John Nash: A lesson learnt the hard way

A lesson learnt the hard way!

John Nash is a retired, well sort of retired, fruit farm manager in Kirdford who enjoys scribbling about life on the farm from the now to days gone by.

Earlier this summer I was joking about the hot and dry weather we had been having, and the resulting arid look that our countryside was adopting.

Oh dear… how it came to bite us.

For many it was just a glorious summer. A summer to enjoy with trips to the seaside or pleasant walks in local parks or countryside.

For others with gardens there developed a constant battle to get sufficient water to their plants before they frazzled to a crisp under the relentless rain-free sky. Lawns ceased to exist, just a brown dusty plateau of nothing, other than the odd faint show of green from a particularly tough root of clover!

In my last Village Tweet missive I referred to 1976 when we had our last real heatwave, and talked about the learning curve I encountered baby sitting on holiday.

It was also the year that I was to receive a severe jolt to my ego with the events that unfolded on the farm. The effects of that heat for a lot of farmers led to many crops suffering devastation.

It also taught me a lesson I shall never forget. Not to be too cocky!

I had been made manager of the fruit farm a few years before and was still on cloud nine with the knowledge that I had been given such a responsible job at such a relatively young age. So, the year started with a great sense of selfconfidence as the young orchards responded to a wonderful spring with a very heavy set of apples and pears. Wasn’t I a clever one!

Just after petal fall we had a large group of fellow fruit growers visit the farm for an evening walk through the orchards. Puffed up like a balloon at the frequent remarks on how good the trees and promisingly heavy crop looked, I swaggered round with head full of the praise and convinced that I was just the bee’s knees.

Among the assembled growers was the greatly respected Sir Peter Mursell. A man who was well known for his superb Kirdford orchards as well as his wonderful knowledge as a leading grower. He gently remarked to me a couple of times during the walk about the possible need to do a heavy thinning on such a high fruit set. I took his warning and put it to one side in the confidence that with our reservoir of six and a half million gallons of water sitting quietly waiting for usage, I had all the resources available for anything that should occur.

Oh, such is the arrogance of youth and limited knowledge!

The great heatwave hit.

To try to maintain such a huge crop we had to keep the orchard soils water deficit below two inches so we soon had to start pumping the precious water onto the groaning trees. Just an inch at a time but that was still a million gallons a night. While the fields’ drains recouped some back to the lake for a while, it soon reached the stage where the ground absorbed every tiny drop… and the clay soil started to crack.

We joked that if you fell into such a fissure it would require Petworth Fire Brigade to be called to haul you out!

Last month I told of the arid view I saw from the plane as we returned from holiday that summer. By late July we had used all the water we could take without destroying the reservoirs’ environment for the fish and water fowl. We started to thin fruit as heavily and as speedily as we could. Far too late. Far, far, too late! Sir Peter’s gentle words of wisdom came to haunt me.

The apples ceased to grow, the trees began to shed leaves, desperate to keep their progeny safe.

Then… just prior to harvest time… the rains came at last. As usual, they didn’t know how to stop. Rain, rain, rain. The apples, their skins now set rigid by the long drought, couldn’t take the sudden burst of growth that the water triggered, and they split like cherries after a shower. A complete disaster. Costly picking of a ruined crop followed by low returns for the poor quality of those that made the grader.

The following year, due to the poor state the trees were in as they went into their winter rest, we had a terrible fruit set and another very poor year.

How those two years taught me so many lessons. Mother Nature has a very nasty habit of biting you hard if you think you know better or try to ignore her. Listen to the words of those who’ve seen it all before, and log each tiny piece of information away for future use. You will never master her, just try and work with her better.

By the way, something came up on the radio the other day: Petrichor… it’s the correct name for that wonderful smell that hits us when fresh rain falls on parched soil. Seems it’s microscopic bacteria in the soil that produce a chemical scent known as geosmin which is what we smell as they react to the water.

We learn something every day, don’t we? Eventually! John Nash