This week The English Apple Man is assisted by fruit industry friends who sent me reports on a blossom walk and the largest pear orchard in Britain.
East Kent Fruit Society Blossom Walk
The EKFS event took place at Ham Green Farm Upchurch Kent by kind permission of Robert Hinge.
Robert and his son John are the 4th and 5th generations respectively of A Hinge & Sons and are responsible for the fruit growing side of the business. As well as the fruit they have around 3000 acres of combinable crops.
Below: left, Robert Hinge and Right. John Hinge
The fruit is grown on 4 sites at Norton, Borden, Newington and Upchurch.
The total area of fruit is approximately 250 acres made up of cherries 17a, plums 14a, apricots 3a, pears 13a. Apples are made up of Jazz 70a, Pink Lady 20a, Gala 30a, Braeburn 5a, Kissabel 8a Crimson Crisp 20a, Bramley 17a, Granny Smith 5a, Gala Wildfire 5a.
Other niche varieties including Mona Lisa, Ladina, & Amelia make up the rest.
They have 5000 bins of storage and are about to start building a further 3500 bins of storage at Norton. Sales and marketing is all through Fruition's agents, primarily Worldwide Fruit.
During the evening there were two presentations from scientists at NIAB:
Mat Papp-Rupar: Exploring the links between soil microbiome and carbon sequestration in a cross-section of agricultural soils (Growing Kent & Medway funded project) On the left
Francis Wamonje: Development of pheromones for innovative management of forest bug, an emerging pest of orchards in England (Defra FIP Project). On the right
<
The English Apple Man Comments: the attendance of NIAB scientists at EKFS events is now well established and allows regular updates by NIAB personnel and valuable face to face discussion between growers and scientists
As The English Apple Man was unable to attend in person, friends at Worldwide Fruit sent me a short report and a few pictures
"The walk started with Rob Hinge giving a brief overview of the Farms followed by a walk through a recently planted Kissabel, R204 (red skinned, red fleshed) orchard. We continued across the farm into an older orchard of Kissabel, with a mix of Y101, Y102 & R204.
Below: Robert gave a summary of the differences between the Kissabel varieties and some of the challenges faced with new varieties.
We then walked through a couple of Jazz orchards to the initial pink lady trial trees as well as a block of Ladina.
Below: Left. to right. Jazz - Ladina - Pink Lady
We then continued to a Pink Lady block that has been covered with Hail netting. Robert forgot the key to the gate so we had to admire from afar. Robert listed some pros and cons to the netting as well as his thoughts.
This was then followed by a couple of quick talks from two representatives from NIAB EMR. First a summary on some of the work being done on using man made earwig nests to control Whooly aphid. And then Mat gave a quick update on how soil data sent over from growers is being linked to Canker levels in orchards.
The day then ended with a BBQ in the yard.
There was a good turn out with around 50 attendees and the rain managed to hold off!
To finish, watch the Video below of Robert Hinge in his orchards filming various varieties in bloom
Click on video: Robert Hinge Blossom Video
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pears
I rang my Kent based Agronomist friend this week seeking some information. "Where are you today? - I'm in the biggest pear orchard in Europe he replied! - How is the crop potential looking? I said. "Very promising, clearly at this stage we have to wait until the pear fruitlets 'turn over' he said, but the future looks good.
Below: Left and Right. Conference Pear trees growing on a Vee system in the third leaf
Below: left and right. in the same orchard Conference Pear fruitlets look in very good health
Below: a mature Vee system 'award winning' Conference Pear orchard on a 'sister farm'
That is all for this week
Take care
The English Apple Man