Announcing the 2026 International Orchard Meetup Series
Managing Climate Stress in Fruit Production: Sun Injury, Ripening Disorders, and Post-Harvest Quality in North American Orchards.

Meetups will be 4-5:30 pm PT

Please join us for our fifth season of International Virtual Orchard Meetups.

• JUNE 11, 2026 4:00-5:30 pm PT: Physiological Impacts, Forecasting, and Monitoring Tools
• JUNE 18, 2026 4:00-5:30 pm PT: Mitigation Strategies, Timing, and Tradeoffs
• JUNE 25, 2026 4:00-5:30 pm PT: Managing Fruit After Heat Exposure: Maturity, Storage, and Disorders

Register at this link (opens in a new window)

Since 2021, the International Virtual Orchard Meetup program has brought together growers, researchers, and government and Extension agents to have an international conversation about important tree fruit topics, connecting industry leaders across North America.  This year the virtual orchard meetups will provide an opportunity to discuss challenges related to heat stress in summer and fall, identify opportunities to improve fruit quality, and remain profitable. They will be led by scientists and tree fruit growers from across the United States and Canada. Please plan to attend and join the conversation.

The first meetup follows on our previous meetup in February.  The format will include brief presentations by scientists, followed by a packer/grower panel of industry leaders across North America.  The meetup will conclude with an open discussion in a very inclusive virtual format.  Viewers are invited to share solutions, ask questions, and interact with scientists and panelists.  The program is free of charge.

Agenda

Dr. Emily Lavely, is the Tree Fruit Educator for the West Central region based in the Oceana County, MI. She works with other MSU educators, industry partners, and stakeholders, and her work is primarily focused in West Central and at the West Michigan Research Station. Emily supports the tree fruit industry by providing educational programming for horticulture and pest management topics related to rootstock and variety evaluations for fresh market and processing, irrigation scheduling, and management strategies for fire blight, cherry leaf spot, and spotted wing drosophila, among others. Emily is a team member of the International Webinar Meetup Series since 2023.

Dr. Kirti Rajagopalan is part of the Land, Air, Water Resources, and Environmental Engineering emphasis area of the Department of Biological Systems Engineering. Her Agricultural, Natural and Human Systems modeling group develops and utilizes a variety to modeling approaches to better understand and manage water and agricultural resources. The group focuses on trans-disciplinary efforts to problem solving and works closely with colleagues from a broad range of disciplines including engineering, economics, entomology, physiology, statistics, and agronomy.

Dr. Arthur DeGaetano received an interdisciplinary Ph.D. focusing on Climatology and Horticulture from Rutgers University in 1989. He was an assistant professor in the Department of Meteorology at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota until 2001. Art began his career at Cornell in 2001 as a research climatologist in the federally-supported Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC) on Cornell’s main campus. He is currently a professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Director of the NRCC. The mission of the NRCC is to enhance the use and dissemination of climate information to a wide variety of sectors in the Northeast. Art serves as an editor for the American Meteorological Society Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.

Dr. Lav Khot, works in the Agricultural Automation Engineering research emphasis area of the Department of Biological Systems Engineering. His research and extension program focuses on “Sensing and automation technologies for site specific and precision management of production agriculture”. Special emphasis is towards integration of crop sensing (ground and aerial systems), Internet-of-Things enabled Cyber Physical Systems, edge and cloud compute driven Decision Support Systems, Smartphone Apps & Information Delivery Technologies, precision chemical application technologies and agricultural machinery, processes & data-based modeling. He leads the WA smart orchard project focusing on irrigation and heat mitigating technologies.

Grower panelists from across North America

A group of invited packer/grower panelists from across multiple regions (WA, OR, MI, PA, NY, BC, and Ontario) will provide a brief “state of the fruit” update, describing what they are seeing in fruit coming out of storage and how those outcomes relate to conditions during the 2025 growing season.

Whether you are a fruit grower with ample experience, one that has modest experience, or one that is just getting started, the 2026 International Virtual Orchard Meetups will be the right setting for you to ask questions and find alternative solutions. We hope you will be able to join us on Friday February 27!

This year the 2026 series is co-sponsored by AgIAD (link to the project opens in new window) an NSF and USDA NIFA project, and SPARC a USDA SCRI project (link to project opens in new window)

Planning Team

Kristy Grigg-McGuffin (OMAFRA), Sonia Hall (WSU), Lindsay King (BC-AF), Emily Lavely (MSU), Bernardita Sallato (WSU), Mario Miranda Sazo (CCE LOF), and Daniel E. Weber (PSU)