Fruits are divided into soft fruit and top fruit. Top fruits are grown in trees, soft fruits are from bushes or shrubs.
Top fruit
You will need to name one dessert and one cooking variety for apples, pears, plums and cherries. The ones I selected:
- Apples – “Cox’s Orange Pippin” (dessert) and “Bramley’s Seedling” (cooking)
- Pears – “Conference” (dessert) and “Anjou” (cooking)
- Plums – “Victoria” (dessert) and “Czar” (cooking)
- Cherries – “Stella” (dessert) and “Morello” (cooking)
When choosing the variety, you should consider the variety you want, the size it will grow to , the rootstock and the site. Also, not all fruits are self-fertile so you need to think about whether you need more than one to get a crop. For example, apples have listed pollination groups, which show when they are in flower and for pollination, there needs to be another apple tree flowering in an overlapping period. This is further complicated by the fact that apples can be triploid as well as diploid. Triploid apples need 2 pollinators but cannot act as pollinators themselves. Examples of a diploid apple = “Cox’s Orange Pippin”, Triploid apple = “Bramley’s Seedling”.
When planting a fruit tree, you should prepare the ground and remove all weeds. Compost might be added and a balanced fertiliser like bonemeal added. Bare-root trees are planted in autumn when the tree is dormant, container grown trees can be planted at any time except when the ground is frozen or very wet. Dig a large hole, in a square shape to prevent the roots from curling round and place the tree in it. Stake if necessary and tie to a support network if you are training it in a specific shape, like a cordon. Mulch around the plant to supress weeds and water for the first year. It should not require watering after that. Trees need pruning to keep them productive and maintain their health. You should also thin out the fruit to avoid growing lots of really small fruit and exhausting the tree so that it fruits poorly the following year.
Pruning of apple trees
This comes up in the exam quite often. It is done to maintain the shape of the tree and to improve the yield of fruit. For a bush shape, you are aiming for an open “goblet” shape – like a wine glass. A maiden tree of one year old is pruned when it is dormant between November and March. The main leader is cut to a healthy bud with 3 to 5 laterals beneath it – this cut will determine the height of the tree. The laterals are pruned to a third, and any laterals not wanted are removed. At the end of the year, the leaders are cut by one third. At the end of the second year, you can prune it as an established tree. This means removing any dead, diseased or damaged branches. In addition, remove any crossing or branches which rub against another. Then prune by a third.
Restricted forms are ones where the apples are trained in a specific way, such as cordons, espaliers, fans etc. These are always spur-fruiting and fruit on wood which is 2 years or more old. These are pruned twice a year. For example, “Crawley Beauty” grown as a cordon is planted at an angle with the main trunk running along a cane at a 45 degree angle. The laterals are tied in to wires running along the wall at 90 degrees to the ground. The laterals are pruned in winter to shorten them, and again in summer when they are trimmed to 3 leaves.
Pests and diseases of apples and plums
- Apple pest: Codling moth – lays its eggs on the leaves and then the larvae tunnel into the fruits. You can only try to control this before the larvae have tunnelled into the fruit. Pheromone traps are placed on the trees to attract and capture male moths.
- Apple disease: Canker. Cut out the affected part to well below the affected area and paint with canker paint.
- Plum pest: Plum sawfly – lays its eggs and the larvae tunnel into the fruit. Use a biological control of nematodes
- Plum disease: Silver leaf – a fungal infection whch makes the shoots of the tree die and the leaves show a silver colouring. Cut out affected area to 50cm below the infection. Do not prune plums in autumn in winter – prune in summer when the plant is growing strongly and can fight off the infection.
Gardening studies 