Open Orchard Project

We are encouraging the return of fruit trees and orchards in Southland- especially choosing the wonderful heritage varieties that our colonial forebears thought worthy of bringing over from their home lands.

Project outline the summary of the project to date and support request 2010 for the next stage.

Click on the links below to see our fact sheets to help you have success with your orchard/fruit trees.

Choosing Fruit Trees

Planting and caring for fruit trees

Pruning

Taking cuttings from old varieties

Grafting

Apple scion wood list This is the list of scion on wood we had available spring 2009.

We have a fruit tree sale the first two weeks in August each year available 2010

Southland heritage apple gallery

Fruit trees and berry bushes are great living gifts and they could start a new orchard!

Here is the link to a two minute whimsical story of the Orchard Project made by University students http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w50pGlXG7TM

SOUTHLAND OPEN ORCHARD PROJECT Thank you for your interest in Southland’s ‘Open Orchard’ project where we hope to get a diverse range of old healthy Heritage Fruit trees back in to our Southland communities. We would like to set up orchards in every corner of Southland and teach the people in those communities how to care for them prune the trees and graft new ones. We would like young and old to have the experience of picking fruit from their own trees and surplus could be sold at small community market days like it once was. This old art is almost lost and we would like future generations to sample the diverse cultural heritage that our colonial forebears thought worthy of bringing to their new homeland 150 years ago. It is a good time to do it now when the need to be aware of where food comes from is more important. Also in today’s changing world it would be good for us to have a good supply of locally grown food. Whether it be rising food prices, climate change an oil crisis or just having the option of eating local healthy food it’s time has come!

Heritage orchard project taking off: Google search: Heritage apples and a large article that appeared in the Southland times comes up.
2007: We ordered 200 heritage fruit trees and 200 root stocks late in the season due to the instant demand that came after an article in the Southland Times. We should have got double as they all went without further advertising and 4 successful\ grafting days were held in four districts.! Constant enquiries ever since.

2008 We successfully applied to the Sustainable Farming Fund for support for this project and received $6,500 a year for three years mainly to cover travel costs so we can travel to every corner of Southland, visiting old orchards and holding pruning and grafting workshops. The funding also supports us holding an Autumn fruit festival and setting up a Southland Heritage fruit bank so the varieties that we save will always be available for cuttings.

Order now- we have a good selection of fruit trees arriving in early August bare rooted for immediate planting. These will be initially limited but if we have some left over we will re-contact those who would like more. We have two retailing nurseries and two wholesaling ones in the South Island reproducing these old heritage trees. Diacks Nurseries in Invercargill also stock a range of heritage trees from the above nurseries and they can be planted at any time because they are in large bags.

We have 600 rootstock for $2.50 each (unless pre ordered limit 5 per person)- buy them now from the Environment Centre and have them established in a container or in your garden ready for September grafting.

Check out the list at the top of the page of apples available known historically to do well in Southland/Otago Bioregion. We have included apples that we are trialling from other South Island regions that we expect will do well and that are readily available. We will have samples of apples for sale at the Riverton Farmers Market- different each week, from Guytons 'Aporo Pai Orchard' -from late January. The varieties available each week will be posted here on the Farmers market page.

Extra Info: Ancient Apples originated in the Tien-Shan Mountains between China and Kazakhstan they spread through silk trail to the west. Heritage apples have become increasingly popular again due mainly to taste and disease resistance. New varieties have been bred to give instant appeal on supermarket shelves, travel and handle well with lack of bruising, have uniformity of size and ripening with good storage life. Recent Tree Crops Association and Hort Research work has uncovered simply what people have known for years that modern apples do not have the flavour of the old varieties. This work has shown that some `old apples' have superior levels of antioxidants that can inhibit cancer cells and reduce heart disease. See the following website: http://www.treecrops.org.nz/resrch/apple/applecanc.html Most trees are grafted onto MM106 virus free root stock, which grows about 2-3m high and should be planted 3m apart. The following varieties are ideal for organic growing methods and have been selected for pest and disease resistance, i.e. low Black Spot and mildew (and other diseases) and less Leaf Roller and Codlin Moth problems compared to the more modern varieties.