Yesterday, I got the chance to explore the Cornell Orchards.  It was a nice sunny day, perfect for a tour around the Orchards.  Surprisingly, the Cornell Orchards is not a typical orchard for growing apples to sell on the market, but more of a research facility to cultivate the different varieties of apples that we know and love.  Our tour guide showed us different sections of the orchard that uses different growing techniques to develop each different variety of apples.  The oldest apple tree is over 100 years old and some sections of the orchard were very ancient relics!

The current research that the Orchard does is growing dwarf trees from roots systems.  Research places such as Geneva send saplings to Cornell Orchard to graft onto trees and develop the apple variety.  One of the most modern apple growing techniques is the Tall Spindle Growing System, where they plant the root systems in rows and graft the apples to create dwarf trees.  With special pruning techniques, these trees grow to a certain height and bare more fruit to acre.  This type of system gets more fruit exposed to the sun, allowing for a more flavored and better apple.  The Tall Spindle Growing System is popular but very expensive.

Afterwards, the tour group got to try a new variety of apple called Snapdragon named after its sweet and tangy flavor to market to kids.  Supposedly a lot of thought goes into naming the apple brands.  It was fun to learn more about the history behind Cornell Orchards and how it is consistently supporting research for better and delicious apples!  Fun fact: Cornell apple cider is made from all the different apples grown on the orchard, so one glass of apple cider is not the same as the next!  Looking forward to apple cider soon.