093: Orcharding & Apple Storage w/Colin Scott | MA

Colin Scott grew up learning how to care for apples with his parents, Edward and Janice. They purchased the orchard in 1954 and it was named accordingly E & J Scott Orchards. Today Colin is running the orchard and sells his apples primarily at the Chelsea Market in eastern MA.

On site via in Buckland, E & J Scott Orchard also has apricots, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, plums, quince, raspberries, & strawberries. Our front of the main building is a farm stands in during the fruiting season. Their main store is in Ashfield, MA and is open Sat & Sun 10-6 July through May. Organic duck eggs from their heritage breed Ancona ducks are also available upon request.

Cider Chat Episode 93 featuring Colin Scott on grafting techniques — Colin using his dad’s grafting tool

In this Cider Chat with Colin Scott

We begin this chat with Colin inside one of the storage rooms.

What affects the Apple’s ripening?

temperature
ethylene gas – apples off gas
Apples are placed in a CA room (Controlled Atmosphere) where both temperature, oxygen and the off gases are controlled.

If apples don’t have oxygen they don’t ripen. Colin discuss the “delicate” process of storing apples or what he called “putting them to sleep”.

Apple storage tip: Take your apples out of the refrigerator every once in a while and let them off gas. That will help them last a bit longer.

cider Chat Episode 93 Colin Scott's grafting tools — New and old grafting tools

Tips for grafting fruit trees

the beginnings of the orchard and what they grew and where they are going with the growing cider market
Root Stock for grafting a tree – dwarf or standard
Shifting his market to cider apples
What do you look for in a root stock

“The idea behind grafting is to take the variety that you want and put it on the root stock you want. The vigor of the variety contributes to the size of the tree.”

Rootstock Numbering Systems

The numbering system of the root stock defines the size of the tree or a percentage of the size of the tree

M rootstock 9, 11, 18, 26 what does that stand for?
- If you put a Macintosh on standard tree rootstock and a Macintosh on a 26, you would get 30 -40-% of the standard one.
- A M118 or M111 are going to be 6–70% the size, which means they will be almost as big as a standard tree.

Today Colin is using Geneva root stock, because he is finding it resistant to Fire Blight. A nasty disease that can kill the tree.

Geneva root stock numbering system is random too. Colin is using Geneva 41 & 935. They will be 30-40% of the standard tree. He uses a bench graft on his root stock.