Global warming could soon make commercial apple production as viable in Scotland as it is proving in Sweden, the Essex & Suffolk Fruit Growers’ Society learned on a recent trip across the North Sea.
In the Scandinavian country, commercial apple orchards are flourishing around Lake Vattern, on the same latitude as Aberdeen, and bumper cherry crops are being grown on the Baltic coast, on the same latitude as Edinburgh.
The long, thin, very deep lake produces a microclimate that has allowed commercial top-fruit orchards to be grown on Visingso island, situated in the lake, and on the southern lakeshore.
The growing season is short at just 200 days, but crops at this latitude all enjoy the long summer day length. Global warming means that Swedish winters now rarely bring months of lying snow and Lake Vattern does not freeze over.
The warming effect and lower incidence of hail of being close to large bodies of water means that the main top-fruit growing region is a lot further south, next to the Baltic Sea at Kivik.
Early ripening apple varieties adapted for northern growing conditions can give average yields of 35 to 40 tonnes a hectare in Sweden. The Danish variety Ingrid Marie, which has Cox as one of its parents, and Swedish bred Katy (Katja) - of which the Scottish variety James Grieve is a parent - have been a mainstay of the Swedish apple industry since the 1960s. However, the recently bred Swedish Aroma developed, like Katy, at the Balsgard fruit research station is now the second most widely planted. None of these varieties are considered suitable for long-term storage, but are suitable for the local market in the autumn and early winter and could do the same in Scotland.
Cherry trees planted near Kivik are protected from rain by a vented plastic crop cover system and, this year, despite heavy rainfall in June, growers picked a good crop of Lapins, Sunburst, Sweetheart, Regina and Kordia.
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