New lease of life for apple collection
20 January 2012
More than 2000 apple cultivars are back in the ground after a two-year operation to propagate and re-plant the entire National Collection.
Brogdale Farm in Kent, holder of the National Fruit Collection, undertakes the mammoth tree-planting marathon every 25 years to keep the collection young and healthy.
The orchards at Brogdale Farm are unique, bringing together the largest number of apple cultivars in the world with some dating back as far as Roman times. However, the current trees are now 36 years old and some have become weak and diseased.
An entire new orchard of about 1500 dessert varieties is now in the ground, with another orchard of about 700 cooking apple varieties to be planted in two years' time. Two specimens of each apple are planted and recorded to allow for losses. Meanwhile the old trees will be kept until Brogdale is sure the new saplings are true to type.
'We need to preserve them to maintain the genetic diversity of apples, so that breeders in the future can have a big resource to draw on if new cultivars are needed to combat the effects of climate change,' said Tim Biddlecombe, of the Farm Advisory Services Team which curates the National Fruit Collection.