Celebrating Apple Day 2025
Ever heard of Apple Day? This is a time to celebrate all things apple, including Scotland’s rare native apple species – ‘Malus sylvestris’ or 'Fiadh-ubhal' in Gaelic.
Wild apples are the parent species to the ones you see in the supermarkets. But wild apples are becoming increasingly rare. This is because they hybridise easily with the garden crab apple and domestic varieties.
Historically, they’ve not been seen as significant, but these fruit bearing trees are important for rare woodland pastures, wet woodlands and increasing biodiversity.
Here is some of the innovative work our teams have been doing to protect and preserve native apples across the country.
Wild apple orchard at Newton Nursery
Our nursery team worked closely with Dr Rick Worrell, an ecologist and forester who specialises in this species, to establish a wild apple clone bank at our newly renovated nursery at Newton. Rick has been mapping wild apple genetics across Scotland to help protect them. We worked with him and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh to collect and test the DNA of saplings to see if they were hybrids or not.
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 nursery.
The 80 trees received were then planted in a special spot and protected by deer and rabbit using fences. The goal is to provide a repository of Scottish wild apples that can be used in the future to safeguard the genetic diversity of wild apples in the country.
Planting wild apple trees
We once again worked with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) to plant 500 wild apple trees as part of the Scottish Plant Recovery project.
The trees planted were donated by the RBGE and had been grown from seeds collected from Blair Atholl, Pitcastle, Loch Rannoch, Dun Coillich, Struan, Wood of Cree and Glen Falloch.
Because apples hybridise easily, the donated seedlings needed to be being planted at least 500 metres from other apple trees. This meant we needed to find the perfect location for the saplings. Our staff found suitable locations at Glen Gyle, Errochty Forest and at Glentrool.
Kenny Hay, our Tree Seed Resource Manager, said.
“Projects like this are little heard about but a fascinating side of the work that we do. We are more than happy to be able to help conserve such important specimens and 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.”
Working with trainees to plant wild apples
Last year we worked with Highland Perthshire Community Land Trust as part of our partnership with the Heart of Scotland Forest Partnership to plant native wild apple trees in Highland Perthshire.
Wild apples grow sparsely and often in open woodlands. Ahead of planting our staff once again worked closely with Rick Worrell to find the right location for the saplings.
Working with the trainees, our staff planted the saplings in Lassintulloch Forest, between Lochs Tummel and Rannoch. Because wild apples like space, they were placed around 40 metres apart, which is quite a difference to our usual planting of commercial crop which is usually around 1.8 metres.
In the future we want to use cattle to graze the area and help native tree seeds to germinate and naturally regenerate across the site.
“These trees will serve as a valuable seed bank that will allow us to grow and plant wild apples across our forests and increase the genetics of wild apples in Scotland,” adds Kenny.
We look forward to using wild apples more in our forest plans and in future projects as we continue to work to protect and preserve this native species.