Methods                                                          
                  
     The list sampling frame maintained by Michigan Agricultural Statistics
was the primary source of names of commercial fruit farms. Commercial meant
any operation with at least one acre of any tree fruit or one half acre of
any berry. Data were collected for every qualifying fruit operation.

     Questionnaires and cover letters were mailed to fruit farms on the list
frame in October 2003. Growers who responded to the 2000 Fruit Inventory
were also sent a printout of their responses to that inventory. Data
collection continued until the spring of 2004.

     The apple section of the survey instrument is shown at the end of this
section. Farmers were asked to complete, by block (vineyard or plantation),
the block name or number, the county, township and section where that block
was located, variety, rootstock, irrigation type, year of planting, trees,
acres and spacing for each variety in the block. Each line within a block
represents a different variety, rootstock, year planted or plant spacing.

     These detailed data were obtained for 86 percent of the farms.
Twenty-five percent were returned by mail, 34 percent were completed by
telephone, and 27 percent were done by personal interview. Ten percent
refused to do the inventory, and four percent could not be contacted.
Estimates of total acres of each fruit were made from various sources for
the farms for which detailed block records were not available.

     The completion rates of the detailed data varied by region and by fruit
type. They were calculated by dividing the total acres with complete block
data by those acres summed with estimated acres for refusals and
inaccessibles. These rates are shown as percentages in the accompanying
table. Inverses of those completion rates were used to expand detailed data
to total acreage totals by fruit and district. The higher the completion
rate for a district and fruit, the more accurate are the detailed data shown
in the two-way and three-way tables of this bulletin. 
                  
                  
                                                                                
                                                               Completion rates: Percent of acreage completed by fruit and district
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                                :       : Blue- : Bram-  :Cherries,:Cherries,: Cran-  :        : Necta- :        :        :        : Straw- :
                   District     :Apples :berries:  bles  :  sweet  :  tart   :berries : Grapes : rines  :Peaches : Pears  : Plums  :berries : Total
             ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
              Northwest         : 84.9    88.0     74.1     83.2      87.1     100.0     86.5     66.7     79.3     87.0     79.6     87.2     85.4
                                :
              Mason-Oceana      : 80.2
              Grand Rapids      : 74.8
              West Central      : 76.0    84.6     83.3     79.0      77.1     100.0    100.0     94.4     76.4     87.6     79.4     84.4     77.9
                                :
              Southwest         : 72.3    91.9     42.7     84.3      83.7     100.0     87.6     90.9     79.6     78.5     84.6     73.1     84.0
                                :
              East              : 83.8    79.2     91.3     92.8      81.5      87.5     96.6     88.9     85.6     80.6     86.7     81.3     84.0
                                :
              Michigan          : 76.6    89.1     70.9     82.6      83.3      99.2     87.7     89.4     78.3     84.4     81.7     80.4     82.1
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