Permaculture and fruit guild for cider orchard techniques

[Joshua Mahar]

Hello all!

I am slowly adding to my backyard orchard (1/2 an acre) here in Missoula Montana (North America, Western rocky mountain region). I have inherited three 120 year old McIntosh trees I am on my third year of renovating. I have 7 cider trees in (Harrison, Golden Russet, Dabinett, and Ramsdel Sweet). I have 6 new trees (Brown Snout, Ellis Bitter, Yarlington Mill, Nehou, and Kingston Black) going in this year (as in this week/next week) since the ground is thawed. 

So here's the issue - I have Michael Phillips book on wholistic orcharding, as well as the New Cider Maker's handbook, and Craft Cider, and like 7 other cider books. I am reading "nutrient-poor" soil in all the cider books and I am reading wholistic permaculture love in Phillips book...and these seem slightly at odds. 

So nitty-gritty: I am using his recommended seasonal spray composed of Neem, kelp, fish, and EM, and adjusting depending on time of year. I have not gotten my soil checked, but it's 3 blocks from the river and it's mostly clay. It has also been suburban yard for decades, before which it was old standard orchard land. 

I am also building orchard compost, making/using ramial wood chips, and seeding mycorrhizal fungi at planting and in my compost. 

So...what I'm asking is this - is anyone doing all this stuff? And if so, how is it working out? 

This is my second year planting trees, and is really the first year that I have ready compost to mix into my heavy clay soil. I plan to plant in short rows, 12 feet apart, and plant tree guilds featuring all the diversity I can manage. 

Will this be adding too much into the tree? Meaning - will all this health and wellness be something that will produce a must that is too high in nitrogen, causing raging fermentation speeds? Or is it likely to give me something amazing?

Anyone doing this at larger production scale? 

Lots of questions there...I guess ultimately I'd love to know from people who are actually growing apples for cider that all this work is worth it. 

Thanks for your thoughts and advice

Cheers

Joshua

[Karen Brindle]

Hey Joshua, we have been growing cider apples with Michael’s methods since 2013. 250 apple in poor rocky soil. I also was concerned about too much nitrogen with all the compost plus the nutrient sprays. We have added a lot of home grown sheep compost over the years. The cider maker who buys our apples has said there is no problem with the speed of the ferments/nitrogen in the fruit. Our trees are producing really well, I think you are on the right track! We are in Western WA

Sent from Karen's iPhone

On Apr 10, 2021, at 4:38 PM, Joshua Mahar <joshu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello all!

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[Les Price]

Hi Joshua,  I would reccomend you do invest in a soil test. If you do indeed have mostly clay soil then it would be easy for you to over do it with nutrients. The very high cation exchange of clay soils makes any nutrients or compost added much more readily available than the other soil types.

If you do want to add compost then generally speaking, compost is added to clay soils, when needed, to break up the soil, airate or releve compacted soil. In these cases using higher than normal percentage carbon compost will result in a compost with lower levevels of nitrogen. 

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[CGJ]

Hi Joshua,

I can't speak much of what you say, but I would suggest that getting
soil tested would be worthwhile.

When I started my orchard and garden, I "knew" what my soil was, based
on what New England soils "always" are. When I did start testing, I
found out how wrong I was.

For all the effort you're putting in, getting a bit of hard data is a
small additional step to make sure you're not overlooking something.

Have fun!
Carl
West Barnstable, Massachusetts

[gareth chapman]

I am no expert, as i am just starting my orchard this year, but I would say what is best for the cider isn't necessarily what is best for the trees, and particularly wouldn't be thinking that subjecting trees to nutrient deficiencies in their formative years would make sense. 

[Joshua Mahar]

Hey Karen! This is exactly what I was looking for. And glad to hear the tree are healthy and productive and the cider maker isn't complaining of rocket powered fermentation. 

Are you guys employing fruit guilds? 

What part of WW? I'm originally from the North Seattle area. 

Cheers

[Joshua Mahar]

Thanks Les! 

I am still very new to this, so the data about soils is helpful. I have already been planning in this direction regarding heavy clay. I will get the soil test at some point and we shall see what that tells me.

Cheers!

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[Joshua Mahar]

Thanks Gareth, 

I agree with you. And as I consider growing an orchard, and wine grapes for that matter (different group), my priority is vital health of the plant and soil restoration. What will be fascinating is to see what that does to the juice once we start baring. 

Cheers

[Karen Brindle]

Hi Joshua I don’t know what guilds are but I would suggest a soil test at some point, we learned from ours that we lack Boron, a very common issue. We are in Quilcene near Hood Canal.

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On Apr 13, 2021, at 1:51 PM, Joshua Mahar <joshu...@gmail.com> wrote:



Thanks Gareth, 

I agree with you. And as I consider growing an orchard, and wine grapes for that matter (different group), my priority is vital health of the plant and soil restoration. What will be fascinating is to see what that does to the juice once we start baring. 

Cheers

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[gareth chapman]

Yeah exactly, this holy grail of low nutrient fruit. Is from long established old standard tree orchards, that were once upon a time mostly nutured, whether that be directly or by animals grazing the orchard floor.

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[Nick M]

I do some spraying with compost tea in the spring, but because I'm in the dry Columbia gorge, I don't need to worry about most tree diseases. I do a lot of work on the soil, and by far my favorite things are a winter/spring cover crop, and as much mulch as I can get. The only trees I actually fertilize are the younger trees, everything else gets its nutrition from the soil and whatever mulch I put down as well as the cover crop residues. I imagine with all of the mulch and residue there is probably a fair amount of nitrogen in my soil, but I would guess most of it is tied up. So far, last years cider pressing consisted of my own fruit and commercial fruit. My fruit were much smaller and sweeter, and my cider ferments much slower. 

I'm guessing you won't run into many issues with the holistic approach, its just a lot of work. I think the biggest thing that would contribute to high N levels in your finished fruits are going to be chemically derived N sources that are almost immediately available (urea, ammonium salts, nitrates, etc.).

Like others said, a baseline soil test is great way to start. If you don't have a lab nearby, there are mail in options as well.

Good luck!

Nick

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le samedi 10 avril 2021 à 19:38:25 UTC-4, joshu...@gmail.com a écrit :

So here's the issue - I have Michael Phillips book on wholistic orcharding, as well as the New Cider Maker's handbook, and Craft Cider, and like 7 other cider books. I am reading "nutrient-poor" soil in all the cider books and I am reading wholistic permaculture love in Phillips book...and these seem slightly at odds. 

I am good friend with Michael, and we respect one another a lot.

However I have always thought his orcharding practices were way too labor intensive for what is needed for producing good cider fruit.

Not that it would be detrimental to fruit quality, but simply unnecessary work! Maybe I am simply lazy...

So my approach is one of minimum intervention. I have seen so many apple trees (including those in the wild apple forests of Kazakhstan) that produce plentyful crops without any human intervention that this has influenced my thinking. Naturally, if you expect to obtain like 50 tons per hectare of orchard, then you need to work a lot for that. But if you can be happy with less, then stay zen and enjoy...

I guess my next book should be titled "Zen and the art of growing cider apples"

(PS, for those who are too young, there was a very interesting book published in 1974 titled "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" which became a classic)

[AW]

Hey Joshua.  

Greetings from the Puget Sound (and the Islands, and the Cascades....I've got here and there).  

Yeah....I've read the same books as you, and probably 50 more.  It's really hard to be an expert on the entire integrated process (soil, climate, orchard composition and variety, tree health and shape, fruit processing, winemaking).  I personally am pretty strong on trees and fruit, but have slacked a bit on the soil...and probably on the mechanical technology of cidermaking.  Part of the reason for this is that in my home (original) orchard I have sandy loam with ancient fruit trees thriving all around.  I've not tried to mess with a good thing there and have poured more effort into grafting, planting and pruning.  My crop has gone from progressed from the carboy scale to the barrel scale...I haven't been scientific about measuring nitrogen....My observation is that fermentation is a little faster compared with other juice that I buy in from commercial orchards.  However the juice I buy in is high gravity heritage fruit from the commercial region east of the mountains, and my orchard gleanings tend to be slightly lower gravity from the younger trees and cooler climate (I think).    

More recently I planted another orchard on heavy clay and was forced to more deeply consider the universe below grade.  There was local evidence that my clay prairie was suitable for growing fruit trees in the long term but the growth rate would be slow.  I opted for more of a soil building technique where I planted on top of wide, low mounds of imported mulch and topsoil.  I think the clay underneath is retaining moisture, which is helpful...but the for the first few years the trees are really experiencing something more like a large planter...and will encounter the native soil slowly as they get older.

This is all to say that before you can worry about the nutrient levels of your cider you need health, bearing trees.  It IS possible to over fertilize young trees...I hear the evidence is in numerous small whippy shoots and watersprouts instead of a moderate number of larger-caliper branches.  If that happens you obviously need to make a correction...but as long as you are getting good growth I would concentrate on developing proper scaffold architecture and aim to worry about nutrient content of the juice in 10-15 years.      

I hope that helps.  I visited Missoula a few times in my college days....It's a really nice place, easy to feel like home.  If you are ever in the Seattle are let me know and I would be happy to show you around and offer you a tasting.  

AW

[Don]

Op, next time you go to the super market take a look at the giant apples. buy the largest one you can find. At first bite you'll know close to everything there is to know about too much nitrogen; the apple will be tasteless as all that extra nitrogen makes it retain more water. Great if you are selling apples by the look and by the pound, not so great if you are trying to refine the flavors that are not there.

Growing trees like children need their food. Once they are established and in full production you want to cut back on the nitrogen. It is not more complicated than that. Heck every tree is a soil test; watch out for yellowish leaves as a sign that they could use some extra nitrogen. Foliar application would snap them right back. 

[Joshua Mahar]

Nick - thanks - this is helpful!

[Joshua Mahar]

Claude - 

thank you for weighing in - I appreciate your insights into this. I get a lot of comfort knowing that even if there are things I'd like to do but don't that it will likely be ok. 

Cheers

[Joshua Mahar]

Adam - thanks for your thoughts and the invite. I am from Western WA, and so make the trek back fairly regularly. You had me at "a tasting." :)

Your content is confirming, and I appreciate the insight. I did a similar thing with my trees this year, planting them in a mixture of material. I will continue with my foliar sprays and soil building. We shall see how that goes. 

Thanks again, 

Cheers

[Joshua Mahar]

Don - 

I appreciate your thoughts on this. This is reassuring. 

Cheers!