Grafted Trees

We just planted 14 new grafted fruit trees (eight crabapples and six pear trees) in the orchard. A big thank you to Madrona Murphy of Kwiaht who skillfully grafted the fruit tree’s scion wood onto rootstock for us! 

As part of Kwiaht's crabapple research on local apple varieties in the San Juan Archipelago, they’ve come across numerous examples of naturally occurring hybrids between native Pacific crabapple (Malus fusca) and various orchard apples, including heritage varieties. Our eight new crabapple trees, currently called AKWI-001 until there’s a better name, are a hybrid of native Malus fusca and Yellow Bellflower. These hybrids are larger than their wild cousins, but retain some of the wild flavor (high acid content, including citric acid, and sometimes high tannins).

Each of the six pear grafts are different pear varieties and all of them have high tannin levels (which provides 'body' to fermented drinks) and will make great perry cider. We can’t wait until we get to taste all of this organic and locally grown fruit in cider and perry!

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