A Little About Growing Apples
An apple tree has a productive life of 12 to 20 years. There are two main reasons for removing and replanting a block of trees: the variety is no longer desirable, or the trees are old and no longer productive. In 2004 and 2005, we replanted 15 acres of trees at Minard Farms.
Apple trees in the orchard are not planted from seed, but rather, saplings which have been grafted to proven rootstock. The rootstock determines the height of the tree, and of course we want trees where you can readily pick the ripe apples. For some of our orchard, the trees will utilize a trellis, and may reach 12 feet in height and produce a small harvest by the second year. Years ago, a newly planted tree did not produce a crop until the 7th year.
The trees are pruned during the winter when the plant is dormant. In the spring, the trees will begin to green. Besides providing fertilizer and nutrients to the trees, we also have to time the arrival of bees for pollination.
There are not enough wild bees to pollinate our orchard, and a poor pollination will result in a small crop of apples. To ensure a good pollination, we place approximately 100 beehives throughout the orchard for 10-14 days during the bloom. An apple tree bloom starts with the pink set and ends with petal fall about 10 days later. During this period, full bloom is about 3 days long, and it is during this period that good pollination is essential.
After the bees are removed from the orchard, it will be another 3-4 weeks before we know how successful the pollination was. Then we begin the process of thinning the successful buds, removing some of the blossoms that are turning to fruit. If we did not thin the apples and instead let all the fruit grow to maturity, the apples would be very small in size, and the health of the tree would be stressed.
Throughout the summer, we monitor the orchard on a daily basis, scouting mainly for pest damage. The scouting is officially done weekly. The scouting reports, along with the weather and the size of the fruit, are the main components of our IPM (Integrated Pest Management) program. We spray pesticides and herbicides only when necessary, as they are very expensive, and we do live here on the orchard.
Depending on the variety, harvest begins about the 3rd week of August, and continues to the end of October. The weather is a big factor - apples require cool nights and warm days to ripen.
We do harvest apples commercially, in addition to our Pick-Your-Own orchard. During the harvest, we employ up to 45 itinerant workers picking apples. They travel from farm to farm following the fruit and vegetable seasons from Florida to New York, and all the places in between.
Apples are picked by hand, and require careful handling to ensure good quality fruit. The picker wears a bucket that has a canvas bottom, held shut with a drawstring. When the bucket is full, the worker empties it into a wooden bin by releasing the string. Each bin holds 20 bushels of apples (about 800 lbs.). The bins are picked up by tractor, and placed on a flatbed truck, which in turns takes the apples to a storage cooler.
The regular storage coolers are kept around 34° F. Some apples are also stored in CA (Controlled Atmosphere) rooms, which are actually airtight when the door is sealed. After the door is sealed, nitrogen is pumped into the room to bring the oxygen level to about 3%. This low level of oxygen slows down the ripening process of the apples, and enables the grower to provide good, crisp apples for many months after they are picked.
The packing house starts operating the 1st week of harvest. The bins of apples are placed in a vat of water, where the apples float to the top and ride along a conveyor belt. The conveyor takes the apples through the brusher/washer, after which the first inspection is performed. Small, bruised, or defective apples are graded out for use in making cider.
The conveyor next takes the apples through the waxer where a very thin coating of food grade wax is applied, and then to the drying tunnel. The apples then go through the grader and are sent to packing stations according to size. Each apple is inspected for quality and packed by hand. The boxes of apples are then stacked on pallets, and placed in the cooler to await transport to customers. Apples that did not make the grade are put back into bins and stored in the cooler for future use in cider.
At Minard Farms, we believe it is important for others to understand the work involved in operating and maintaining a working orchard. For more information, we suggest you visit the website: http://www.allaboutapples.com