The mighty chloroplast

Apologies for beginning a newsletter with such a long word but I can’t get around it, as I want to write about one of the most important things in the world.
Chloroplasts are the little green packets in leaves that make them look green. They are so small that there might be 20 or 30 in each leaf cell.
They are important as they are the place in the leaf where CO2 (carbon dioxide) taken in from the air is converted to oxygen, and they are also responsible for plants converting sunlight into chemical energy like sugars, which allow plants to grow and all animals, including us, to feed on them.
Without chloroplasts there would be no plants, and without plants we could not exist.
In the last few years a lot has been learned about the history of chloroplasts. It is widely accepted that they evolved from a free-living bacteria called cyanobacteria. This bacteria appeared on earth about 3 billion years ago (amazing when you consider earth is only about 4.5 billion years old), and colonised the seas and oceans, creating free oxygen.
This manufacture of oxygen by the bacteria caused a huge change in climate about 2.4 billion years ago by removing greenhouse gases from the air, filling the atmosphere with oxygen, and resulted in an ice-age.
Around the same time, a free-living bacteria swallowed a cyanobacteria, and instead of digesting it, the cyanobacteria lived on inside the larger bacteria, and the two began to work symbiotically, helping each other. This in essence was the first chloroplast, a cell-like package living in another cell.
Within a short time a similar cell-swallowing event happened again, with a bacteria swallowing a respiring bacteria, thus creating a bacteria with a respiration engine inside it.
Once these arrived it made possible multi-celled plants, and these subsequently evolved. Indeed, to this day, each chloroplast in every cell of each plant leaf contains its own DNA, closely resembling that of cyanobacteria.
With oxygen in the air from cyanobacteria and early plants, and multi-celled organisms, animals were able to evolve.
Looking back now, the evidence of all the work done by chloroplasts is there for us to see. Here in Ireland we have peat bogs dating back thousands of years. All the peat was created by plants, the work of the many chloroplasts in the plant leaves. Looking further back we have the creation of coal, oil and natural gas. All of these were also formed by the action of chloroplasts in plant leaves. Hundreds of millions of years of work by chloroplasts captured on the surface and in the rocks of our planet.
It is indeed a mighty chloroplast.

Michael Hennerty Pomologist

When I first got interested in apples, beginning at around fourteen or fifteen years old, I used to travel to apple growers meetings around Ireland with my father, Willem. It was at one of these meetings that I came across Mick Hennerty, who was a pomologist. Pomology is the word used to describe the study of pome fruits like apples, and though I did not know it at the time, a pomologist is someone who studies these fruits.
Mick was an enthusiastic and eminent scientist, having published many academic studies on apples, and this came across in his talks, as there was little he did not know about.
When I arrived to study at UCD, after a year or two of the general subjects, I again came across Mick, this time as Professor Hennerty, as he was teaching specialist fruit modules related to growing and storing fruits, subjects that were of great interest to me. Because he was an encouraging teacher, I liked his subjects, and by the time I finished my degree, I was enjoying myself too much to give up college. Consequently I started a masters degree by research, working on apples under his guidance. And because he went to Russia working on a UN project after the fall of communism, I got a start in teaching, covering his lectures. Looking back now I can say that those were great times, and they set me on a path of involvement in education which continues to this day.
After college we kept in touch, and Michael would attend apple growers functions, and would always be eager to hear of the trials and tribulations of apple grower both old and new. In 2010 he addressed one of our meetings for a final time, giving a talk entitled “a fruit-filled life”, recounting stories of experiments conducted in many parts of the World over many decades. It was a fascinating talk, not least because he came from a family of fruit growers who had been growing apples in the Cork area for many generations.
Unfortunately, in the last few years Michael’s health began to fade. Despite this he worked tirelessly on a book which he was determined to complete. The book, released in July this year, is entitled Heritage Apples of Ireland and it documents and pictures beautifully the 68 uniquely Irish apples, bred here and grown here over the last few centuries.
Though Michael died in November, he was delighted with the reception his book received, and it must have given him great satisfaction to be engaged academically right until the end. If anyone is interested in the book, Michael passed over all rights and royalties to the Irish Seedsavers Association, who are selling it to raise funds for their most worthy cause. It is a wonderful legacy and a book every fruit enthusiast and gardener should have.

In the farm shop

Of course for Christmas we have our special hampers of juices, jams and fruit, as well as balsamic vinegar, cider and lemonade. These popular and practical Christmas gifts are selling fast, so call soon, while there is still plenty of choice. As well as these we have gift bags of juices, jams and all bottled products for you to enjoy.
We have our lovely range of apples, including really beautiful Elstar, as well as that traditional favorite, Karmijn de Sonnaville. We are just about to begin with the famous Jonagored too. And of course the ever popular Bramley cookers are also available. Remember they make a lovely sauce to go with the leftover ham!
Just beginning now are our seasonal mulled juices, which we have as mulled apple or mulled apple & blackcurrant. These are juices with spices, which make a lovely warm drink, but without the alcohol. Simply heat before serving, and warm yourself up on a cold winter’s evening. We have new branding on them too, which make them lovely as a gift too.
For a cool drink, our sparkling juices are going as quickly as we can make them, with people coming from all over Ireland to get them, as well as placing orders for home delivery.
Our juices are as popular as ever and really good value, with cases of 12 large bottles flying out both to people who call in and by courier as Christmas gifts.  In fact, if you like you can even include a personal message when ordering online, and we will include it with the box when sending to your lucky friends. We just had an order from the North Pole, as Mrs Claus has a special recipe for her ham, which she cooks in our juice and uses our apple jelly to glaze.

Con’s cider

Cider making is an interesting occupation. For the last few years we have been making cider for the purposes of making cider vinegar, and then in 2013 we finally got to a point where we felt competent enough to make cider for sale.
So we got a license, paid our bond, and set about cider making in earnest.
To make a good cider you need good apples, and that is one thing we have in abundance. But you also need to experiment with different varieties, all of which give different styles of cider, and also consider fermentation conditions, which also have a huge effect. The earlier harvest apples, pressed in September, ferment quickly due to the warmer weather. Similar apples pressed in December ferment more slowly, and so flavours are different then. Add in the effects of different yeast strains, and you can see that there is no limit to the types of cider you can have, especially when you start blending different batches.
Con’s cider as it is called is made entirely with juice from apples, and unlike big-brand ciders many of which are 70% sugar and water, when you use only apples, the flavours are much more intense. We make our cider on the dry side, so calories are lower but you can taste more flavours. Thus far it has proven a huge hit, with a small number of pubs and off-licenses selling all we can make.
Keep an eye out for it in your area, or come to our farm shop where we can sell by the case.
Wherever you get it though remember to leave some out for Santa to drink. Con’s cider is a favorite of his!

Web summit

This year the web summit was held in Dublin for the fifth successive year. It was started by Paddy Cosgrove and has grown in importance and size annually, with 22,000 people from 106 countries attending this year. To feed this many people takes a food summit, and this is organized by Good Food Ireland. Among the goodies served at the summit this year were 10,000 of our apples, which is a large order for a single delivery. Luckily, our Elstar apples were just picked at the time of the summit, so those were the ones we sent.
As it was the computer experts who were enjoying our apples, the comments came back thick and fast on twitter and facebook. The nicest part of selling our fruit always is positive feedback, but to have delegates from many countries telling us that the apples were the best they ever tasted, and wondering if they could get them in their own countries was a real thrill.  The next summit can’t come soon enough for us.

New products

Among our new products are “Cornelius’s” pink and green lemonades, both of which are made with fresh lemons and taste just so refreshing. They are a real treat to accompany the Christmas dinner.
Also new is our 3 litre pouch of apple juice. It is a really practical way to have the juice you like, as it can be kept outside the fridge while being used, and once opened will keep for a month. It is also much better value than any of the juices you will get in the Supermarkets.

Apples in Italy

The first time I visited Italy I did not like it so much. It was summer, there were too many tourists, and everything was very expensive. I love it now though, and luckily I have been there quite a few times over the years, and each time it gets better.
Italy is a major apple-growing country, especially the South-Tyrol area, that I visited with a study tour organized by the International Fruit Tree Association recently.
In this region of Italy, which is basically a long narrow valley, over 1% of the World’s apples are grown. You can drive for 50 miles or more, and see little apart from orchards. Farms in this area are very small, with about 6000 farmers and 8000 farms making up the 18,000 hectares of apples. A farm size of six or seven acres would be considered small in Ireland, but in this part of Italy, where apple trees are very productive, and growers very resourceful, that is enough to make a good living. Those with smaller farms often have an off-farm income, possibly from tourism in this beautiful area.
All the farmers sell their apples to their local co-op, and the co-op’s gather all the fruit together for storage, grading and sales, so that for a customer looking to buy, they don’t see a lot of small growers, but what looks like (and acts like) one big company.
Because of the co-op structure, which the farmers themselves own, as the co-op does well, it returns more to the grower, with the aim of maximizing the price the grower gets, rather than maximizing the profit.
And because growers don’t need to store, grade or sell their own apples, they can concentrate on growing them, which means that they become real perfectionists in the orchards.
When driving around, it is impossible to see where one farm ends and another begins. Every inch of land is used, as when you only have a few acres, waste is not an option.
Fascinating methods of growing have been developed, using tree walls and trellises, as well as anti-hail nets which cover entire fields and protect the fruit from hailstorms in the summer. Apples are grown right up the valley from 250m above sea level to more than 1000m up, which is the height of Ireland’s highest mountain, Carrantouhill. From these high orchards the views are just stunning, with snow capped alps in the background, and valleys full of fruit (about 6 billion apples if you were to count them) down below.
One thing though, and it gives great hope for those of us growing apples in Ireland. As I visited farm after farm, and tasted the apples in Italy, despite being extremely pretty, none of those apples tasted as well as the ones grown in Ireland.

Competition for kids based on Italy story:

Q.1 About how many apples are grown in the valley?
Q.2 How high up are the apples grown?
Q.3 What mountains might you find in the South Tyrol area?

When it is ready send it to:
Christmas competition,
The Apple Farm,
Moorstown, Cahir, Co. Tipp. Prize is a €20 Easons voucher for three correct entries selected at random.
Closing date Jan 18th, 2015.