We’re getting ready to travel to Banchory for the Planting Day on 24th April. People who are joining The Far Orchard will be able to pick up their tree and brand a tree tag with The Far Orchard Logo. We’ve been preparing the tree tags with wood preservative and hanging them out to dry on our washing line!
The displays of cherry blossom are amazing at the moment, we’re hoping the apple blossoms will be out by the weekend so we can start to find the existing apple trees around Banchory and invite them to join The Far Orchard.
We have discovered that here is a great FruitWatch citizen science project run by the University of Reading at the moment. The public have been asked to track flowering fruit trees across the country to help determine whether climate change is changing blooming patterns and is one of the largest studies of its kind. Fruit trees are highly dependent on insect pollination to produce fruit, and climate change is impacting both the timing of fruit tree flowering and pollinator flight, which may reduce pollination and fruit production. Help is needed to understand how flowering dates are changing across the UK and data is being gathered on the four common fruits including apple.
Taking part contributes to knowledge about the changing climate. All the information is at https://fruitwatch.org/ords/r/livefw/fruit-watch101/home
The Far Orchard 