Morris Orchards: An Apple Legacy

 Throughout time, apples have been revered by cultures around the world. In various mythologies, apples are used as a symbol of love, beauty, and wisdom. In Greek Mythology, Mother Earth presented an apple tree to Zeus and Hera on their wedding day as a symbol of their love. In some of the earliest writings of China, Egypt, and Babylon, records were found that mentioned the art of budding and grafting fruit trees. The apple, a member of the rose family have close to 10,000 different varieties around the globe. Morris Orchards, founded in 1946 in Milton Freewater, Oregon, con tributes to three of those varieties: Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and Granny Smith. Dave Morris smiles as he re members stories about how the family farm started. His grandfather bought ground from family in the early ‘40s and began his orchard. Unfortunately, a big freeze took out most of the trees right after he started his orchard-career. Determined not to let his dreams of fruit-trees die with the frost, he began row-crop farming, until his orchards were back into production. Dave’s father didn’t share the dream of apples—instead he wanted to be a logger. But instead of cutting down trees, he kept planting trees: apples trees, prune trees and cherry trees. Dave felt the same. He didn’t want to farm either. He went to college on a football scholarship, with the intention of going into radiology. But the pull back to the farm was just too strong. Before he knew it, he was running the farm. His grandfather never retired, he continued to work the orchards his entire life. Dave kept adding on to the legacy that began with his grandfather, adding a dozen new varieties of cherries to their orchards—this last year harvesting more than 1 million pounds of cherries. Dave began farming with his son, Jake, in 2016. Jake, born and raised in an apple bin, and working with the crew since he was 8 year, knew the industry inside and out. But no operation stays the same, and Morris Orchards keeps growing, changing, and expanding. They use grafted trees. Their lines have become more automated. The irrigation has gone from flooding to micro sprinklers. Even the buckets they pick into have changed to fit an ever-changing world—and the Morris’s have kept up. Not content with the status quo, Dave and his son, Jake, are constantly looking for new ways to keep their farm current and interesting. They recently began experimenting with pluots, a plum/ apricot cross, as well as a few new varieties of cherries. The United States is the second biggest producer of apples, behind China. But apples aren’t native to the U.S. Apples originated in central Asia. They were taken to Rome and Greece by Silk Road traders, then spread to the rest of Europe with the Romans. European settlers brought apples, and apple seeds, with them to America. Apples were introduced to the Pacific Northwest in 1825 by Captain Aemilius Simmons, who planted apple seeds at Fort Vancouver, Washington. At a farewell banquet in Lon don, a young lady slipped some apple seeds into his pocket and bade him plant them in the wilderness. The first tree produced only one apple, but the seeds of that single fruit bore future generations of hardier stock. When covered wagons traveled over the Oregon Trail westward, they carried apple trees and “scion wood” for grafting as part of their cargo. Often the family orchard was planted before the ground was broken for their log cabin. In 1847 Henderson Lewelling, an Iowa nurseryman, traveled the Oregon Trail with four wagons, his wife, eight children and approximately 700 one-year old grafted fruit trees. The following spring he planted the 350 that had survived near Milwaukee, OR. Colonial apple trees were cultivated to produce cider more than for fresh fruit. During the 19th century, hard cider was one of the most popular beverages in the United States – cheaper than beer or wine and more widely available than whiskey or bourbon. It has been estimated that during the 19th century, Americans drank an average of 32 gallons of cider every year. Cider’s popularity was owed, in part, to the widespread availability of cider apples and the ability to make cider in one’s own home. The focus on eating apples in stead of drinking them is traced to Prohibition, when apple producers were afraid of losing their market and began pushing apples as a delicious and nutritious food. The 19th century Temperance Movement was a powerful force in the United States. Prohibitionists across the country advocated chop ping down the apple orchards as a way of fighting against the “demon liquor.” Within a relatively brief period of time, hundreds of apple varieties were destroyed and many apple orchards went out of business. The expression “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” actually comes from an old English saying, Eat an apple before going to bed makes the doctor beg his bread. Eating fresh apples is good for Morris Orchards as the majority of their apples end up in the fresh markets. In much of the United States, apple season begins as early as mid-July and goes in some places through mid-November. Morris Orchards, like most of the PNW orchards has a later season. Many of their apples will be kept in cold storage to extend their shelf life. In 1940, Dr. Robert Smock of Cornell University developed a low oxygen, high carbon dioxide cooling storage system that helped keep apples ‘fresh’ longer. “Apples breathe,” as Jim Allen, president of the New York Apple Association says. “And the deeper they breathe, the longer they’ll live.” Controlled-atmosphere storage slows their breathing, which consequently slows their ripening. For farmers like Morris, cold storage means keeping income coming in during the lean winter months. For apple eaters, it means being able to bite into a crisp, sweet apple any day of the year.