A Unique Welsh Heritage Orchard at Plas Gogerddan, Aberystwyth

I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of fruit set in the orchard today. It’s early days but I can hope for a good harvest 🙂 I took four photos : the first top left is the characteristic burr knot on Pig Aderyn the second tree is the crazy branching pattern that this haphazard tree produces. It hasn’t characteristically produced a dominant apical stem however hard you try! It doesn’t seem to have set many seed though which is a shame as I think this is a great cider apple. The largest fruits are James Nicholson Frongoch. This fruit has a really strong bittersweet appley taste, so I think it is potentially a good cider producer. It is of relatively early maturity. The other tree is Afal Cwmafan which is producing stacks of fruit. the mature fruit is only small when it matures It is described by the Welsh Pomona: This variety was found growing in an old walled garden near an old drover’s path by Len Nicholas of Afal y Graig Cider. The garden was part of the Tavern Y Bwlch, which was frequented by drovers who would pen their cattle in the half penny fields to fatten them before market in Neath – therefore it is believed that this is a cider variety used by the tavern (known to be making cider in the 1700s), as if it were in the fields the fruit would have been eaten by the cattle.
Use: Cider - apples are sharp with a lot of tannin
I’d imagine you need some patience for harvesting this one!

With Seidr Pisgah Chi – I just got recognised as one of their top fans! 🎉

A couple of the grafts I did for Cwm Green (Gwyrdd) pears with nice main stems developing nicely. I’m always truly amazed at grafting.

This is the stunning blossom from an ornamental Hawthorn (Crataegus). Yet another tree of the Rosaceae family distributed amongst the pleasure gardens of A Unique Welsh Heritage Orchard at Plas Gogerddan, Aberystwyth

the Perthyre apple derives from Monmouth. it has a mild bitter sweet flavour suited for single variety cider production. I'm always amazed by the tree: it has a great pyramidal shape and gives a potentially huge yield from pure white 'bride to be' blossom which, to me, is unusually large. I only have two trees one that will undoubtedly succumb to the fact that it lost it's guard and became bark-ringed by rabbits. I think it is one tree I will aim to replace by grafting new trees. It is certainly a beauty!

Looks like a lovely day to visit the orchard if you catch a bit of sun. The pears have all flowered and are setting fruit. the apples are a varied bunch but you’re bound to find some varieties full on flowering. In the photo are Late Gold and and Helen’s Apple.

We got back yesterday from a cardiac hospital appointment for ten days in London. Apart from cheering on our daughter and niece compete in the London Marathon, a wonderful trip to see Ludvicio Einaudi in a fully packed Royal Albert Hall, a trip to my brothers’ wonderful allotment, on our return to West Wales, 13 Cwm Green pear varieties have been grafted successfully on Quince A rootstock and will need to be nurtured into single year whips for planting out late in the year. We will have to wait and see if this is a supposedly sweet and juicy dessert pear:)

Stationary Traveller - Remastered 2023 Camel · Stationary Traveller (2023 Remastered & Expanded Edition) · Song · 2023

https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/news/archive/2018/10/title-217289-en.html
here's an article I Wrote in The Conversation a eight years ago. I'm STILL using the same DNA profiling 'DNA Explorer' methodology to identify new and old varieties of apple and pears in the Sanger sequencing lab at IBERS at a surprisingly economic cost. It gives growers and enthusiasts plenty of options for all manner of predictable growing options including compatibility with other varieties, flowering time, harvest time, susceptibility to diseases etc. which are not obvious at the time or under certain changing seasons and regional differences.

How forensic science has helped rediscover forgotten apples - Aberystwyth University How forensic science has helped rediscover forgotten apples19 October 2018 Christian Jung/ShutterstockDanny Thorogood, Aberystwyth UniversityIt’s been a good year for apples. Across Europe the apple harvest is the biggest it has been for a decade. But the handful of apple types you see on supermar...

I THINK all of my trees are genuine! this summer I will DNA profile all of them to check this. The fruit morphologies are all pretty good but I thought I may as well check them against the readily accessible and dare I say,exceptional, DNA Explorer databases published at fruitID.com. I've already done some DNA profiling on some ne saplings that have been derived from a grafting course we did a while back.There were a few surprises for example the Cox Cymraeg scion turned out to be Belle de Boskoop! A number of other scions (most were correct) were identified as another variety, but at least we know what we've got now. We just have to be careful when we're grafting that we've got correct scions!The DNA profiling doesn't lie.

fruitid.com