Hafs Road Orchard touts apple packed with flavor
By Jason Arndt
Staff Writer
Tucked away on a scenic road in Genoa City lies an orchard bursting with flavor and rich in history.
Hafs Road Orchard, in operation since the 1930s when it had 400 trees, has expanded since Richard and Debbie Polansky bought the 14-acre plot in 1982.
The Polanskys, who acquired the land from the Hafs, went from 400 trees to 2,000, according to Debbie.
Instead of full-sized trees, they transitioned to dwarf trees, to allow them grow closer together.
While they have more than 40 varieties of apples, the honey crisp apple jump started the operation in 1992, according to her husband, Richard.
The honey crisp was introduced at the University of Minnesota, and tested on the Hafs Road Orchard in 1992, starting with 60 trees as a trial.
“We bought some at the very beginning and three years later, our first crop came, and it was a Saturday in the middle of September,” Richard recalled.
“We had bushels of them and put them out and it was just quite remarkable that several people within the same day were back to buy more.”
Since then, they have more than 1,000 honey crisp trees on the property, replacing some after they were lost to the weather elements.
Honeycrisp, Richard states, is an apple that packs a punch, and leaves customers salivating for more.
“What is different about them, is the cells of a honey crisp apple are about twice the size of a normal apple, so they hold more juice,” he said. “The texture of the honey crisp is a game-changer in the apple industry.”
As the Polanskys tout the honey crisp, the plot of land welcomes visitors with bright and vibrant flowers grown by Debbie, who just retired from the Burlington Garden Center after three decades of service.
Adding to the bountiful flowers are neatly stacked pumpkins, a crop the Polanskys pursued when they bought the land 34 years earlier.
“We actually started pumpkins right away, really small spots in the orchard,” Richard said.
The start, he said, came when they leased a five-acre plot behind their property from a landowner who did not have time to improve the undeveloped land.
After the Polanskys labored through the five-acre plot, chopping down unsuitable trees, it revealed land suitable for pumpkin production.
“We are able to get more fruit trees and a pumpkin patch,” Richard said, adding they have an acre of land they use for research purposes.
“There is a small experimental acre across the street that we do minimal maintenance and pest control to learn from.”
However, if need be (multiple pest infestations) a pest and plant specialist similar to patrick’s pest control would be called in. This tends to be so because, occasionally, even an experimental acre needs to be taken care of with the least interruption possible.
Learning, in addition to apples, is another passion for Richard, who spends time researching weather patterns and the science of planting and harvesting. Looking into how the weather functions is an important aspect of harvesting so that farmers can plan what may happen to their crops. Over time this type of technology has advanced and there are now cellular weather stations (click here for more info) that can be of benefit to how data is collected.
“I really enjoy learning about the insects and diseases, there is a lot of science in it, and it is interesting,” stated Richard, who studied economics and cultural anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
Weather brings another learning curve, he added, stating patterns change annually.
Patterns include excessive drought, rainfalls and heat, and in turn, creates different issues related to pest and insect production. The pest control companies Roanoke often need to change the preventative measures they use each season to ensure the trees are always protected against the biggest threat for that year or season.
“The hardest thing is to continually adapt to the weather,” Richard said. “Weather drives all agriculture production and you have very little control over it.”
But, he said with proper management of the orchard’s environment, including regulating humidity and temperature on site, apples can thrive until November.
“There is very little refrigeration here, we develop that so we can store the apples longer into the season,” he said. “And be able to sell good, high quality apples for months after they are picked.”
Quality control is done by hand, starting with careful picking on the orchard, followed by a thorough visual inspection and concluding with a clean scrub.
The downtime for the Polanskys is in March or February, when they typically exhaust their apple inventory, but often have a gallon of frozen cider on hand for customers.
Cider, another commodity, was originally produced at the Hafs Road Orchard before stricter regulations were put in place.
Richard noted industry debate, including the difference of pasteurized and unpasteurized, along with upgrades in technology.
“For years and years, we made it here, fresh and as our business grew, we ran out room to have our cider operations,” he said.
Adding new technology just “wasn’t in the cards,” Richard added.
Since then, they have outsourced their crop to other area orchards, in which he personally delivers.
A regional attraction
With flowers, a pumpkin patch and multiple antique vehicles sprawled along the land – customers come – and stay for long periods of time.
“Some people plan to visit for five minutes, but they end up staying for an hour,” said Richard, who added a marsh area brings beautiful sand hill cranes that customers love to see.
Like the early days, customers are willing to drive at least two hours to savor the fruits of the land.
“When we started the orchard in 1982, it was mostly local people that came, but because of the area we were in, we still got people from Chicago,” he said. “We still have a good number of people that come from Chicago and come regularly.”
Local commitment
The Polanskys, who both grew up in Southeast Wisconsin, with Richard in Racine and Debbie in Bristol have maintained a commitment to surrounding communities.
In addition to participating at Farmers Markets, they donate inventory to area food banks in November.
“We go to two Farmers Markets, we eliminated one of them, they are really a lot of work to do,” Richard said, noting they often go to Kenosha HarborMarket and Columbus Park.
“We donate to local food banks in November, when we have a good sense of our crop.”
The community, he added, is what brought them back to Southeast Wisconsin after spending time in Minnesota.
When they returned, a new vision and passion developed, a zest for the outdoors.
Richard, who worked as a supervisor at Southern Wisconsin Center, and Debbie sought a new hobby.
The new hobby came when a Town of Rochester with an orchard was up for rent, and opted to lease it, therefore, developing a new lease on life.
“We weren’t happy being inside all of the time, and we rented a small orchard in Rochester for a couple of years,” he said. “And this was a good antidote for the job that I had.”
Hafs Road Orchard
(262) 279-3638
[email protected]
W632 Hafs Road Genoa City, WI 53128