3 minutes

On the road to saving Scotland’s wild apple

Wild apple trees haven't been a species often found in our management plans in the past, but all of that is changing with a new project at our nursery. 

We were recently approached by Dr Rick Worrell, who was trying to find a home for some wild apple clones he had collected. 

Rick had been looking at mapping wild apples across Britain that had not yet hybridised with domestic or garden apples. Much like wildcats, this hybridisation means the native wild apple is becoming rarer and rarer. 

A wild apple tree in deer fencing.

Wild apples are the parent species to the domestic apples found in supermarkets. According to the 2018 report, 'The Ecology and Genetics of Scotland’s Native Wild Apple: Malus sylvestris', apples hybridise easily and we’re seeing increasing numbers of hybrids across Scotland - in some areas up to 50% of the population.

The samples collected by Rick, enthusiasts, and our staff were sent to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for DNA testing to confirm they were in fact not hybrids. 

The trees were then split into groups according to the where they were collected. Two of the regions where trees were collected were in Scotland. One region stretched all the way from the Scottish Borders up the east to Sutherland. Making Newton Nursery perfectly suited to the project!

The samples collected were shoots taken from the healthiest, most vigorous parts of the tree. They were then grafted onto rootstocks where they were allowed to grow and mature before being sent north to our team.

A field of wild apples.

In the end, we received 80 trees from across the country. Apple trees need space to grow so we planted them 8m apart in 10 rows, with each tree protected by rabbit netting. Because of the importance of these trees, the new orchard also sits behind deer and rabbit fences equipped with badger gates.

Though the arrangement of trees looks structured, this is not a seed orchard. Our goal is to provide a clone bank of Scottish wild apples that will be pollinated by bees. 

In time, we hope to use this seed bank to plant wild apples across our forests and increase the genetics of wild apples in Scotland. Our goal, in the next ten years, is to have a healthy supply of this largely ignored but significant tree species which is important for rare woodland pasture, oak-birch woodland and wet woodlands. 

We look forward to including it in the future management of our land.