A New Orchard

[yummersetter]

I think I was thinking of apple trees planted in grass with pigs foraging around (I think I got a bit carried away with the rural idyll bit!)




I dont suppose anyone out there lives in South Leciestershire and has any experience to offer with apple trees?

You'll need guinea-pigs

I bet there'll be an event near you on Common Ground's Apple Day. You're researching at a great time, when locally grown fruit is available to taste at special events over the next couple of months. I've found Leicestershire - orchards information if you haven't come across it before

[orangepippin]

You could try the Leicestershire Heritage Orchard Project, which is very active and run by Nigel Deacon and Mel Wilson, see this page for more info:

Leicestershire Heritage Apple Project, English apples, redfleshed, late,DIVERSITY website

[greenjelly]

Early fruiter, it makes a lot of sense what you say, last year when we moved in the apples were alreadt starting, that was around May, throughout the late summer/autumn 2011 which I remember as very dry in Leicestershire we had masses of very small apples which were absolutely packed with flavour, took me back to my childhood when an old aunt used to hoist me over her neighbours fence to scrump their James Grieves trees.

I think triploids may be the answer for us and I can have my flower meadow.

'Him in doors' says no to pigs though!

[FB.]

I think triploids may be the answer for us and I can have my flower meadow.

A single triploid tree in a back garden often gets pollinated by a neighbour's tree, but if you're going to plant a large block of triploid trees, I'd also suggest a few good pollinator trees among them.
Crab apples are good pollinators as they tend to produce more blossom and often over a longer period of time than domestic apples.
Some domestic apples which aren't particularly prone to disease, which are fairly easy to find and which could be useful pollinators include:

Beauty of Bath
Discovery
Falstaff
Greensleeves
Katy (Katja)

I've ended up with a lot of triploids in my collection (and a few others which aren't recognised are triploids but which I believe will eventually be found to be triploid).
Triploids seem more tolerant of tough conditions, more vigorous and more disease resistant.

For these reasons, I think that a very large proportion of "heritage" varieties are, or will turn out to be, triploid. So take care when assuming that two heritage varieties will be suitable to pollinate each other. In many cases, varieties are simply assumed to be diploid until someone comes along and does the genetic testing to prove it's a triploid.
To take just one example: Ashmead's Kernel has long been thought to be diploid, but was recently confirmed by DEFRA as triploid.

Where the growing conditions are better, diploids would be preferable (Leicestershire and Yorkshire have some fantastic soil in places, where the MM106 can make a full standard tree, yet for me I can't even get a Laxton's Superb MM106 bigger than about 5ft after ten years!)

[FB.]

For comedy value, here's a couple of years old picture of my MM106 Laxton's Superb.

I have several MM106's like this, from a variety of different sources, so it's not a problem with mis-labelling.

As you can see, the ground around it is mostly clear of competition, and is mulched with compost - as per "textbook".

The tree remains so weak that its life hangs by a thread, attached to a fence post!

It's reached about 5ft in ten years. "The books" would say that it'd reach two to four times that size with an average variety - let alone with the added boost of the naturally very high vigour of Laxton's Superb!



:



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[FB.]

And while I'm ranting about MM106, I'll also show its other problem: a tendency to crown, collar and root rot, even though my soil does not waterlog.
The trees (or rootstocks) often bring latent infection with them from the nursery. Once spraying stops - especially in heavy soil or soil of low fertility - the disease can then start attacking from deep down and gradually spreading upwards. It's a silent killer with a lag period of up to several years.

MM106 is extremely susceptible to root diseases unless grown in favourable soils, where it can then be a superb performer.

The picture below shows a several-year-old MM106 tree (about four years after planting) which showed symptoms and I'd dug out because I knew it was a hopeless lost cause.
There were so few roots left that it easily fitted into a 2ft by 2ft plastic box:

[northepaul]

OK if you DO decide to go for some more, or new trees and if you want a cooker, how about a peasgood nonsuch?
We have one, and its still young but absolutely lovely tree, very strong. (I have beenb reliably informed that the fruit can be over a lb in weight each too!!)

[FB.]

I just found a picture of a "test pit" which I'd dug near to the Laxton's Superb, as an example of the soil.

The soil also has slight traces of chalk (Cambridge sits on chalk, at the end of the Chiltern hills), with a pH in the 7.25 to 7.5 range.

Oh....we also usually have very little rain too.
I believe that New Orleans (hurricane Isaac) will see as much rain in just a day or two, as I get in an entire average year.

[FB.]

OK if you DO decide to go for some more, or new trees and if you want a cooker, how about a peasgood nonsuch?
We have one, and its still young but absolutely lovely tree, very strong. (I have beenb reliably informed that the fruit can be over a lb in weight each too!!)

Peasgood's comes from near Leicestershire (Lincolnshire), and is popular among conoisseurs in nearby villages in my area, but I've never grown it.

Bunyard said:

"....
Culinary and exhibition.

September to November.

Large, round flattened, remarkably regular.

Colour, golden-yellow with faint flush and a few broad broken stripes.

Flesh, tender, yellowish, of pleasant flavour and cooks frothily.

Eye, nearly closed in a deep round, even basin.
Stem, short in a very wide russet cavity.

Growth, vigorous ; fertile.
Leaf, rather large, roundish, pea green, flat lax, finely crenate, falls early, turns greenish-yellow.

Origin, raised by Mrs. Peasgood, of Stamford, in 1858, from a seed of the Catshead Codlin.
First fruited in 1872.

The original tree.......growing at Stamford.

One of the most beautiful fruits grown.
First rate for cooking.
It makes a flat spreading tree.
Rather liable to canker.
......"

Hogg said:

".....Fruit, large, three inches and a half wide, three inches high, roundish, somewhat oblate, and very handsome.
Skin, yellow, overspread on the sunny side with red and copiously streaked with bright darker crimson streaks.
Eye, with flat convergent segments, set in a deep, round, and even basin.
Stamens, marginal; tube, long, funnel-shaped.
Stalk, short, deeply inserted.
Flesh, yellowish; tender, very juicy, with an agreeable acid flavour.
Cells, obovate; axile.

A fine culinary or dessert apple.
It is like a very large and highly coloured Nonesuch, and keeps till Christmas.

This handsome apple was presented before the Fruit Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society on September 18th, 1872, and received a first-class certificate.
It was raised by Mr. Peasgood, of Stamford, and is one of the most handsome autumn apples in cultivation.
...."

[yummersetter]

We have a couple of trees of 6 year old Peasgood Nonsuch ( on 106) and had our first apples from it last year, very nice cooker. None this year, of course!
At the 1872 meeting, Mr Peasgood sent a letter saying that a pip was planted in a flowerpot 18-19 years before, in Grantham, that grew into a standard tree that they took with them seven years before and planted in Stamford. It was Thomas Laxton who first bought it to the attention of the Fruit Committee in a collection of 80 apples and 30 pears grown around Stamford. It was said to be a culinary variety but they thought in all probability when perfectly ripe it would not be an unworthy dessert apple. We didn't have enough apples to test that out last year, they all went into a pie.

[greenjelly]

Yummersetter, thank you for the website address, just what we needed. Brocks Hill is just a few miles away from us and they seem to manage their orchard as a wild flower meadow, not just me then!

We will definately be going there and looking at local varieties, of which there seem to loads.

I can't find where those smiley faces are on here but I would add one of I could.

[greenjelly]

New Orchard

I have now found, with all your help, a list of local varieties that originated in Leicestershire.

Has anyone heard of these

Dumelows (Dumellers) seedling
Barnack Beauty
Lord Derby
Allington Pippin
George Cave
Newton Wonder



By the way 'Early Fruiter' I love your little tree, it looks way healthier than ours and at least it bears fruit which is more than you can say about our poor specimens.

[veggiechicken]

I can't find where those smiley faces are on here but I would add one of I could.

"Go Advanced" when you write your reply........
Love this orchard topic. I'm pretty sure I have Lord Derby and maybe Newton Wonder and I've heard of George Cave

[greenjelly]

Thanks, smiley faces ahoy!

[FB.]

By the way 'Early Fruiter' I love your little tree, it looks way healthier than ours and at least it bears fruit which is more than you can say about our poor specimens.

Oh, I've got some bigger trees, too - over a dozen young-ish trees on MM111 and M25 rootstocks.

The problem with the MM106 runt-outs is that the trees start to drop leaves and fruits in dry weather in order to try to stay alive as the roots can't cope with the demands.
Fruit tends to be much smaller than it should, due to the MM106 roots not being able to cope with dry-ish soil.
Apparently I'm not the only person who has MM106 runt-out problems on dry-ish/sandy soil - including some nurseries reporting the same problems, and some researchers.

My original planting had a lot of MM106's "because that's what everyone recommends", but many of the original planting have since died from crown rot root disease after it had a few years to incubate (MM106's lost to crown rot killing their MM106 rootstock: Annie Elizabeth, Bountiful, D'Arcy Spice, Edward VII, Ellison's Orange, Jumbo, Suntan, Worcester Pearmain).
Most of the remainder simply "runted-out" due to not being able to cope with a soil that's rather dry and infertile (MM106 runt-outs which are still alive: Crawley Beauty, Discovery, Egremont, Golden Delicious, Howgate, Red Devil, Scrumptious, Spartan, Superb).

Only one - Fiesta (Red Pippin) - has established, and it may now be own-rooted because the graft got buried and certainly the above-ground parts have a few burrknots; it did nothing for 3-4 years, then suddenly took off and is now extremely vigorous, biennial and suffers somewhat from bitter pit. No problems with pests or diseases or woolly aphids, except this year scab has finally broken through its resistance where my other varieties remain mostly unaffected.

The fruits on the Laxton's Superb in my earlier picture may look OK, but it tends to suffer quite badly from scab in many years - even the dry years. As a result, many of the fruits split and rot before they can be harvested. I wouldn't recommend Superb in wetter areas, due to already being prone to scab in my dry area.

ps
Did you know that my username is actually "FB" - I've been FB to my friends for longer than the FB website has been running.

But you can call me whatever you like ('cos the forum moderators will put you on the naughty step if you get too rude!)