Long Island farm leverages Cornell research to adapt, expand

In 1985, Ed Harbes III grew a bumper crop of potatoes. The problem was, so did other farmers.

Potato prices plummeted. It cost Harbes about $4 to grow 100 pounds of potatoes; the market paid just $2. He worked 100-hour weeks during the growing season and trucked potatoes from Long Island to Maine in the offseason.

"We knew then that we had to find an alternative," said Harbes, a 12th-generation farmer on Long Island's North Fork.

To complicate matters, around that time, his father retired, and Harbes took over managing his family's potato farms in Huntington and Mattituck.

Ralph Freeman, a longtime floriculture extension specialist at Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) Suffolk County, encouraged Harbes to expand into flowers and other bedding plants that would be more profitable. Harbes also began transitioning the farm's focus from wholesale to retail, and Cornell's guidance helped the farm gradually shift from cabbage and potatoes to pumpkins, sweet corn, stone fruit, apples and other crops to increase and diversify their revenue streams

"Cornell's prime directive was to help people in agriculture get out to a good start," Harbes said.

Decades later, Harbes Farm continues to rely on a mutually beneficial collaboration with Cornell researchers. That collaboration has made the Harbes family's three farms, totaling 300 acres, fall destinations known throughout Long Island for its pumpkin and apple picking and one of the biggest names in Long Island agritourism.

Agriculture and agritourism are major businesses in Suffolk County, which is home to more than 550 farms and led the state in crop sales in 2022 with more than $268 million. Long Island's North Fork also has 60 wineries and 2,500 acres of vinifera grapes planted, plus many orchards, pumpkin patches and other sites that contribute to the region's thriving agritourism economy.

However, Harbes and other Long Island farmers face a particular challenge: They have fewer tools at their disposal for handling pests. The Long Island Pesticide Pollution Prevention strategy, initiated by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in 2014, limits the types and amounts of pesticides available for use.

That's because Long Island is particularly environmentally sensitive, due to its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, its sandy soil that easily allows crop treatments to leach into the water, and its sole-source aquifer system that provides all the drinking water for Nassau and Suffolk counties, said Emily Berkowitz, agricultural stewardship specialist at CCE Suffolk.

"Growers have to be more creative when they don't have the same tools available," Berkowitz said.

Harbes Farm has been working withCCE Suffolk's Integrated Pest Management (IPM) team for over 10 years on projects including a tree fruit scouting program that utilizes pheromone-based mating disruption for pesticide-free pest control, Berkowitz said.

In addition to working with CCE Suffolk, the Harbes family has also collaborated with

Harbes has also been a valuable partner for the Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center (LIHREC), part of Cornell AgriTech.

The farm participates in the Tree Fruit Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program and a Vegetable IPM scouting program for sweet corn, pumpkins, tomatoes and watermelon. They've collaborated in numerous on-farm trials and often host programs, tours for officials and other events. In addition, Harbes III served on CCE Suffolk's Agriculture Advisory Committee. His son, Ed Harbes IV '05, who joined the family business after graduating from Cornell, served on the Vegetable Advisory Committee.

Strong partnership

"The Harbes family has been such a great partner," said LIHREC Director Nora Catlin. "They're always eager to learn, open to new ideas and willing to participate in trials and try different practices."

Margaret McGrath, associate professor emerita of plant pathology and plant microbe biology at LIHREC, helped Harbes Farm manage pumpkin diseases. Meanwhile, the Harbes family helped inform Cornell research by participating in multiple LIHREC studies related to pumpkin production. They included no-till, reduced-tillage and deep-zone tillage trials, as well as using mustard as a cover crop to deter Phytophthora blight. Additional LIHREC-supported trials on cover crops and reduced tillage have resulted in less ponding and erosion in their fields, both of which can cause poor yields and significant crop damage, he said.

The Harbes family has also worked with LIHREC over the years to develop an insect treatment program for their apple and stone fruit orchards utilizing calcium chloride, gypsum and other treatments that can reduce traditional insecticide sprays. Similarly, Harbes Farm made significant changes to how they grow sweet corn, pumpkins, and fruit trees through a LIHREC-supported trial focused on slow-release nitrogen fertilizers.

Because of that research, Harbes IV said able to use less carbon during the growing process and eliminate excess nitrogen, a key contributor to water contamination that's exacerbated by Long Island's aquifer system.

For the Harbes family, protecting the soil health and water quality is paramount not only to the long-term success of their own enterprises, but also that of their neighbors. "The lesser our impact on our neighboring farms with our equipment and sprays, the better," Harbes IV said.

When Harbes IV joined the family business, one of his first priorities was expanding into apples, and what started as 5 acres has grown to 20.

To help bolster their apple crops, Harbes IV connected with Scott Cosseboom, senior research associate in plant pathology at the Cornell Hudson Valley Research Laboratory (HVRL), about working together on a field trial of using ultraviolet light in orchards to suppress fire blight and apple scab, two of the most common - and devastating - diseases in apples. The proposed trial would mark one of the first times the technology, developed and tested at Cornell AgriTech, would be used in a commercial operation.

"Ed [Harbes IV] represents one of the first growers to show a high level of interest in using it on the farm," Cosseboom said.

The Harbes have also embraced Cornell-recommended growing techniques for the farm's vineyard.

Harbes Vineyard started at the main farm in 2004 as a 5-acre plot cultivating merlot and chardonnay. Harbes III credited Alice Wise, viticulture research specialist and interim agriculture program co-director at CCE Suffolk, with helping the family with row spacing, grape varieties, equipment and other advice.

"It was just wonderful to talk to someone who was helpful and objective," he said.

The vineyard has since doubled in size and now grows chenin blanc, sauvignon blanc, cabernet franc and malbec varieties. Harbes Vineyard routinely wins awards, including a platinum medal at the 2025 New York Wine Classic for its 2014 Proprietor's Reserve Barrel Fermented Merlot, named the best merlot in the state.

Refocusing on new crops and agritourism didn't happen overnight and wasn't always easy, but Harbes III said it was essential.

"We've felt the need to change; if we hadn't, we wouldn't be around anymore," he said, adding, "It's wonderful to have an organization like Cornell that provides farmers with the resources they need to change."

Jacob Pucci is the marketing and communications coordinator for the New York State Center of Excellence for Food and Agriculture at Cornell AgriTech.