Orchard Odyssey: Finding and Growing Tree Fruit in the City, Community and Garden
208
Orchard Odyssey: Finding and Growing Tree Fruit in the City, Community and Garden
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780857843272 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | UIT Cambridge |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 208 |
| File size: | 128 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
An Orchard Odyssey
Find and Grow Tree Fruit in Your Garden, Community and Beyond
By Naomi Slade
UIT Cambridge Ltd
Copyright © 2017 UIT Cambridge Ltd.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-85784-327-2
CHAPTER 1
FROM WILDERNESS TO CULTIVATION
Fruit-bearing trees are ubiquitous in our cultivated landscape, and yet their history goes back millions of years, to a place before human intervention. A place where the trees existed in the wilderness, evolving as a result of local environmental pressure in a natural explosion of diversity.
As an important food source, fruit was adopted early in human history. Since prehistoric times it has been consumed opportunistically and also traded. And, as varieties were brought into cultivation, techniques such as grafting and training were developed and disseminated. Fruit-growing has waxed and waned according to fashion and social and political need: some ideas and some cultivars have been wildly successful; others doomed to extinction. Farming practices have had an enormous impact. Today, fruit-growing is a multi-billion-pound industry, with continuous research and new developments every year.
The history of fruit is an epic tale. In cultivation, fruit has marched across the globe with humankind and also evolved independently of us. It has had a role in major human transitions, from nomadic tribes to agrarian settlers to an international community: monumental journeys in space, time and culture. But, as this book will reveal, each of us can also embark on a fruit-growing voyage of our own devising, much closer to home.
To put the present-day scene into context, this chapter looks at where tree fruit originated and how it became so commonplace across the world. It explores the ways in which it has been embraced and become significant, highlighting key points in the fruits' own history. It also charts the decline of orchards in the twentieth century, as modern farming methods and government drives for productivity took their toll.
The trees we find in our neighbourhoods and back gardens, the ones we see in hedgerows as we whizz past them in cars and trains, have roots in the distant past. And their orchard odyssey began long ago and far away.
"But without the courtyard, hard by the door, is a great orchard of four acres, and a hedge runs about it on either side. Therein grow trees, tall and luxuriant, pears and pomegranates and apple-trees with their bright fruit, and sweet figs, and luxuriant olives. Of these the fruit perishes not nor fails in winter or in summer, but lasts throughout the year; and ever does the west wind, as it blows, quicken to life some fruits, and ripen others; pear upon pear waxes ripe, apple upon apple, cluster upon cluster, and fig upon fig ... Such were the glorious gifts of the gods in the palace of Alcinous."
HOMER, THE ODYSSEY
THE ORIGIN OF APPLES
The apple is an iconic fruit. Indeed, apples are orchards to many people, so it is worth taking a look at where apples originated and how they migrated and diversified. This story begins about 4.5 million years ago, in the Tien Shan mountains on the border between China and Kazakhstan, with an isolated pocket of the Central Asian species of apple, known as Malus sieversii.
Under local selection pressures, these apples gradually began to change their seed-dispersal mechanism from birds to mammals. As the centuries passed, the fruit got bigger and juicier to tempt the native deer, pigs, bears and horses, while the seeds developed a tough outer case to withstand the longer digestive transit.
In the mountains of the East, a fruit forest grew. Tall trees and small ones; suckering on multiple stems or towering up to 18m (60') high; clinging to soaring mountains and nestling in deep ravines. Protected from glaciation by the warm winds of the Indian Ocean, the trees evolved without interruption. The more attractive the fruit became, the more the animals would seek it out. Brown bears preparing for hibernation would strive to get at the plumpest, sweetest apples. Fallen fruit eaten by horses would have its pips deposited, helpfully manured, well away from its parent. With the advantages conferred by these dispersal methods, the fruit became ever-more appealing and more diverse.
The wild orchards of apples, growing alongside apricots, pears, nuts and cherry plums, reached from the mountains to the plains, where there arose the city of Almaty, a name derived from Alma-Ata: The Fatherland of the Apple.
Travelling companions
The eventual arrival of humans, with their insatiable hunger and wanderlust, heralded a new phase for fruiting species. Then, as now, no herdsman, trader, nomad or foraging urchin worth their salt would pass a decent meal, quite literally growing on trees, without helping themselves.
The Mongolian Plain to the north and the Gobi Desert to the east were inhospitable and, as civilizations developed and precious materials like lapis lazuli were traded from what is now Afghanistan to China and Egypt, merchants would take the easiest route west through the mountain passes – a route lined with tasty, nutritious nuggets of food.
Picked in the mountains and stashed in a saddle bag, the apples, together with plums pears, cherries and apricots, would travel some distance. The cores and pips discarded along the trail would grow into new trees. Thus, even before international trade or cultivation, the trees began to reach out from their mountain fastness along the human highways, their genes spreading, interweaving and diverging.
Evidence of East–West trade in fruit around 6,000 years ago, along what would later become the Silk Routes, was provided by the uncovering of Caucasian mummies in the Takla Makan Desert, south of the Tien Shan. Theories about the early trade and transport of apples are also supported by genetic detective work. In fact, for many years it was believed that the huge range of modern culinary and dessert apples had evolved from the small and thorny European crab apple, Malus sylvestris. But the work of Russian scientist Nikolai Vavilov (1887-1943), published in 1930, indicated that this was not the case, and when the Iron Curtain fell in the late twentieth century and the Eastern fruit forests were more widely 'discovered', DNA sequencing indicated that all our cultivated apples – historically thought to be hybrids of unknown parentage and referred to as Malus x domestica – had in fact arisen from the Asian 'Eve' population in the Tien Shan.
This has led to the assertion that the correct name for both the wild apple in the Tien Shan and our Western domestic apple is Malus pumila. Despite this, the wild Asian apple is usually known as M. sieversii, and the names M. pumila and M. domestica are both used, often interchangeably, for cultivated crops and their offspring.
ORCHARD GARDENING THROUGH THE AGES
Traces of apple seeds have been found at settlements dating as far back as 6500 BC, and, as apples, pears and other fruit marched west, the written evidence for their presence increased. The cultivated offspring of the Asian Malus sieversii, along with other fruit species, gradually spread to the Middle East and then on to Greece and Rome, and there are records of Romans, Vikings, ancient Greeks and Persians eating apples.
It is generally thought that the technique of grafting fruit to conserve and distribute chosen varieties also reached Rome via Persia and Greece, and that it was the Romans who then introduced cultivated and grafted fruit across Europe, from where it eventually reached the New World.
Cultivated fruit is believed to have arrived in England with the Romans and, although it declined during the Dark Ages as the country was battered by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, these later invaders also left a scattering of place names, such as Applegarth, Appleby and Appleton, that hint at orchards past.
Medieval times saw a revival, as monasteries cultivated fruit and vegetables and raised funds by selling spiced cider. They also developed new varieties from cross-pollinated seedlings. Orchard gardening received a further boost following the Norman Conquest of 1066, as the Normans became prominent in the Church, bringing with them French traditions of apple-growing and cider-making, and further new varieties.
From the fourteenth century, orchards declined again, with the Black Death and later the Wars of the Roses. But in 1533 King Henry VIII commissioned royal fruiterer Richard Harris to plant experimental orchards in Kent, using grafts brought from France and Holland (see page 32). Hardy, tasty and disease-free varieties were distributed to other growers, revitalizing the industry. And, by the seventeenth century, most small farms in Britain and beyond would have had their own orchard and often also a cider press.
Fruit-growing in the Britain continued with modest popularity, and by the seventeenth century it was widely associated with the aristocracy. Influenced by Continental fruit fashions, orchards were gradually established in the grounds of large English houses – orchards that featured both restricted forms, à la Versailles, and the larger trees and spacious plantings that later came to be such a recognizable landscape feature. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, a series of pollination experiments by Thomas Andrew Knight in England and by other breeders in
Belgium led to trees with improved fruit and influenced many subsequent pioneers. This was a golden age of horticulture, and new apples developed for taste appeared in their droves, including Cox's Orange Pippin, Egremont Russet and Worcester Pearmain.
In the nineteenth century, the Horticultural Society, later the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), encouraged and rewarded apple- and pear-breeding. A catalogue first published in 1826 details over 1,400 apples and 677 pears (although some of these were later proved to be synonyms) in their gardens. This collection was followed by the National Fruit Trials. In 1989 it became the National Fruit Collection, located at Brogdale Farm and owned by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra). The charity Brogdale Collections is responsible for public access and events.
EUROPEAN ORCHARDS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
By the end of the First World War, research into tree-fruit-growing had become more formalized. In the UK, institutes and research centres including Long Ashton, The John Innes Horticultural Institute (now the John Innes Centre) and East Malling were set up to help develop new varieties and research ways of combating pests and diseases. Then, after the Second World War, dwarfing rootstocks were widely adopted commercially. This was a major revolution. Productivity increased because the trees could be planted more closely together, and smaller trees meant that sunlight could reach a greater proportion of the fruit, so the product was more consistent. The fruit could also be efficiently picked and pruned from the ground, eliminating the need for ladders. Furthermore, trees on dwarfing rootstocks fruit at a younger age than full-sized trees, delivering quicker returns for the farmers.
These changes fundamentally altered the way that commercial orchards operated and how they were laid out and managed. The agricultural practice became more to do with high yields – which increased by around 400 per cent – than about the use of land for a range of complementary purposes. The trees themselves came to be viewed as more of a 'crop' in the conventional agricultural sense, with a shorter life cycle and lower level of sustainability, and they were replaced much more frequently. In turn, this altered the economic balance. The smaller, more traditional orchards became unviable and were neglected or grubbed up to make space for other crops. And this combination of increased orchard efficiency and the loss of the traditional model had an impact on the landscape and environment that was felt across Europe.
So, the fruit-growing developments of the twentieth century represented a turning point. The 'traditional orchard' model had trees spaced at some distance from each other, with the land also used in other, complementary ways. The 'modern commercial orchard' comprised densely packed dwarf trees, which had a much higher cropping level but the orchard was economically a monoculture. The economic benefits of the new model, coupled with government efficiency drives, spelled disaster for the traditional way.
The fortunes of British commercial orchards
In Britain, orchards and growers were hit hard by both the decline of traditional fruit-growing and by trade and economic developments. In the mid-twentieth century, fruit imports had been restricted in various ways, but these restrictions were gradually lifted. By the 1970s, new high-yielding varieties such as Golden Delicious and Granny Smith dominated the market but needed more warmth to ripen than is found in Britain's cool climate. Tasty local varieties still thrived but were in some cases slow-growing, lower-yielding and more pricey. Thus, growers faced greater competition, and in the latter part of the twentieth century many commercial orchards were taken out of production, and importing apples became the norm.
For some decades, things looked bad for fruit-growing in the UK. But when varieties such as Braeburn and Gala from New Zealand proved to perform well, investment and grower confidence increased. By 2009 new orchards were being planted, at modern densities of up to 3,500 trees per hectare (1,400 per acre) – as compared with fewer than 150 trees per hectare (60 per acre) in a traditional orchard. With the processes mechanized as never before, by 2011 the British market share had climbed by over 60 per cent from its lowest point.
THE BIG PICTURE
Taking a bird's-eye view of the situation in Europe today, it is clear that there are several different things going on. The newer orchards are a success for the commercial fruit-growing industry, and this should be applauded in terms of the availability of local food, maintaining rural employment opportunities, and the economic viability of the farming community.
But in terms of biodiversity, heritage, conservation and farm-specific, region-specific tradition, it is not the same thing at all. These are not traditional British farm orchards, or indeed French vergers, German Streuobstwiesen or any other form of non-intensive orchard planting. Such traditional models are increasingly rare landscape features that are in need of conservation.
Cautiously, however, it could be said that the traditional, smaller-scale and less mechanized growing methods are experiencing a modern revival elsewhere – in domestic gardens, on allotments and in community orchards. New information and varieties, and the tides of fashion and economy, have reawakened widespread interest in orchard gardening. There are new possibilities for involvement and, arguably, also more opportunities than there have been for generations.
Orchard gardening and orchard farming has never been a static process. It has evolved according to personal, economic and social need, and according to the techniques, varieties and manpower available. Whether the goal is food, drink or animal fodder; whether trees are planted for subsistence or status – what people have wanted to achieve from an orchard has changed throughout history, and this is still true today.
And, while orchards today are picturesque and romantic, it is worth remembering that at one time they would have been a serious source of income and nutrition. Farmers would have spent less time enjoying the pretty wildlife and more time fending it off the precious crop. The chemical-spray programmes used were, at times, hair-raising, and harvest was labour-intensive and sometimes dangerous. So we must not label the whole concept 'museum piece'. Certainly, preservation in approximate stasis might work in some cases. This is, after all, a huge part of our cultural landscape, and efforts to conserve the remnants of traditional orchards should be made. But there is another, parallel way.
Conservation philosophy espouses a process of managed change, in order that, as society changes, it doesn't lose the things that create its value. So, in addition to conservation efforts, we must also embrace change in society and landscape. If you can't live with and engage with the orchards, in whatever form they take, you can't enjoy them properly. The cloth of orchard gardening can be cut according to the needs, resources and tastes of the individual and the local community. This must, surely, bestow a far greater chance of success and enjoyment on all concerned. In the next chapter we will explore this idea further.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from An Orchard Odyssey by Naomi Slade. Copyright © 2017 UIT Cambridge Ltd.. Excerpted by permission of UIT Cambridge Ltd.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword,Introduction,
PART ONE: The orchard in the landscape,
Chapter 1: From wilderness to cultivation,
Chapter 2: An orchard tapestry,
Chapter 3: Conservation and biodiversity,
Chapter 4: Orchards in the community,
PART TWO: An orchard of your own,
Chapter 5: Creative orchard design,
Chapter 6: Fruit trees for every space,
Chapter 7: Tree planting and care,
Chapter 8: Enjoying the harvest,
Resources,
Index,