Orchard owner spills the seeds on grafting apple varieties
WARREN GROVE – Mike Beamish has learned some hard lessons about apple trees and winter over the years.
He got more than he bargained for when he first planted Beamish Orchard in Warren Grove 20 years ago.
It grew from tiny sticks to four acres when an extremely bad winter hit. The snow load was huge. It piled up on some trees, crushing them when it melted in spring.
Beamish lost an acre and a half.
But it was actually a good thing, because he was too ambitious, he said.
“It was a bit of a waste of money, but we couldn’t have managed it.”
Beamish Orchard operated a u-pick during this fall’s harvest season.
Coming from a government job in Ottawa, Beamish didn’t realize how much work he was making for himself by buying a hobby farm in P.E.I.
“We ended up planting more and more and at one point we were up to about four acres, because it didn’t look like it was going to be a lot of work.”
The trees need constant pruning and management, he said.
“You don’t realize they’re going to grow into this.”
Today, Beamish keeps his orchard at 400 trees to remain profitable and practical, he said.
“We’re back now to a spot where this is manageable as a hobby.”
Some of this work involves grafting new trees.
“You can’t start an apple tree from seed. You have to graft,” he said.
The seeds will grow a tree, but it won’t make the desired fruit without help. It might grow nothing, or it might grow crab apples, he said.
“If you took the seed from a honey crisp apple and you planted it, you’d get an apple tree, but it wouldn’t produce a honey crisp apple.”
Mark Ashley has some experience with selecting apple varieties. He has 14 different kinds at Wintermoor Orchard and u-pick in York.
“I grew them for their culinary uses, their abilities to blend together to make several really nice, refreshing ciders, and their disease-immune capacity,” he said.
Like Beamish, Ashley grafted some of his varieties, including the Geneva crab.
“We’re really excited about this. It’s going to be one of our next big things — also disease immune.”
Guests, especially children, get excited about the bloodred juice, while jam makers value the high levels of sugar and pectin, he said.
“They’re very sweet to eat and it’s become very popular.”
They are so popular he planted 56 more trees.
The biological key to growing a particular apple lies in the branches, Beamish said.
In the spring, he grows trees from specific seeds to develop root and trunk structure. Then he cuts it off at the top, making a carefully tapered slice. He matches that with a branch from the apple variety he wants to make. He cuts that branch to fit precisely with the trunk.
“The key is that underneath the bark, the green layer is called the cambium layer. And that’s where the growth cells are,” Beamish said. “The green layers have to match.”
The new graft must also be secured, he said.
“As long as they’re touching, you wrap it with an elastic or you cover it with tar or something to keep it together.”
Three to four months later, the branches will grow together. After a year, apples blossom.
“That’s the only way to recreate a variety.”