Today in the orchard
It was Patriot’s Day - a Massachusetts holiday of Revolutionary War re-enactments, parades of Minute Men, and the running of the Boston marathon. So how appropriate that Cammy and I found ourselves in Concord. We were there to visit an old, unidentified apple tree at the Concord Museum. The museum is on the site of the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The solo apple tree probably dates from about 1900, making it old enough to be of historic interest, but probably not dating from the time of Emerson and Thoreau. Several members of the museum staff and a few volunteers met with us, and we spent about an hour with the tree discussing various options for the tree. It’s definitely old and doesn’t have many more years. There are a couple of large sections of dead wood that could be pruned off, but at this point it might be best to leave them. The dead limbs may even be helping to keep the tree in balance. If you remove the weight from one side, the next thing you know, the tree could tip over in the other direction.
Concord Museum staff and volunteers
Several weeks ago I had grafted a few replacements for the tree from scionwood collected and sent to me by local orchardist, Linda Hoffman. There are now ten young grafted trees growing in a bucket next to our masonry heater. We will set them out in the nursery in a few weeks. We will also do a DNA profile of the tree. That will require sending several fresh young leaves to Washington State University. A DNA test may be able to identify the tree by determining whether it matches one of the thousands of cultivars in the DNA reference panel. In the fall the Museum staff will send us fruit to phenotype (and taste!)
Everyone agreed that the tree deserves to remain. It’s a cool old tree. In November the staff will fertilize the ground surface under the tree with several wheelbarrow loads of compost. Otherwise, they’ll mostly leave it alone, let enjoy its senior years and be there for the museum-goers to enjoy.
