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find that petitioners' apple orchard activity is an activity
carried on in a manner substantially similar to other activities
of the same nature which are profitable.
Petitioner testified that he made several changes in the
manner of operating the orchard. For example, he discontinued
spraying ground-up insects on the trees as a method of pest
control because it was too labor intensive. He also changed his
ground cover from a fescue type to a clover type because the
clover returns more nitrogen to the ground, allowing him to forgo
chemical fertilization. Finally, he replaced the overhead-
irrigation system he had installed previously with a ground-level
system.
Although these changes may have reduced petitioners' labor
burden, there is no evidence that the changes were made so that
the activity would become more profitable, or that the changes
were the abandonment of unprofitable methods. For instance,
petitioner testified that the ground-up insect method is an
effective method of pest control, but he abandoned it because it
was too much work. Petitioner did not provide any evidence of
the cost effectiveness of his present method of pest control
compared to the abandoned method. Nor did petitioner proffer any
evidence that he was actually using chemical fertilizers before
he changed the type of ground cover; therefore, there is no
evidence that the change was an abandonment of an unprofitable
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