Any experience with Wafler Nursery? I’m trying to find some trees and they sell quite a few variety on many rootstocks
I’ve never ordered from Wafler before, but it looks like they have nice stuff. I see they have the rare Pink Lady “Maslin” variant, which I believe is the superior version of Pink Lady and more suitable for northern growers as it matures a few weeks earlier than “Cripps” (ripens in November, just in time, before our shorter season ends). Pink Lady Maslin are smaller apples with excellent taste and texture. They develop a gorgeous lighter pink color.
Some pics of a mature Pink Lady Maslin tree I found growing at a local commercial orchard:
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A very beautiful apple, for sure, however, why is there so much waste in commercial orchards? Can’t something be done with all of the fruit on the ground?
I have 3 Pearl Series Cherries on order for the spring from Wafler, so far a very pleasurable experience.
They would if they could. Besides wasting fruit, the drops could be harboring codling moth maggots, plum curculio, and a host of other undesirables. Some varieties hold the fruit on the tree better than others, I’d say this is on the higher end of drops. Beautiful fruit, though. Pink Lady doesn’t size up well here, Lady Williams is far better suited and holds on the tree quite well.
Rural farmers would allow sheep, geese, or hogs in the orchard to eat the drops (and the bugs) and then they’d have apple-fattened goose for dinner. It is considered bad form to sweep these drops up for the cider press, too easy to introduce contamination this way, especially if you’re not pasteurizing.
Matt
Fruit looks great! I can see the spacing on some of the trees in the background. Looks like some type of high density orchard with dwarf trees on a trellis, Is that correct?
Mrsg47
Lots of waste on the ground, but I have not seen a commercial orchard use them except for one that sells the drops PYO as “deer apples.” I believe one of the E coli outbreaks from a few years ago on cider was a result of drops used during the production.
Blue,
Yes. Some of their trees are Bud.9 dwarves trained to a vertical axis spaced 3 feet apart. They have a beautiful site. This is at Catoctin Mountain Orchard near Thurmont, Md. I am one of their regular customers.
Do they grow any older varieties or is it all newer/well known stuff?
MrsG, I don’t know if it will help dry that teary eye, but I have seen some orchards make their fallen apples available to farmers for animal feed after the picking was completed. So, not all fallen apples go to waste.
I’m not certain, but I believe there are legal/regulatory issues around picking up fallen fruit. If nothing else, it could be bruised/blemished and not suited for sale on a commercial level.