Joshua Bailey

KC Bailey Orchards, Inc. was founded in 1984 by Karla and Chip Bailey and now consists of 450 acres of which 275 acres are fully bearing high-density trellised fresh apple plantings, with all conventional acreage irrigated. The farm is vertically integrated and operates an on-farm nursery, maintains on-farm refrigerated storage capacity, and is a member of Lake Country Cold Storage with controlled atmosphere storage space. The farm also has numerous sustainability initiatives including wind and solar projects enabling net zero energy consumption, pollinator habitats supporting native bee populations, and a regenerative locust grove for trellis row end posts, among others.

Josh Bailey has a bachelor’s in agricultural economics and a master’s focused in digital agriculture and data science from Purdue University and returned to the farm in May 2025. As farm technology manager, Josh is researching, evaluating, and helping select technologies with strong ROI potential, coordinating their implementation with farm management, employees, technology companies, and advisors, and analyzing results to adjust strategies as needed. Josh also serves on the Agricultural Systems Advisory Board for The Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture (IoT4Ag), a U.S. National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center.