Tag: Colorado heritage apple trees
Mobile Cider Press Pilot
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?
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:
CapLog - MORP - Needs Assessment - Final - Updated Jan 17
http://montezumaorchard.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/CapLog-MORP-Needs-Assessment-Final-Updated-Jan-17.pdf
MORP DNA Results of Historic Apple Trees
MORP DNA results of 489 apple leaf samples collected by MORP and submitted to the USDA-ARS National Laboratory for Genetic Resource Preservation for identification, sorted by name. Click the arrows at the bottom of the document to scroll through all pages or click the link to see full document. MORP DNA Results_name
http://montezumaorchard.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/MORP-DNA-Results_name.pdf
MORP DNA results of 489 apple leaf samples sorted by tree ID number. Click the arrows at the bottom of the document to scroll through all pages or click the link to see full document. MORP DNA results_treeID
http://montezumaorchard.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/MORP-DNA-results_treeID.pdf
Details:
- 58 named cultivars
- 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 Volk, 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).
MORP Tree Guarantee and Planting Advice for Colorado
MORP TREE GUARANTEE
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 varieties across Colorado and beyond. Our tree sales are also a source of revenue to help support our non-profit efforts to keep Colorado “Orchard Country”. We thank you.   Â
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 – EXCEPT for at the time of PICKUP. If you have unresolved concerns please let us know BEFORE you take your trees home. If we are not available at the time of pickup, leave behind any trees you are not happy with and we will refund you. 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 growers!
MORP PLANTING ADVICE:
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- 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 feet or more apart; semi dwarf 15 feet or more; dwarf 8 feet or less
- 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.
- 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 no more than 1-2” of compost per year.
- Protect your tree from deer, rodents, bear, and other mechanical damage. Good fence and tree guards are essential. Paint lower south trunk with plain white latex paint diluted with 50% water to protect from sun scald. Some tree guards will also serve this purpose. Reposition tree stakes, guards, limb spacers, ID tags, etc., EVERY year.
- Proper watering is key. Takes experience to learn as needed amount/frequency depends on the weather & site conditions, age & condition of tree, season & dormancy, and other factors. Rule of thumb: MULCH & water slowly and DEEPLY to get water down and out into the soil profile, ~20 gallons per time. Repeat when the top of the soil begins to dry. Flood, drip, or micro sprinklers are best. Overhead watering causes disease and sunburn and often does not water deep enough. Water more frequently to establish a tree (up to 3x per week in the heat of summer). Decrease frequency as trees establish (~ 1x every other week for mature trees). Remember to water newer trees 1x per dry winter months.
Orchard Revival
“Colorado apples” isn’t a phrase you hear too often, at least not anymore. But in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the southwest Colorado landscape was much different, renowned for its vigorous and diverse orchards. Varieties from the state even won two gold medals in the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, according to Jude Schuenemeyer, owner of Let It Grow Nursery and Garden Market in Cortez, CO. Now, Schuenemeyer and his wife, Addie, are working to preserve and restore the region’s rich fruit-growing history.
“I could probably rattle on about this all day. I’ve been known to,” Schuenemeyer says of his Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project. The thing is, you sort of want him to, because it’s just so interesting. Read more in Growing Produce…
By Growing Produce Staff | November 15, 2011
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