07-02-2018: Orchard'ing on a sunny afternoon

We had a fantastic afternoon at Dorich House with the volunteers on Wednesday. 

Working on a sunny afternoon

Under the expert tutelage of Lewis from the Orchard Project, we continued to learn how to age growth on fruit trees and how to conduct formative and restorative pruning to ensure that our older orchard trees and the new ones that we have planted in the past grow to the best of their ability.

Telling volunteers about why Orchards are important

Explaining how to identify growth points from year to year

The difference between fruit and leaf buds

The fruit from any cultivated fruit tree will not produce the same variety on which it grew (known as not breeding true from seed).  To guarantee that the tree you are growing will produce a certain variety fruit requires cloning. 

This isn’t cloning in the way we might imagine as portrayed in current media, in a lab; but by taking cuttings from the desired variety and then then grafting (joining) it onto rootstock.

A practice which has existed for hundreds of years – in modern times, a range of rootstocks can be used to grow the same variety. With different traits such as the size of the grown tree, fruit size and even resistance to different pests being associated with the different rootstocks.

Claire works to delicately prune cut off branches in the apple tree which are within easy reach

It was interesting to find out that the size of apple trees that we have at Dorich House is now becoming more of a rarity. Modern orchards more closely resembling vineyards in their growth structure, as more and more growers switch to dwarf rootstocks to produce small trees which are easier to manage and where you can grow more on a plot of land.

The volunteers split up into teams of three, each team working on one of the large apple trees in the Orchard.

Rianna and her team worked on the leaning apple tree, with the long handled pruning saw, on a branch just out of reach of the ladder. 

We’ve been working on the Orchard since 2011 now, and it’s brilliant to see the changes over time. Lewis attested to the impact of all of the volunteer’s hard work, which have brought back all of the old fruit trees from the brink of failure.

Sanna and Aaliyah clearing up the 20% cuttings from our other apple tree

The posts below show how the trees have changed and some of the skills we’ve learnt click over the years below to see what we got up to, and what we learnt, with more details on some of the different techniques:

2011  2012  2013  2014  2015  

2016 – A rest year for the orchard 

and 2017 

Some of the lichens that grow on our apple trees

We’ve been able to get the trees fruiting better providing fruit for wildlife and people. 

Can you see the differences in the before and after?

A different way to train young trees, tying down branches and then cutting them to encourage new upward growth

The only down side that we’ve had, is an issue with people stealing all of our fruit in recent years, With every bit of fruit disappearing over weekends before volunteers, students and staff can benefit from their production.

While scrumping for apples is often romanticised, its just theft, and in cases where every bit of fruit has been taken, extreme greed and theft; negatively impacting on all of the hard work that volunteers have put into the Orchard. We’re hoping that by bringing this to everyone’s attention, people will start to keep a look out and report anything they see to us so that we can report it to the authorities.

Space under our Mulberry tree, you can see the lovely growth pattern of the tree trunk

To end on a happier note, this year is the first year that we’ve done some work on our Mulberry Tree. Last year we thinned out the scrub around the base of the tree, and removed thick ivy growth from around the main trunk. It seemed to help as we had mulberry fruit being produced, the birds leaving just enough for a few punnets for the volunteers at the museum to taste :)

This year we removed any regrowth of the ivy and scrub under the tree as well as doing our very first cut to the mulberry. Unlike the normal 20% rule,  where pruning is limited to 20% of the growth in any one year, we did very little pruning.

This is because the tree is very old, with large areas which contain dead wood. Heavy pruning might have resulted in the tree putting out lots of new growth in an unanticipated way, potentially putting more energy into new shoots at points where the tree might not be able to support it. So we are going with the very slow and steady route.

Some of the cut mulberry, will be used as a art installation at Court Farm Garden Centre, Old Kingston Road, KT4 7QH, for the Tolworth Treasure and the Hogsmill Hum event*

The one branch that we selected was chosen as it was growing through the middle of the canopy. Its eventual removal will allow a lot of light and air to circulate through the remaining canopy of the mulberry. So we’ve only taken out the first third of the branch, back to a suitable growth point.

Under milk wood. Milky sap produced at the cut points contains gum resin and is acidic and sticky playing an important role in treating the plants open wounds. Containing alkaloid toxins which help protect the plant from damage by animals**. 

Next year we aim to investigate how the mulberry has responded to this cut over the growing season, and if appropriate, continue to work down the branch. This way, little by little, we hope to increase the light and air circulation in the canopy while stimulating new growth which we can start to manage.

Join us next year and help us continue to improve our orchard. 

We’ll be back again in February 2019. Why not sign up to the blog now, so that you can be the first to hear about the upcoming events, and join us if you are free.

Until next time.

*https://www.facebook.com/tolworthtreasure/ for the details of the event on the 25th of Feb which is free for all to attend. 
** Information on milk sap from mulberries found in Minamizawa,K. 1984. Science of Mulberry Cultivation - fundamentals and practice. Meiho-sha, Japan Science Press. Translated from Japanese in 1997. translation reviewed by Hirano, H. and Kurioka, A. Extract available online at https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AAnCBz05YIEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false