Journal for October 30th 2009
After a manic time last week, I am now able to catch up on recent events.In the last Journal issue, results from The National Fruit Show took centre stage!
This week we will look at some of the interesting apsects discussed at The National Fruit Show and review our 'Roadshow' at Festival Place shopping centre in Basingstoke.
As always the show is a great opportunity to catch up with old friends, some of whom I see only once a year at the show. In spite of this being a two day event, somehow there was not enough time to talk at length with all my old friends, mainly due to my role as custodian of 'Speakers Corner' (sounds grand, but someone has to control the technical aspects and keep the speakers in order)This was however a very worthwhile part of the show with much information to be gleaned.
Adrian Barlow of English Apples & Pears summarised the seasons prospects; 'vintage visual and eating quality, particularly for our Cox & Gala and the best skin finish we can remember on Bramley in this Bicentenniel Year.
Mark Lumsden-Taylor of Hadlow College featured the importance of 'food security' in a world of increasing population and how the college is preparing hortucultural students for the challenge their generation faces in increasing the 'home grown food' we will need to produce if our country is to face the changing global food demands.
Feli Fernandez of East Malling Research enlightened us on developments in DNA fingerprinting of fruit crops. While there ar countless markers in each variety, it is possible by using 12 markers to accurately define a variety. In 2009 this is a very useful tool for determining any disputes for 'trademark' varieties, a financially critical objective. DNA fingerprinting has already been used this season to accurately log all the 300 Pear varieties in the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale Farm in Kent. The results have shown that a number of varieties with old names are in fact the same variety. Historically they arrived in the UK from overseas (mostly France) and were given a name in keeping with where they arrived from or in keeping with their new 'residence' in England!
The next step will 'fingerprint' the 2300 varieties in the Apple collection. Clearly where duplicates exist it will save resources by maintaining one, rather than several examples.
Joel Williams of Laverstoke Park took us into the amazing and diverse world of soil borne bacteria. The work at Laverstoke is intended to identify the beneficial bacteria and their importance on soil structure, This is indeed a fascinating subject and there is still much to learn, but Joel's consumate knowledge of his subject makes for an absorbing seminar subject.
While it is true to say that this is still in the development stage and has to be documented and reviewd by 'peers' in the scientific community before it can be recommended as a blueprint for improving soil structures, the investment in this research is a testament to the owner of Laverstoke Park, Jody Scheckter's great belief in Organic Farming and will hopefully show benefits for growers in the near future.
Dominic Dyer of the Crop Protection Association also highlighted the impending challenge of food security. Sceptics may feel this is an opportunistic alliance between the fears of food shortages and the chemical manufacturers platform, but there is no doubt the challenge is real with Global population forecast to rise from circa 6 billion to circa 9 billion in less than fifty years. My own feeling is we need to ally the best of Organic principles with a pragmatic use of chemical inputs as we in the UK have no chance of feeding our nation by organic methods alone!
I will return to this subject in far greater detail in the months ahead.
As forecast in last weeks Journal the NFS took the bulk of the show fruit exhibits to Festival Place Shopping centre in Basingstoke last Saturday and this proved once again to be a thoroughly worthwhile venture. We displayed the show fruit in 'The Attrium' at one end of the complex and set up consumer tasting tables and a selling point in Porchester Square as part of the Saturday Food Market at the other end of the complex.This year's initiative, as has been the case in past Roadshows, was a great success with our member volunteers working flat out all day long.
Hopefully all those consumers enjoyed the occasion and the fruit they tasted as much as we did and will be supporting English Apples throughout the rest of our season.Thank you to any visitors to the EAM web site, who I had the pleasure of meeting at Festival Place . We in the fruit industry value these opportunities to talk directly to our consumers and hope events like this will encourage you all to try the many new English Apple varieties on which the future success of our industry will depend!
Next week I will review the English Apples available in the shops during November
Until then, take care
The English Apple Man
