Establishing a new cider orchard

The decisions that cannot be revisited are made before the first tree goes in: the site and its air drainage, the soil and whether it needs draining, the rootstock, the spacing, the row orientation, the cultivar mix and its pollination arithmetic, and the harvest method the layout has to accommodate. Every one of them is fixed for the life of the orchard, and several of them are expensive to get wrong in ways that only become visible years later.

Ground preparation is worth doing properly because it cannot be repeated. Perennial weeds are far easier to deal with before planting than around established trees. Subsoiling a compacted layer, installing drainage, correcting pH and building phosphate and potassium reserves are all one-off operations that become difficult once roots are in the way.

Where an old orchard is being replaced on the same ground, replant disease is a real constraint. Apple after apple in the same soil grows poorly for reasons involving a complex of soil organisms, and the practical responses are a break of several years in another crop, planting into the old alleys rather than the old tree positions, or accepting slower establishment.

A newly planted maiden has to regenerate roots before it can make shoot growth, and everything that competes with it for water in that period costs growth that is never recovered. Grass is the main competitor, and it competes far more effectively than most growers expect: a maintained bare or mulched circle of about a metre radius around each trunk is one of the highest-return interventions in the whole establishment period.

Water is the other. Even in the wet cider regions, a dry spell in the first or second summer will check or kill newly planted trees, and irrigation in year one is a routine part of commercial establishment. In a small planting a bucket per tree per week through a dry spell does the job; the point is that a tree with sixty centimetres of new root cannot reach the moisture an established tree takes for granted.

Protection covers several threats at once. Rabbits and hares bark young trees; voles work under long grass at the base; deer browse and fray; and livestock will destroy an unguarded planting quickly. Spiral guards, mesh guards or full tree shelters are chosen according to which of these is present, and a guard left on too long becomes its own problem by harbouring damp and vermin against the bark.

Formative pruning in the first years sets the framework the tree will carry for its life. A bush destined for mechanical harvest needs a strong, straight trunk with a well-spaced head above shaker height and no low branches to foul the machine. A half-standard or standard needs the trunk trained clear to grazing height before the head is formed at all, which takes two or three additional years in the nursery and the orchard.

It is standard practice to remove the first flowers or fruitlets. A tree that fruits in its second year has diverted resources from root and framework growth into a handful of apples, and it will be smaller and less productive for years afterwards. This is a genuine short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain, and it is one of the interventions most often skipped.

Beyond formative pruning, a cider orchard is generally pruned lightly. Heavy pruning stimulates vegetative regrowth, delays cropping and thickens the canopy in a way that keeps it damp and increases scab and canker pressure. The aim is an open framework with light reaching the interior, achieved gradually.