Apples - they seem like the simplest fruit
to grow. I can take these Empire seeds,
plant them in the ground, and in a few
years I'll have a tree full of Empires, right?
(Farmers): Wrong
See, each apple seed is genetically unique. It will grow a
completely different Apple from the one
it came out of, which could be a major
problem for farmers who want to grow the
apples we know and love. But don't fear,
we've come to one of America's oldest
orchards to find out: How Does It Grow?
The Lyman family has been growing
apples here since 1741. They bought this
land directly from King George. Today the
ninth generation of Lymans work the
farm, which has 100 acres of apples -
that's precisely 27,500 trees, growing over 30 varieties of apples.
Before Europeans brought their
sweet apples to America, only sour
crabapples grew here. Today, the US is
the second largest producer of apples in
the world. Americans eat more apples than
any other whole fruit, except bananas -
which don't even grow here...
So how do farmers grow a whole orchard of the same
type of Apple? Believe it or not, they use
a technique borrowed from the ancient Greeks -
it's called "grafting".
(John): This is the rootstock, we're going to take a budd from
the variety we'd like. We're going to cut
right underneath, and we're going to put
a T cut here, and as long as we go just
under the surface, a cambium layer and...
hit the cambium layer of the budd...
matches to the rootstock...the two will
fuse and create a new tree.
It's vital to prune and shape each tree as it grows
and to do it continuously for the life
of a tree, which can be as short as
twenty years, or as long as a hundred. The
next important step comes in the spring
when the apple trees bloom. Lyman brings
in one beehive for every acre - that's 100 hives!
For the flowers to turn into fruit, they
have to be cross pollinated - that means
the pollen in one flower has to be mixed
with pollen from a different variety of
Apple. The bees have about seven days to
cross pollinate the whole orchard, and
somehow they do it every time. The trees
will produce way more flowers than they
need for a full crop of apples, so it's
key that farmers remove some of the
fruit before it matures. As the fruit
grows big and lush on the trees, it's a
magnet for all kinds of pests. To limit
their use of pesticides, Lyman follows a
certified program called "Eco Apple",
developed with Red Tomato - they're a
nonprofit dedicated to supporting
sustainable and innovative farming.
Rather than spraying their trees to
prevent insect attacks, Lyman monitors
their orchards, so that they only respond
when absolutely necessary.
(John): What we have here is a red sphere, and with an apple
essence we can make it like a ripe apple.
We cover it with sticky material - it will
capture incoming apple maggot flies. We'll
monitor - if we see them, we know it's time to trim.
(John): Another type of insect control is mating
disruption - and basically it's an insect birth control...we have either twist ties or we have hoops -
they got pheromone injected in them, and
release it over time and that'll send
off a scent and will confuse the male &
female...they never get together.
The harvest begins in early August,
starting with Jersey Macs and Ginger Golds,
and finishes in late October with
Granny Smiths. Some of Lyman's pickers
have been working these orchards for
over 20 years. They wear buckets that
hold almost 50 pounds, and look for
apples that are 2 and 3/4 inches wide,
and have their ripened color.
Some apples go into low oxygen storage, which
kinda puts the apples to sleep, so that
they're available to eat the whole year round.
apples are loaded with vitamins and
fiber, but almost all of it is found in
the peel - so put down those peelers!
You can do so much more with apples than
just make apple pie - you can put them in
your salad with your favorite nuts and
cheese; you can add them to your sandwich
for crunch; or you can make them the
bread itself by cross slicing the Apple
and cutting out the core.
That's just a small taste of what you
can do - I'm sure you can come up with
more and you better get started -
there are 7,500 varieties of apples to try!