Fruit Tree Hunting

Early in her career, Eliza Greenman made a decision to return to the land. She describes herself as an orchardist, fruit explorer and farm activist. Greenman has focused her attention on food-producing trees and began with pruning neglected apple trees in Maine. She then spent some time caring for an orchard in Loudon County, Viriginia, and is now a germplasm specialist at the Savanah Institute in Wisconsin. As a Germplasm Specialist, Eliza assembles large seedling populations for several key agroforestry crops that currently lack diverse germplasm repositories in the Upper Midwest USA. Dubbed the Indiana Jones of fruit tree hunting, she is a fruit explorer and horticultural historian who designs and implements agroforestry plans that integrate livestock (and humans) into tree crop systems/orchards.