The Grounded Orchardist

Our early apples have been ravaged by wasps, they were last year too. They also used to on the farm every year. Thankfully its usually just the early varieties such as Discovery. Don’t get me wrong, that’s still not good but it would be awful if they were persistent for the whole harvest season.

I just visited an Orchard I helped plant a few years ago with my old colleagues for a local farmer. His “Discos” have very little wasp damage. I’m wondering why as his crop is fantastic. I’m used to having to race the wasps for the Discoveries every year.

So, why are his better than ours this year? Its good to start at the bare bones, starting with the differences within the three orchards.

There is an enormous pond near the orchard. Could that make a difference? I would have thought that would have actually made it a better place for them. A water source, food on the trees, very few predators, no main roads, very little foot traffic etc. There’s no water near us at all nor on the farm.

There is a giant electric fence right next to the apples. The electric fence is because the orchard is planted around a solar farm. The idea is the trees will hide the solar farm a bit (a condition of the planning for the solar farm going in) and being a farmer he wanted fruit trees to enable a crop. After all, its using valuable land. We wondered if the gentle hum of the electric fence deterred the wasps. We had an electric fence on the farm but it was nowhere near the Discovery apples it was also a small one to deter foxes…not like the monster protecting the solar farm.

They have a lot more bee hives than us. Now I don’t think this is a factor, we had lots of hives on the farm, if anything the bees were also a problem with munching the fruit, especially the plums.

He’s hardly sprayed any pesticides. I’ve sprayed none in this orchard and we always sprayed on the farm. So that’s not a factor.

The wasps often seem to use sunburn as an easy way to get into the apple. He had a lot less sunburn. I’m not sure why as his site is much more exposed than ours.

So, I’m none the wiser. With the little knowledge I have, I’m going to assume its pure fluke or the electric fence hum. I’ll keep trapping the ones that fall for it and keep looking to find a nest. Leaving some fallers on the ground as a sacrificial crop is another way of trying to save some valuable apples.