Three Trees in One

The July Board meeting of the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association was held at Bellewood Acres at the invitation of Dorie Belisle, co-owner and new Board member. The farm, located north of Bellingham, has 25,000 apple trees of about 15 varieties, although Dorie's husband John is continually changing or adding varieties, in response to changing consumer tastes -- more on this later.

We enjoyed a nice meal before the meeting and sampled Bellewood's newest product, Bellewood Bubbly, a sparkling non-alcoholic cider. Dorie gave an interesting talk about the operation of the farm and its evolution since she and John founded it in 1996, illustrated by a tour of the orchards in golf carts.

The tree (or trees?) in the photo has been producing Jonagold apples, but its next crop will be a variety introduced from Japan called Orin. The root stock is a Mulling 9, onto which the Jonagold was grafted. Because of oversupply, the market price for Jonagolds has fallen drastically. You can see where John has cut back the trunk and grafted a scion of Orin onto it. It's the small growth above the yellow protective tape.

I'm looking forward to tasting my first Orin.