Orchard Management Update

In January, 2011 the Orchard Management Guidelines received Superintendent concurrence. One of the first steps called for in the guidelines is to verify the cultivated fruit tree varieties represented in Yosemite's historic orchards. Accordingly, a landscape architect intern working in the History, Architecture & Landscapes Branch will soon be doing the following:

1.) Systematically tagging, photographing, and GPSing each historic fruit tree (roughly 550 total trees park wide);
2.) Taking a two leaf sample from each tree, placing collected samples in a labeled ziplock bag and storing leaf specimens short term (no longer than a week) in the RMS wet lab; and
3.) Overnight shipping leaf specimens to our project partner and plant geneticist Gayle Volk at the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Fort Collins CO.

Aside from taking leaf specimens, this project will entail placing a tag on each historic fruit tree. The tags are orange, measure roughly 3 x 6 inches, and are made of Tyvek. Each tag will be secured to the fruit tree using a 5 inch white nylon tie. As mentioned above, we plan on beginning this project soon as the DNA stored in each leaf is most dense and robust in the spring. The tags will remain in place for no longer than 2.5 years, and will be removed by HAL staff by the end of calendar year 2013. If anyone has any questions please contact Historical Landscape Architect Danny Schaible at 379.1295.

I wonder if the bears, who eat these apples, will appreciate all the above metioned work?