come to pick berries,” said Patti. “Our u-pick customers come from all over the state, but mainly from within a 100-mile radius.” As many as 20 part-time employees help at the height of the berry-picking season.

While Patti and daughter Anne stay busy managing the raspberry patch, Loren and son Miles work at tending 1,400 acres of crops, which include 600 acres of hard red spring wheat, 300 acres of durum, 300 acres of soybeans, and 200 acres of barley. They also manage a section of grassland for grazing their herd of 70 beef cows and put up hay in partnership with another beef producer on 480 acres.

In recent years, when crop prices have been low, the raspberries have played a significant role in the farm’s economy, earning about a third of the farm’s total income, said Patti. What has made the fruit crop work for them, she added, is endurance, marketing and, as with any farm crop, “riding out the highs and lows as they come.”

The Patries invite visitors to their Web site at www.patriesraspberries.com.