User:Apple-J-axe/sandbox

Traditional Orchard Design
The end 1950’s saw a huge turn in cider apple orchard design where before, a more traditional style had been used for centuries. Traditional orchards are uncommon, though they can still be found in places like Spain where most growers have maintained traditional systems. Traditional orchards were designed with large spacing between individual large trees (6-12 meters tall and spaced about 7.6-9 meters apart ); typically, less than 150 trees per hectare. Trees within an orchard were more variable in age; individual trees would be grown until they die and a new tree would be planted in its place. Older trees in traditional orchards grow gnarled and hollowed for the tree's entire lifespan. The large (7.6 meter) spherical-shaped canopies of traditional methods differ from various planting systems that use conic, flat planar or v-shaped styles.

Surrounding the trees, herbaceous plants were arranged along the undergrowth of the orchard where they and the natural grasses were commonly grazed by sheep, cows, etc. Traditional cider orchards were often intercropped and used a mostly silvopastoral system that combined fruit trees and pasture. Management techniques did not use fertilizer or chemicals and generally require less training than modern, high-density systems. Budding of scions took place high up in the tree, typically using vigorous rootstocks or seedlings. Traditional orchards are found to produce apples with lower nitrogen content and higher polyphenolic levels.

In recent years, there has been considerable loss of traditional cider orchards and a corresponding loss of orchard design knowledge between generations of apple growers. Traditional orchards have decreased by about 20% since 1994. Decline is attributed to: the high maintenance of large trees and the physical limitations for apple pickers, the low yield (10-12 tons per hectare ), the slow cropping of trees (15 years compared to the average 8 years of high-density orchards ), and the historical changes in regional alcohol preferences. During the 1950's, France subsized growers who converted to high-density orchards. By the 1990's, most of France no longer used traditional orchard styles. By the 1970's, traditional style orchards were used for making 25% of the cider in the United Kingdom.