Fantastic to join the regular Tehidy park/ Cormac volunteers this week in the orchard for weeding, mulching and pruning. At one point a cow decided to run in and join us in the orchard having escaped from it’s field but lost it’s herd – making for a bit of excitement! Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo…
Weeding around trees and then mulching was done to help ensure that when the meadow grass grows it doesn’t swamp young trees and compete for nutrients. But also, with older trees it helps to protect the trunk, as it becomes clearly demarcated and therefore no strimmers, or other machinery need go near to the trunk at all when people are maintaining the grounds thus ensuring no chance of catching the trunk.
We pruned some of the larger trees to bring them down as they’ve been heading for the sky where we can’t reach the fruit so well and just to encourage new fresh growth throughout.
The Pear Apple tree has already been top grafted a few years ago with some Bramley scions so we were careful not to chop those off. Young trees got a bit of formative pruning and we all had great chats about apple trees, orchards, pruning, grafting and how to get more orchards planted locally.
Thanks to all at Cormac and the volunteer team for allowing us to come and join you in the wonderful orchard.
We hope to be planting some more apple trees at Tehidy over the coming weeks – watch this space.
If you’d like to learn more about pruning apple trees in the winter we are working with Kehellend Horticultural Trust to offer a workshop on 12th February 2022.
Please see their site for more information and to book a place.
Apple trees can live with canker and carry on as living, producing trees, remaining good for biodiversity, wildlife and fruit. It just takes a bit of monitoring and annual pruning to keep it in check.
This week I’ve been pruning a ten year-ish old apple tree that has quite a significant problem with canker. There are many open lesions on smaller side branches, lots of spur and tip die back plus the trunk has areas that look like lesions are developing.
Pruning in winter allows you to identify the canker from the small red spores of the fungus. I ensure I remove all the branches with lesions and spores on and take them right back to the main central leader. I then prune off as many branches with dead spurs and die back as possible. It’s important to take these prunings away and burn else the spores can reinfect other branches of the same tree plus spread to other apple trees in the vicinity.
In order to stay on top of a tree that has canker ensure you prune out infected material each year to prevent it from spreading. Keep it under control and prolong the life of the trees and their productivity and therefore limit the extent to which it is affected by the fungus.
Once infected, Canker can spread throughout the tree and to other trees via small red spores in the Winter and Spring (seen in this image) and white spores via water droplets in Summer. Both can cause reinfection on other parts of the tree so remove any that you find, including all fallen leaves and burn.
Canker is common in Cornwall due to the wet weather but choosing canker resistant varieties – which Cornish varieties often are – will help to keep it at bay. Despite this though, I do know many orchards that have no canker so if you keep trees healthy, choose canker resistant varieties and keep an eye out for canker infection by conducting annual pruning, you can help to ensure it’s not something you have to deal with. But if you do find your trees have canker, don’t let it worry you too much – keep on top of it and your trees will continue to live a productive and long life.
The following images are of a Charles Ross apple tree which has had a canker infection for at least 6 years – probably much longer. It can be seen at the bottom of the trunk therefore affecting all of the tree. This also causes some die back of branches in the canopy plus lesions on side branches. Despite this, you see the huge crop of apples each year, without fail. It is true that an apple tree under stress will give a bumper crop because it wants to live on and the way to do that is to produce as much fruit, and therefore seed, as possible to give it a good chance of reproducing. This tree has been cropping like this every year so it doesn’t seem like a tree at the end of it’s life yet; it does very well considering the pressures of the canker fungus that it hosts. However, it is at a stage where I wouldn’t try to prune out the infection in the main trunk as it’s really taken over the tree, and if I did so there wouldn’t be much tree trunk left. So, limiting it’s spread via spores is the main priority by annual pruning, to ensure it doesn’t spread to other trees. Luckily there are not any other apple trees in the vicinity.
In conclusion, whilst canker can weaken and reduce the length of life of an apple tree if left unchecked, you can prevent it from taking over and control it through annual pruning pretty successfully. The fungus doesn’t stop the tree from fruiting, and it carries on growing. The downside is that if you have other apple trees you run the risk of it spreading to others trees unless you take action to stop it’s spread. You need to monitor your trees in order to spot it early if it does spread.
If you’re really brave you might like to attempt to cut out larger canker infection in tree trunks as you catch it – this involves using a knife to dig out into clean healthy wood, ensuring every bit of infected wood has been removed. The cleared wound can then be covered with sealant to ensure no further infection. A video of this process can be seen here,
I’d be happy to discuss canker with you further if it’s a problem for you, as well as pruning it out each year to stop it infecting other trees in your orchard.
An easy support plant for your orchard could be bladder campion. What a yummy, easy to grow plant with wonderful flowers for insects too.
Silene vulgaris also known as Carletti, or Sculpit or Baldder Campion is a wild edible found in meadows apparently well loved and cultivated in Italy as a cooked green often used in risottos or omlette (See Stephen Barstow, Around the World in 80 Days).
Bladder campion would be happy in a position at the edge of an orchard in full sun and shoots can be harvested from Spring onwards and now too, Autumn, they are putting on a new flush of fresh leaves actually. Use just as salad leaves or I’ve also added chopped Carletti shoots into my regular Jamie Oliver style flatbreads (half dairy free yoghurt/half plain flour of your choice and baking powder). Yum! I’m sure you’d be able to tell me some more adventurous uses for it as I’m an extremely basic and lazy cook.
If you’re local and you’d like some seed to give it a try now or in Spring just let me know.
It’s always exciting to find plants growing where you wouldn’t expect to find them – here are some hops that were growing wild along a stream near Newquay, Cornwall. The plant was so vigorous and full of life. It was May and they continue growing until the end of June to get to it’s maximum height before focusing on flowering (if a female plant). Here’s some photos:
Wild hops plant growing up a fence
Hops can be planted amongst fruit trees and shrubs or up posts and fences in orchards. it’s a really useful and beautiful climbing plant.
The shoots of the hops plant are edible (though it’s always best to check with an experienced forager or your plant ID book if you are unsure if you have the correct plant). You snip off about 10cm off of the end shoots in late Spring once the plant has got going. Any longer than that and the shoots get stringy. Try snapping the stem as that will reflect how good for eating they are, if you can’t snap the stem then it’s too stringy and old. Some people continue to snap off shoots well into summer which helps to keep the ends more tender and flower later.
They like full sun for good flowering but this hops was in only part sun, part wooded area next to stream and thriving with plenty of tender shoots to harvest.
