Today in the orchard
It was 41F at 6:00 AM this morning. It actually rained a little bit last night, though less than a quarter of an inch. We’ll take it. I made applesauce again with more Dudley drops. Which brings up the subject of drops. What’s that all about?
Don’t eat the drops in this field. (Photo by Eliza Greenman)
Apples drop for a number of reasons. Most apples drop because they are ripe. This makes great sense. The tree grows fruit, the purpose of which is to be a container for the seed inside. The seed is produced to continue the species. The seed and fruit ripen simultaneously. The fruit then drops in hopes for a deer, cow or squirrel to come along and eat the fruit and fertilize the seed.
Quite a few apples are dropping now. Mostly, the apples are dropping because they are ripe. Some are dropping fruit because they have a lot of apples on the tree and they don’t need them all; there’s plenty of seed in the fruit still on the tree. Others are dropping because we’re having a drought here in central Maine. Shedding a percentage of the crop saves resources for the remaining fruit. Brown seeds indicate the fruit is ripe; if the seeds are white, they’re not ripe yet.
Are the drops safe to eat? We eat drops right off the ground and also use them in cooking because we have no livestock in our orchards. I like to use them for sauce because it’s a great way to use the apples we can’t sell. We’ve never gotten sick using drops. The USDA became very freaked out about drops some years ago because of ecoli contamination. Here’s a rule of thumb about drops: if your apple lands in a pile of poop, feed it to a cow.
