The price of industrialization is often hidden, but sometimes it’s out in the open. Here is a nursery within a new apple orchard. These trees would have been grafted under a government subsidy, using a mechanized grafting tool and unskilled labour. Also unskilled was the nursery production that followed.
Here’s a closer look.
Weak grafts, unsuccessful grafts, poor unions, you name it. The white paint is so that weed control can be done chemically. The orange bark indicates herbicidal overspray. Each of these trees represents $2.50 of government thrown away. Wouldn’t it be better to develop skills and hire skilled workers? Each of these trees should be straight and well over one metre tall, and plantable, for the same price. In short, it’s not the land that is being farmed here but the government.
Categories: Industry
Okanagan Okanogan 
Being somewhat in awe of skilled orchardists, I was delighted to find that a couple of members of our duck-hunting club in the Lower Mainland had started their lives in Canada as grafters–not the gov’t kind. One of them told me that the problem I had with fungi and scab in my trees in the Lower Mainland could have been solved if only people would grow full-sized treea: better rootstock apparently would have aided resistance.
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Well, a little. Most of the problems have to do with climate and susceptible varieties, though. What apples do you grow now?
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I have none of those problems now. I grow only a few trees: a Rescue crab, Norland, Norkent. The problem here is the bears in fall–forcing me to pick early. I fenced my whole yard/garden–my friend asked if I were a Trump supporter, building walls to prevent moose and deer from devasting the trees in the winter. I am quite happy with these early, hardy northern varieties.
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Yes, there are some good varieties. Bears invented apples. They’re just reclaiming their own. Good luck with the defences!
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Ouch! I think what came out of my production class looked better.
Although, we did have a fun crabapple that had countless different varieties grafted onto it. We called it ‘Franken-crab’ 🤔🤣😂
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I did a tree once with 30 varieties. It was loads of fun. It was also a great pruning challenge, as they all grew differently.
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