Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/681909
www.goodfruit.com Good Fruit Grower JUNE 2016 21 owner and operator of the 64-acre Black Diamond Farm. "It's not a guaranteed $500 a bin, but it will be a good 10 years before the supply of heirloom and cider varieties equals demand." The market According to The Cyder Market's Cider Maker Survey, there were 542 cider makers in the United States as of December 2015. That's a 30 percent increase over the previous year. New York leads the country in the number of cider makers at 65, according to the survey data. Merwin esti- mates the number to be higher, around 75, with half of them working under farm winery licenses. Of interest to those looking to enter the cider apple sales business: Many cideries own orchards, but the majority neither own nor lease orchards, instead pur- chasing or contracting for fruit and juice from others. Nearly one-quarter of all cider makers claim to use at least one type of heirloom apple in their products. About 10 percent reported they use organically grown fruit. For survey purposes, "organic" was defined as either certi- fied organic or a growers' claims to use accepted organic practices to produce fruit. Management concerns For veteran orchardists, growing cider apples is not that different from growing dessert apples. However, new growers shouldn't jump right in to bittersweet and bittersharp production, Merwin said. "It's better to start with growing dual-purpose heirlooms because of some of the special challenges that lie with the others," he said. Cider apples tend to be smaller, more acidic and to have more tannins. They can set in clusters, are harder to thin and tend toward biennial yields. Some trees are extremely vigorous and others are very spurry. Plantings should be organized by bloom times. "Many are late-blooming, as much as three weeks later than Fujis," he said. "Timing of chemical thinning sprays is critical. You don't want to be running all over your orchards turning the sprayer on and off because your plantings aren't organized according to bloom." About half of European bittersweets bloom even later than Northern Spys, he said. They were probably selected that way to reduce damage by Europe's spring frosts, which are sometimes later than those in the U.S. So, when the temperatures dropped to 5 degrees Fahrenheit in New York's Finger Lakes region in early April, Merwin experienced significant bud damage on his noncider varieties. His bittersweets, however, were still at silver tip and were unaffected. Rootstocks When it comes to rootstocks for cider varieties, Wood said he chooses those with which he's most familiar, which include Budagovsky 9 and 118, and Malling 9, M.26 and M.111. For the most part, his decision is driven by how he harvests his cider varieties: He shakes his trees. "I'm looking for deep-rooted, sturdy, precocious root- stock that has a strong graft union and is capable of being shaken," he said. He shakes his trees because he wants his apples to achieve a very high degree of ripeness. "It's way beyond the appropriate ripeness of an apple that is hand-harvested from the tree for storage or packing." Merwin advocates using full-dwarf rootstocks. "Smaller trees are easier to prune, spray and harvest, and fruit quality is consistently better on more slender trees," he said. Big standard trees tend to suffer more from pest and diseases, and their crowns are so dense that the best apples are on the outside and the top, while fruit inside the canopy is denied light and does not develop its full flavor, he said. "In dwarf trees — at 10- to 12-feet tall and 5-feet wide at the base — every apple gets good sun. An open tree canopy is the easiest to get in a dwarf orchard, and you will get more sugar, pigment and higher quality," he said. Merwin allows that high-density plantings are very costly to establish — as much as $25,000 per acre with tree Courtesy Brenda Bailey The four apples pictured here in grower Steve Wood's hands are, clockwise from the bottom right, Dabinett, Ellis Bitter, Major and Foxwhelp. For information only. Not a label. Prior to use, always read and follow the product label directions. WILBUR-ELLIS logo, Ideas to Grow With, and Total Nutrition System are registered trademarks of Wilbur-Ellis Company. TNS is a trademark of Wilbur-Ellis Company. K-0416-440 ag.wilburellis.com Value that Sets Us Apart Total Nutrition System ® is the Wilbur-Ellis Company's ability to provide consistent, accurate and timely analysis by identifying a need and matching it to the correct product at the appropriate time for application. 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