u/TrevorCidermaker

Apple blossoms typically develop in clusters of 4 to 6 buds. This is Tom Putting blossoming now in our orchard at Springtime.
The absolute central bud is the "king". It develops as the terminal bud on the branch. It is the largest, strongest bud in the group and is always the first to open, usually blooming 48 to 72 hours before the surrounding lateral buds.
The staggered blooming of the surrounding lateral flowers ensures that if a late spring frost kills the king bloom, or if poor weather prevents bees from pollinating it, the side blossoms act as a backup crop. Photos taken 48hours apart.

Yesterday we have a Peruvian group from Trujillo, a northern city, members of Friendship Force visiting us at the orchard and cidery. The weather was glorious and the blossoms on the perry pear trees perfect.
And transpacific relations cemented 😊

Cold start to the day. Clear skies leading to a frost and fog patches. It is late in the season, the pear blossoms have finished and apple blossom is starting; some low lying ones might get caught. The bluebells which are at their end certainly caught it! It will be a glorious day when the sun comes up, which will be good as we have a group of Chilean visitors coming to the orchard and cidery today.

As I have posted before pear tree growth is from the apical meristem - pluripotent tissue that remains though a trees life at it branches tips. Growth is is a spiral that rigidly conforms to the Fibonacci sequence with a Fibonacci number of 3/8 meaning the spiral makes 3 full rotations around the branch across 8 buds before a bud aligns perfectly above the starting one. (In botany, the spiral arrangement of leaves and buds along a stem is known as spiral phyllotaxy). The "handiness" (or chirality) of this spiral is randomly variable and can spiral right or left and can even change unlike some climbing vines etc. Even on different branches of the same tree, you will find a roughly equal mix of clockwise (right-handed) and counterclockwise (left-handed) spirals
How does the formation of new buds or primordia from the meristem tissue in pear trees occur? It has fascinated scientists of many disciplines over centuries.
During growth on a cellular level, auxin levels rise to a maxima simultaneously in several microscopic locations in the meristem. The number of these clustered spots increase rapidly as the diameter of the meristem grows, following Fibonacci numbers.
Auxin maxima form through the coordinated, directional transport of auxin by polar membrane proteins (PIN1 proteins) and localised cellular biosynthesis.
PIN1 proteins actively pump auxin out of cells in a specific, directional (polar) manner. Individual cells position their PIN1 proteins toward neighbouring cells that already have a higher concentration of auxin. This feedback loop funnels auxin toward specific focal points in the peripheral zone of the meristem, creating concentrated local peaks or maxima.
Enzymes responsible for making auxin already show localised, patterned gene expression within the meristem tissues, a feature reinforced by the effects of PIN1 proteins.
Once a high enough concentration of auxin is achieved in a cluster of cells it triggers the formation of a new primordium, and surrounding tissues become depleted of the hormone.
Because the surrounding cells are drained of auxin, the next maximum can only form at a safe physical distance away, creating the regular, spiral spacing pattern seen in the leaves and flowers. A new auxin maximum forming between two neighbouring maxima as the meristem grows and the depletion effect wanes and then ‘moves’ by the growth of the meristem so that it is always closer to the older of its two neighbours.
The direction of the spiral is determined early on at the cellular level by the exact levels of auxin to the right or left and then repeated. Because it is not genetically locked to one direction, it is a matter of chance which way an individual branch's spiral begins to wind.

As I have posted before pear tree growth is from the apical meristem - pluripotent tissue that remains though a trees life at it branches tips. Growth is is a spiral that rigidly conforms to the Fibonacci sequence with a Fibonacci number of 3/8 meaning the spiral makes 3 full rotations around the branch across 8 buds before a bud aligns perfectly above the starting one. (In botany, the spiral arrangement of leaves and buds along a stem is known as spiral phyllotaxy). The "handiness" (or chirality) of this spiral is randomly variable and can spiral right or left and can even change unlike some climbing vines etc. Even on different branches of the same tree, you will find a roughly equal mix of clockwise (right-handed) and counterclockwise (left-handed) spirals
How does the formation of new buds or primordia from the meristem tissue in pear trees occur? It has fascinated scientists of many disciplines over centuries.
During growth on a cellular level, auxin levels rise to a maxima simultaneously in several microscopic locations in the meristem. The number of these clustered spots increase rapidly as the diameter of the meristem grows, following Fibonacci numbers.
Auxin maxima form through the coordinated, directional transport of auxin by polar membrane proteins (PIN1 proteins) and localised cellular biosynthesis.
PIN1 proteins actively pump auxin out of cells in a specific, directional (polar) manner. Individual cells position their PIN1 proteins toward neighbouring cells that already have a higher concentration of auxin. This feedback loop funnels auxin toward specific focal points in the peripheral zone of the meristem, creating concentrated local peaks or maxima.
Enzymes responsible for making auxin already show localised, patterned gene expression within the meristem tissues, a feature reinforced by the effects of PIN1 proteins.
Once a high enough concentration of auxin is achieved in a cluster of cells it triggers the formation of a new primordium, and surrounding tissues become depleted of the hormone.
Because the surrounding cells are drained of auxin, the next maximum can only form at a safe physical distance away, creating the regular, spiral spacing pattern seen in the leaves and flowers. A new auxin maximum forming between two neighbouring maxima as the meristem grows and the depletion effect wanes and then ‘moves’ by the growth of the meristem so that it is always closer to the older of its two neighbours.

The direction of the spiral is determined early on at the cellular level by the exact levels of auxin to the right or left and then repeated. Because it is not genetically locked to one direction, it is a matter of chance which way an individual branch's spiral begins to wind.

Although not our main pear and apple orchard pollinator I was saddened to read this news.
For the first time, wild honey colonies are classified as endangered in the EU because they cannot sustain themselves without beekeepers' hives, now classified as 'Endangered' in the European Union on the IUCN Red List. Without swarms from hives, wild populations in the EU are projected to decline by half over the next 10 years
Researchers point to a shortage of old trees with cavities, pesticides, and varroa mites. So it's multifactorial. I was aware of the pesticide and varroa issues but not the loss of natural nesting sites, although it's obvious. Wild honey bees typically nest in natural tree hollows, such as abandoned woodpecker holes in tall beech trees, as well as rock crevices.
Whilst they have been introduced by us humans to the rest of the world including our home New Zealand, their natural range encompasses Europe.
Following the end of the last ice age, honey bees naturally expanded northward out of glacial refugia to colonise Europe. These wild populations are a vital component of the natural ecosystem, having co-evolved alongside Europe's native flowering plants for millennia.
#honeybee #orchards #pear #apple

Pears and apples have five petals, five sepals, and five carpels. Like many other flowers (approximately half of plants have 5 petals etc), it’s the commonest form. It is an evolutionary trait deeply hardcoded into the genetics of eudicots (true dicotyledons). In botany, this five-part arrangement is known as a pentamerous flower structure. ** **Why is 5 an ancient, highly successful evolutionary blueprint? To understand this it’s worth looking at how plants grow. To avoid overlapping and wasting sunlight or space, leaves, seeds, and petals often grow in a spiral pattern from a central bud point; at a very specific angle: approximately 137.5 degrees (known as the Golden Angle). Spiral patterns are mathematically described by the Fibonacci sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...). Five is a key number in this sequence. It allows a flower to pack its petals and sepals tightly together in a bud without overlapping in a way that crushes the delicate inner reproductive organs.

Also as an evolutionary advantage the flat, five-petaled flower acts like a perfect, stable landing pad for pollinators like bees, beetles, and flies and so the emergence of 5petal flowers evolved in step with the rise of these insects. Once an ancestral plant family finds a genetic formula that works perfectly for several reasons , the homeotic genes that dictate features rarely change without a major stress.

Different branches of the plant kingdom split off millions of years ago and locked in entirely different structural blueprints.
Flowers with groups of 3 are lilies grasses and orchids groups of 4 are mustards and evening primrose. Infinite spirals are magnolias which are pollinated by beetles . Notice apart from the tetramerous mustards the others all follow the Fibonacci sequence.

Move over perry pears it’s now the turn of the cider apples in our orchard in Wairarapa New Zealand. Our very first apple blossom. A big difference is seen. The perry pears bloomed before the leaves appeared the apples bloom at the same time as the leaves emerge. The botanical term for plants and trees that bloom before their leaves emerge is hysteranthous. Whilst apples producing flowers and foliage at the exact same time are called coetaneous and are a few weeks later. These are different evolved strategies for pollination with advantages and disadvantages. Pears create a massive visual signal to pollinators but it’s risky with frosts and uses a lot of stored resources that apples can quickly restore from the leaves.
Both have hermaphroditic (perfect) flowers, meaning a single flower contains both functional male and female reproductive structures. The stamens the male organs are the numerous, prominent stalks clustered in the center of the blossom. Each stamen consists of a slender white filament supporting the yellow, pollen-producing tip or anther. The pistol or female organ is tucked precisely in the center of the stamens consists of the pale green, elongated 5 stigmas tips connected by individual tube-like styles that fuse near the base above the ovary in the receptacle . The sticky stigmatic surface catches pollen grains brought by pollinators .
Around the male and female parts are the petals or the corolla ( not the Toyota car!) These white petals with delicate pink-tinted margins serve a dual evolutionary purpose. They physically protect the internal reproductive mechanics and visually advertise food rewards to key insect pollinators, such as bees.
And below and outside these are the sepals. The green, pointed, leaf-like flaps that initially encase and shield the sensitive flower bud from frost or physical damage inside the brown scales before it opened.
The hypanthium and receptacle containing the ovaries are below. right at the base of the flower where all parts merge.

Our perry pear trees are currently in the petal fall stage, which transitions directly into early fruit set.
All of the white petals have been completely blown away from the flower clusters by the equinoctial winds we have been having recently, exposing the underlying reproductive anatomy.
The stamens support the now black shrivelled anthers at their tips, (these were purple and plump before release their pollen).
The yellow, star like 5 pointed cup-like structure at the flower base is the fused sepals and remains as the calyx of the fruit that will hopefully develop from the ovary below if fertilised by a bee. The bright yellow, glistening interior lining inside the cup functioned as the nectary which secreted nectar to attract bees and other pollinators earlier in bloom.

Foggy start to the day at the orchard here in Wairarapa New Zealand. Then it burnt off by 9am as the sun came up, leaving just a little low lying fog in the lee the foothills, beautiful but cold day. Still a little snow on the high Tararua ranges.

At TeePee Cidery we wild ferment our ciders and perries. The yeasts survive on equipment press cloths and spider webs from year to year building up our unique “yeast terroir”. The web I just photographed in our orchard is a classic orb web , which in New Zealand is built by the garden orb-web spider Socca pustulosa. On dewy mornings like this the droplets light up, making the intricate architecture beautifully visible. These spiders are nocturnal building or repairing their webs at night and sit right at the center. During the day, they prefer to hide nearby under leaves or twigs while keeping a single leg on a "signal line" to feel vibrations if prey lands in the web.

We are about at peak blossom for our main perry pear. Great to be growing these as standards as a late frost has affected some nearby bush orchards. I fear we are in for a bumpy ride with El Niño and the current negative Pacific decadal oscillation affecting our weather.

The Beswick Babycham figurine is a vintage ceramic advertising piece shaped like the iconic leaping chamois deer with a signature blue bow. Produced during the 1960s and 1970s
the small 4-inch fawn (Model No. 1551) was the most common as features a distinct gold Beswick stamp on the base.
Now highly sought after by collectors of breweriana as quite rare as the delicate legs or blue bow break off.

This image was created by Fergus Walker for The Orchard Project, a UK-based charity dedicated to bringing community orchards into urban spaces.
Fergus is their Glasgow project manager who wanted to make a graphic of the simple "quarter-turn twist" test for apple ripeness.
Why does it work? All to do with a clever bit of cellular maturation in the apple or pear stalk. The abscission layer in an apple stalk is a specialized band of tiny, densely cells where the fruit stem meets the fruiting spur.
The cells within this zone are held together by a pectin-rich matrix called the middle lamella.
During the early stages of fruit growth, this layer ensures a tight, strong connection to support the heavy fruit. As apples mature, they begin producing large amounts of the ripening gas ethylene. At the same time the level of auxin, the growth hormone that keeps the abscission layer tightly bonded
drops. This hormonal shift signaks to the abscission cells to secrete hydrolytic enzymes.
These enzymes dissolve the pectin matrix, leaving the heavy apple hanging only by thin vascular strands and a quarter turn easily snaps the fragile union.

There is an iconic New Zealand song
"Standing on Shaky Ground" performed by the Kiwi band D-Faction in 1991.
Originally written in Motown and sung by the Temptations in 1975. Last night it was literal for us. A sizeable shake 4.2 right under our feet at TeePee Cidery, reminding us that NZ is on multiple fault lines that will have knocked off a few petals!

At TeePee cider we have gone solar. Our ethos has always been to work with nature. Hence we are organic. Our electricity useage is high however, keeping chillers running to keep the cider cool especially during the 2 year secondary fermentation in our cider cave which due to a high water table is above ground. Over the last 2 months of Spring I am very pleased to see we have produced just over 2MWh of electricity; we are net neutral to the grid. In a low carbon intense energy environment like NZ with a lot of hydro wind and geothermal electricity production this is still equivalent to a tree.

When is a pear not a pear? In this painting Giovanni Bellini's masterpiece called “Madonna of the pear”. Except...it's not a pear, but a quince.
Although misnamed as a pear, it is painted with such delicate realism that botanists can accurately identify it as a quince, a related pome fruit. The answer is of course Giovanni did not name his painting. Later art critics did. In Italy the pear was associated with sin, while the quince was symbolic of the Resurrection. The Virgin and child are depicted with touching humanity, but the marble parapet bars the mortal human from them. The fruit is the only bridge between the realms. The fact that the quince sits alone on the ledge is meaningful, highlighting the resurrection as the single most important tenet of Christian belief, and the sole means by which mankind could come to God.

Lucky for us pear blossoms are pollinated by native Aotearoan solitary bees as well as bumblebees. They are hard working like bumbles and I often see them in the orchard. (although difficult to photograph!) I thought a history of them might be interesting. The evolution of Aotearoa/New Zealand's solitary bees is a story of isolation.
While other continents saw a later explosion of complex, social bee kingdoms, Aotearoa remained a sanctuary for primitive solitary lineages.
Today, it is home to 28 native bee species, all of them solitary.
When Aotearoa split from Gondwana around 80 million years ago, the bee ancestors that boarded this "raft" were ancient, primitive, short-tongued lineages that feed from and pollinated shallow flowers. They missed the evolutionary race between flowers and bees that resulted in highly advanced social bees like honeybees or bumblebees, which evolved much later on the global mainland.
These bees co-evolved with native plants for millions of years, in a closed ecological loop.
Most native species belong to primitive families (like Colletidae) and possess broad, very short tongues. This anatomical trait did not evolve it was in lockstep with ancient native flowers like Kanuka, which have shallow, open cups where nectar is easily reached. This was crudely shattered when colonists introduced honeybees in 1839. And followed by bumblebees in 1885 to pollinate introduced red clover ( it required a longer proboscis). Native bees are now in decline due to these
competitors and changes in land usage. Luckily they are not affected by the varroa mite. Photo of Leioproctus Paahaumaa bee by Jean-Claude Stahl Te Papa collection

Sadly it developed fireblight on its leader 3 years ago and needed radical pruning but survived. Looks good now plenty of pollinating going on!

Spring is the best time to start air layering a pear tree. This is when the tree is actively growing, the sap is flowing, and the branch has the longest possible window to develop deep roots before the winter cold sets in. It’s a technique I had not used before but I wanted to grow perry pear on its own rootstock as close to european wild pear or, Pyrus pyraster. Getting pear rootstock is difficult as most people want to grow on quince to speed up fruit production and dwarf the tree.
I tried it yesterday. (Spring in New Zealand). It was easy to do with a pruning knife, moist sphagnum moss in a ziplock bag secured with Duct tape and covered in aluminium foil to exclude the light; roots grow in the dark! I made two circular cuts through the bark and longitudinally between them then prised off the bark and cambium. There was some whisks of white film on the exposed wood. This is the cambium layer. I scraped it off with the pruning knife down to the hard white wood xylem or outer heart wood. I’m told if you skip this, the tree will simply heal its bark instead of growing new roots! Waste of a year. I throughly soaked the sphagnum moss in a bucket of water and wrong it out. I then stuffed it into the ziplock bag. Closed the bag and made a cut on the side and placed this around the prepared branch. Secured and sealed it with duct tape to keep the moisture inside for the year. Viola!
#airlaying #pear