Orchard Management (Summer)

A two-day orchard management course, with the first day in February (looking at winter jobs) and the second day in July (looking at summer jobs). We recommend attending both days to get a year-round understanding of what fruit trees need and how to encourage a bountiful harvest.

The summer course will focus on:

• How to thin out apples after the “June drop” and why.
• Techniques for summer pruning and the timing of this.
• Bud grafting

There’ll be plenty of opportunity to practise techniques on established fruit trees at Berrington Hall.

We will also explore why fruit trees are great for food security and community resilience, how to manage orchards in nature-friendly ways and adapting to a changing climate.

This course is part of Skills for All at Berrington Hall, a successfully crowdfunded project to empower, upskill and connect people in practical skills for sustainable living. Thanks to individual supporters and the Shropshire Council Shared Prosperity Community Fund, we are able to offer these places for free to people who live, work or study in Shropshire, particularly 18-25's and members of community groups.

We want to make sure that as many people as possible have this opportunity and that the course is 100% full on the day, so please only book a place if you can definitely attend, and if something changes for you it's really important that you let us know so that we can offer your place to someone else.

Joey Hughes is the founder & principal adviser at specialist orchard consultancy Orchard Daughters – Merched Y Berllan - based in Mid Wales. A joint Master of Science degree from the University of Edinburgh & Scottish Agricultural College in his youth, was followed by four decades in food & farming. As well as developing his own and others orchards for communities & commercial farms, Joey’s other roles have included Senior Parliamentary Advisor in the House of Commons, Head of Policy at the Organic Research Centre, and both Head of Plant Health & Biotechnology & then Head of Food Policy & Strategy for the Welsh Government. Joey is currently the primary supplier of orchard advice to the Welsh Government’s flagship ‘Farming Connect’ service as well as a number of UK charities. Last year, Joey featured on BBC Radio 4 Farming Today discussing Merched Y Berllan’s own experimental pear orchard, testing the benefits of using high salicylic acid willows as ramial chipped wood (RCW) mulch. Joey also has practical experience of working in international development specialising in community food security & assessing complex multi-agency projects in post-conflict zones; this included 2 months in sub-Saharan Africa.

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