By Antoinette Avorgbedor, Intern at Washington State University’s Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center and the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources
I have been curious as to why apple trees in modern, commercial orchards don’t look like the cartoon drawing that I grew up seeing with a thick trunk and a wide, round canopy of leaves. Modern tree fruit orchards are planted with a goal of maximizing efficiency and productivity. Mechanized operations are ideal for high-value, large operations to increase profitability. Consequently, there has been a steady increase in sparsely-branched thin trees that are usually more simply pruned. These planting systems are accompanied by increased tree planting densities. Over the last 50 years, densities have increased from 40 trees/acre to in some cases more than 3,000 trees/acre. There are many benefits to this new system of orchard management, but not without a cost to producers. The question is, will the balance of benefits and costs change as the climate changes?
