Local Crop Keeps Yielding

TILSES Apple Orchard at Omadale has a bumper crop of apples this year with harvesting starting tomorrow, so you can expect to see lots of locally grown Granny Smith’s, Jonathon’s and Delicious apples at local businesses.

Initially there was a shortage of hands to help pick but the issue has been solved and it is full steam ahead.

Brian Tilse at the Orchard getting ready for the harvest tomorrow.

Brian Tilse who has been in the apple business for 70 years said the bumper crop goes in cycles of a few years and is dependent on budding and blossoming.

“It’s a bumper crop this year, we’ll have a medium crop next year and then maybe a bumper crop again, you just never know,” said Mr Tilse.

“The orchard isn’t as big now because we’ve got the vineyard, but the trees that are left have a lot of life left in them,” he said.

“We produced an average of 10,000 cases for ten years with 12,000 cases one year, we will probably get 2,000 or 3,000 this year,” he said.

“The trees are only about 24 years old and they last about 60 years so we’ve got about another 25 years,” Brian Tilse said.

The trees are pruned every two years but surprisingly it’s not to help the tree fruit.

Granny Smith apples waiting for harvest at the Tilse’s Omadale orchard.

“It’s better not to prune them every year, you prune them every second year and you do a good prune, you don’t prune for fruit, you prune to get wood back to keep your tree in shape, pruning doesn’t effect your crop it just effects your tree,” Brian Tilse said.

“Apple trees are grown differently these days with smaller trees planted much closer together and grown on trellises similar to grapes, the trees will supply fruit in this way after two years instead of waiting seven years for the traditional tree,” he said.

“They plant them a metre apart, little trees like grapes and are virtually only growing the limb, you get the fruit within two years because you don’t have to grow a frame, they are grown on a trellis,” he said.

The apple market has reduced over the years but the availability of more fruit varieties and the Australian crop has reduced.

“Once there was apples, oranges and bananas, now you got all these other things, 40 years ago we were producing nearly twice as many apples as we do now and we used to eat them,” Brian Tilse said.