Telopea Mtn currently grows over 140 varieties of old apples with 216 more to come this year, plus we have another 41 of the proper English and French cider varieties as well.
These are planted on a variety of dwarf rootstocks ranging form M9 & M26 planted in 1995 to the newer plantings mainly on MM102 & MM106.
The first plantings on alternative rows of M9 & M26 are inter-planted in the rows of exiting Telopea flowers (Warratah) these are cut for flowers to sell and to feed to animals. Then we planted down the middle between the rows with Primocane varieties of raspberries (Bogong and Autumn Bliss) so these don’t need to be tied up as they flower and fruit twice per year on the initial canes(the Primocane) these can then be slashed down if the space is needed for equipment to harvest or other reasons.
These apples have been watered only once since the day they were planted (to test the fire protection system of sprinklers) and took longer than they could have to fruit well but we have been harvesting good quantities even in the midst of a drought with only a minimum of straw much used to help conserve water.
An example of this is a “Blenheim Orange” on M9, @ 11 years old it is only 2mtrs tall but has produced an average of 55kgs a year for the last 3 years. With the heat in the drought this year the fruit ripens earlier, has intense sugars and good colour but grows to normal size, some weigh about 700grams each.
2009 update- this year we got a bit greedy with this same tree, it had 100kg of fruit in the heat but we have lost 3 branches to the weight as they got bigger- that will teach me not to thin some fruit by hand.
It has really become essential to net with the lack of water around.
Newer plantings are on MM102 & MM106 as they are mainly for espaliers or they are cider trees and should not have as many bird problems till they get very ripe, these will be let grow to 3.6mtrs as there is no need to thin for bigger fruit or net them.
In 2007 we focused on collecting European pears, now I have about 110 vars grafted onto our stock trees and 50 or so of these have been grafted onto their own D6 rootstocks for planting out in 2007.
The Nashi collection is now 16 with 8 more to collect in 2008 to complete what is officially here in Australia.
In 2008 I have started to collect some crab apples, these will be use for making jelly and to give Tannins to the cider, but they are also very useful pollinators for other apples “Golden Hornet” and “Gorgeous” have very large crops.
We have also commenced putting in 50 meter rows of the Heritage apples on M26 dwarf stock to establish a scion collection; these are planted only 0.5 meters apart, I hope by the end of 2009 to have 400 of the 620 Varieties we still have left in Australia collected.
