Heritage apple trees will produce 700 bushels annually ~
The persistent blank spot on Joe Rowell Park’s east side is set to blossom into a vibrant apple orchard producing heritage varieties.
This fall the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project planted 70 trees in the Dolores park as part of a partnership with the town. Native grasses will be planted as cover for the orchard floor.
“It is here for the community to cherish, a beautiful asset that will be enjoyed by generations,” said MORP co-director Jude Schuenemeyer. “We purposely planted the rarer varieties. It will be a real place of activity where people can learn and be a part of something.” read full story in The Journal
The Colorado Orange apple was thought to be extinct until now
Though Washington state’s apple growers recently made headlines with the introduction of the crunchy new Cosmic Crisp variety, Colorado has a long history as an apple growing state. Now that history has resurfaced with the discovery of the rare Colorado Orange apple, thought to be possibly extinct.
The discovery comes from Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project (MORP), an organization that “works to preserve Colorado’s fruit- growing heritage and restore an orchard culture and economy to the southwestern region.” Co-founders Jude and Addie Schuenemeyer started the organization to preserve the apple-growing history of Montezuma county, the Southwestern corner of the state that borders Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.
According to MORP, Colorado was a prolific apple producing state starting in the 1860s, winning three gold medals for its fruit at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. Since then the many grown in the state have fallen out of favor in the marketplace; luckily many of those orchards still exist, with 100-year-old trees still producing fruit. Read more in Sunset.com
The historic Gold Medal Orchard, located in McElmo Canyon where it joins Trail Canyon, represents one of hundreds of remnant historic orchards located in Montezuma County and across Colorado. First planted in 1890 by James Giles, the orchard soon earned its name by winning a gold medal for the quality of its apples and peaches at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.
Remaining on-site are several old apple, pear, and quince trees, portions of the historic orchard fence; and under the grand cottonwoods are two historic homes with sheds and a privy.
When you visit, close your eyes and imagine what you would have seen while standing here at the turn of the 20th century. Fruit trees spread across the canyon floor, pink, white, and red blossoms snowing down in the spring, limbs heavy with crops throughout the summer and fall. Apples, peaches, apricots, pears, cherries, and plums ripening in the warm sun and cool evenings in the perfect location to grow beautiful and flavorful fruit.
Time passed, the trees grew into their grandeur, and then slowly faded into the landscape. Over 100 years later, only a few historic trees remain, hardy remnants of the orchard’s former glory. Heritage fruit varieties were lost, and the story of the Gold Medal Orchard and its prize-winning fruits was nearly forgotten.
Today, the story of the Gold Medal Orchard is remembered by the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project (MORP) through its work to preserve Colorado’s fruit-growing heritage. In 2015, the orchard was listed as one of Colorado’s Most Endangered Places by Colorado Preservation, Inc. (CPI). MORP works with the Kenyon family to have it become a Saved Site. In 2019, this project was awarded an Endangered Places Progress Award by CPI at the Dana Crawford & State Honor Awards.
When you are at the orchard, open your eyes wide and take a good look at the roughly 400 fruit trees growing before you. They represent rare fruit genetics (primarily apples) that were grafted by MORP from this and other historic Colorado orchards. Envision these young trees of old genetics reaching their prime, and then still growing another hundred years from now. Gifts of our fruit-growing pioneers passed down by MORP for future generations to taste and preserve.
You are invited to share in this vision by becoming a Sustain-a-Tree Member of MORP.
The gates to the orchard are opened during scheduled MORP events, but you can view the site anytime from outside the fence. If you are a Sustain-a-Tree member you can contact MORP (via email) to schedule a visit as well.
Interpretive signs paid for in part by History Colorado, State Historic Fund which will be installed by year 2020.
Attend a MORP TREE SALE EVENT (no minimum purchase) or schedule appointment w/ 10 tree minimum purchase. Trees are $60. All are hand-grafted and grown naturally using lacewing larvae for pest control in 3 gallon pots averaging about 3 feet tall. Did you know that MORP members receive $10 off each heritage tree purchased and qualify for an additional bulk tree discount (buy 30 or more trees and get $20 off each tree)? Not a member yet? Become one today. We thank you.
For the first time since Mountain Sun Juice closed its Dolores doors 14 years ago, local apple juice shipped out of Montezuma County in October, 2016. Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project produced and sold 2,200 gallons of Montezuma Valley Heritage Blend raw apple juice to hard cider makers in Denver, Boulder and Cortez. MORP used proceeds to purchase local heirloom apples, engage Montana’s NW Mobile Juicing, lease cold storage and processing facilities, ship juice and coordinate the project. Funded in part by a recently awarded USDA Local Food Promotion Program grant, MORP undertook this project to evaluate whether mobile juicing can help fruit growers reach juice markets. With the preponderance of juice apples in our orchards, market opportunity exists not only for hard cider, but for our fresh juice as well. Wouldn’t it be great if local apple juice could again be available in our own community?
We learned some valuable lessons in piloting this project. One of the most surprising was that health and juice regulations would not allow juice pressed on a mobile processor to be sold wholesale or retail, even when pasteurized. So we turned our efforts to press juice for hard cider which is exempt from regulations as fermentation effectively kills pathogens.
In order for Ryal Schallenberger of Montana’s Northwest Mobile Juicing to bring his mobile juice press to Montezuma County, MORP needed to guarantee we would have 800 bushels of apples to press. Knowing there was a bumper crop on the trees, and that one orchard alone could produce 800 bushels, we said sure; and when Ryal set a date in mid-October, a 12-day crash-course on juice manufacturing ensued.
MORP set a goal to pick 100 bushels a day. After our first day yielded 20 bushels, albeit with only three pickers, we got nervous. MORP put out a call to pay fruit-growers for picked and delivered apples, volunteer picking crews were organized and seven orchard owners opened their gates to mostly complete strangers. Over the course of eight days, 32 volunteers and four orchard owners picked, shook, and packed 32,000 pounds of apples. Over and over we heard old-timers recount, “on a good day, so-and-so could hand-pick 100 bushels”. We were humbled by our fruit-growing pioneers.
Picking apples was one thing. What about selling juice? How would we price juice in a market ranging from $1.50 to $9.00/gallon? Where exactly does one put 800 bushels of apples and how do they get there? Furthermore, how do we move a tote of juice weighing 2,600 pounds, and how do we get six of them to Denver? Thanks to years of getting to know old orchards, their people, and folks in the cider business, we knew who to ask. The juice sold out, and box-by-box, MORP purchased and borrowed wooden fruit crates, 20-bushel bins and milk crates. We borrowed trucks, trailers, barns, rented a loader and leased a forklift, tractor, warehouse and cold storage from Russell Vineyards to finish the job. Well, almost. There was still that question of getting 10,400 pounds of juice to Denver, after numerous unsuccessful attempts at sourcing a refrigerated truck. But as luck would have it, Lang Livestock had just purchased a truck from our friends at Geisinger Feed. They shipped the juice on an open-air flatbed at night to keep it cool. How happy we were envisioning a 75’ Kenworth semi delivering Montezuma Valley Heritage Blend apple juice in downtown Denver early the next morning. Next time, we envision the truck being full.
MORP is grateful for everyone’s generosity and confidence, and the true community effort it took to accomplish this project. Let us do it again!
Completed Needs Assessment to study feasibility of MORP purchasing a mobile press for use in our heritage orchards:
34 unknown cultivar matches to other samples – likely named cultivars not in ARS dataset
103 unique unknown cultivars – some are likely seedlings. However, MORP took care to collect from grafted – not seedling trees – so many of these unique unknowns are also likely named historic cultivars not listed in the ARS dataset
195 cultivars in total out of 489 MORP samples
Testing made possible by a 2015 Colorado USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant award to MORP
Historic Apple Cultivar Identification Using DNA Fingerprinting Techniques by Gayle Volke, USDA-ARS National Laboratory for Genetic Resource Preservation (article from MORP 2016 newsletter)
Apple cultivars are traditionally vegetatively propagated by grafting; many apple cultivars have been sold and exchanged over the centuries. During the American homestead era, apple trees were planted on properties as part of the process of cultivating the land. Cultivars purchased as grafted trees from nurseries often had desirable traits, such as large, higher quality fruit that could be eaten fresh, stored for extended lengths of time, or used for cider production. Trees planted from seeds often did not exhibit desirable traits for fresh consumption, and were instead used primarily for cider. Many historic apple cultivars remain available today as grafted trees in national and private collections. In fact, DNA genetic fingerprinting techniques have been used to develop a database of fingerprints of materials in the USDA collection for use in unknown cultivar identification.
An informal collaboration among the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project, historic orchards of Wyoming (both through USDA Specialty Crop Research Grants), Yosemite and Redwood National Parks, as well as El Dorado National Forest is underway to identify locally important historic apple cultivars. This effort seeks to use known historic cultivars in the USDA- ARS National Plant Germplasm System Apple Collection—as well as selected varieties in collections at Washington State University and the Temperate Orchard Conservancy (Oregon)—as standards to determine the identities of unknown apples.
Leaf tissue from key historic apple trees was sent to the National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins, Colorado. A graduate student from the University of Wyoming has been extracting DNA from these leaf samples and will be preparing the extracts for fingerprinting analyses. Molecular markers, termed “microsatellites”, will be used to compare the genetic identities of the unknown (or tentatively named) cultivars to those in known collections. We hope to be able to identify many of the grafted materials that were previously unknown. This method of genetic testing will only yield cultivar names for grafted varieties; therefore, historic trees that originated from seedling sources will likely remain unidentified.
Publications that relate to this work are: One is a publication by Kanin Routson, Ann Reilley, Adam Henk and Gayle Volk titled “Identification of Historic Apple Trees in the Southwestern United States and Implications for Conservation” (HortScience 2009. 44:589-594) and another was published by Gayle Volk and Adam Henk “Historic American Apple Cultivars: Identication and Availability” (J. Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci. 2016. 141:292-301).
Thank you for sharing our passion for growing heritage trees. We hand-graft each tree for you in order to spread these rare and historic genetics across Montezuma County and beyond. Our annual tree sales are also a source of revenue to help support our non-profit efforts to keep Montezuma County “Orchard Country”. We thank you.
We guarantee that our trees are healthy at the time of purchase. We further guarantee that trees are living things and that there are many ways to kill them. We gladly offer feedback and advice, but not refunds or replacements.
If you have any unresolved concerns when selecting a tree do not buy it. Please “talk tree care” with us anytime before or after your purchase. Your success is important to us.
Even if planting a tree or an orchard is often an act of perseverance, in our county alone, we still find growing – thousands of trees 100 years or older. So, please plant a tree today for our future, and in honor of the hard work of our early fruit-growing pioneers!
MORP PLANTING ADVICE:
Trees are happiest in the ground, not in a pot, so plant immediately for best success.
Select a site with good soil drainage and good air flow. Avoid cold sinks.
Space standard apple trees 25-30 feet apart; dwarf 15 feet apart.
Dig hole 2-3 times wider than the rootball and just deep enough to allow graft union to be several inches above soil line to keep traits of rootstock. In the case of seedling rootstock you may bury graft. Old timers did so for a stronger tree.
Do not add hot compost, manure, or fertilizer to planting hole. Back fill with native soil mixed with one third composted compost or quality potting soil. Water in and tap down air pockets. Mulch with 1-2” of compost per year; do not over do it.
Protect your tree from deer, rodents, and other mechanical damage. Good fence is essential. Paint lower south trunk with plain white latex paint diluted with water to protect from sun scald. If you use tree stakes, trunk guards, limb spacers, ID tags, etc., reposition EVERY year.
Proper watering is key; not too much and not too little; just the right amount at just the right time. Easy to say, but takes experience to learn as the answer depends on the weather and site conditions, age and condition of tree, season and dormancy, and other factors. Rule of thumb: water slowly and deeply to get water down and out into soil profile. Repeat process when just the top of the soil just begins to dry. Flood or drip irrigation is best; sprinklers cause disease and sunburn, and often do not water deep enough. Water deeply and frequently to get a tree established; even during dry winter months; very hard to water too much in heat of the summer!
