She’ll be apples for Keith Nightingale of Alpine Apples at Wandiligong

AFTER 60 years farming apples, Keith Nightingale is unquestionably the patriarch of Victoria’s industry.

Keith Nightingale of Nightingale Bros Alpine Apples in Wandiligong Picture: SARAH HUDSON

AFTER  60 years of farming ­apples in Victoria’s North East, Keith Nightingale is unquestionably the patriarch of Victoria’s apple industry.

Since he moved to his 60ha apple orchard at Wandiligong, near Bright, in 1954 with his wife Marianne, he has gone on to expand to four more properties at Stanley, Buckland Valley and Upper Wandiligong, totalling 320ha and ventured into chestnut production.

The locals say Alpine ­Apples is the biggest grower in the southern hemisphere.

“That’s just local talk,” said Keith, 85, with characteristic good humour.

Alpine Apples’ chestnuts average 300 tonnes a year.

Its apples come in six ­varieties, which yield 15,000 bins a year (2.5 bins equal a tonne), and pink lady is the most popular.

Given the family has farmed the same land for six decades — and had an orchard on the fringe of Melbourne for six years before that — Keith could write the book on the evolution of apple farming.

He said the greatest changes in the industry were the different varieties.

“In the early days it was just Jonathan, Delicious, Golden Delicious and Granny Smith,” Keith said.

“Today the varieties just go on and on and on as better strains come along.”

For this reason, apple trees are commonly replaced to make way for new varieties.

He said while grafting was possible on young root stock, up to 10 years of age, generally older trees were pushed out and replaced.

Keith said the root stock ­itself had changed considerably, with better dwarf varieties created to produce more fruit and less tree growth.

This has led to intense ­orcharding.

“We’ve gone from 20 tonnes to the hectare and it’s sneaking up,” he said. “Some varieties are producing 60 tonnes/ha now and soon it will be 100.”

Dwarf varieties have minimal rooting and are root pruned to reduce tree growth, but because they don’t have strength in their roots they need to be trellised.

Keith said once an old ­orchard was pushed out to make way for new plantings, the ground was deep ripped and cover crops — including peas, legumes and beans — grown for up to two years before being ploughed in as green manure.

They also test the soil and apply nutrients as required, while also fumigating for bacteria in the soil. New trees are planted in June and July, watered and fertilised, generally through a fertigation system.

“In the old days we’d fertilise in winter but now we fertilise every four weeks,” he said.

“We believe trees should have nutrients available frequently (but) not everyone agrees with that.”

The orchard has mating disrupters applied to deter codling moth. It has an active spray program for black spot and powdery mildew, and they monitor the weather to predict possible outbreaks.

Keith said a revolutionary technique was the use of drape netting, placed over the trees after blossom, which is not used just for hail and bird damage, but also for sunburn and to help retain moisture.

Alpine Apples learned the hard way about hail damage. The Stanley farm was hail-prone and so the Nightingales converted it to chestnuts.

Now all their orchards are covered by water sprinklers to minimise frost damage.

The northeast receives an annual rainfall of 1.2m, which means they don’t often irrigate.

Apple harvest is from mid-February to mid-May, while chestnuts are picked from mid-March to late April.

Sugars and starch content in apples is analysed on the farm to determine the perfect picking time.

During harvest up to 150 casual pickers use ladders to gather the fruit, but Keith predicts the farm will soon use raised platforms, useful also for thinning and pruning.

Apples are kept in cool storage on the farm at 1C.

Both crops are freighted to wholesale markets in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and sold in supermarkets.

Chestnuts are also sent to Perth and the Nightingales have a farmgate sales outlet.

They also considering reintroducing a juicing processing plant.

Although his legacy is ­impressive, Keith has taken a step back from control of the farm. He works each day but his extensive family handle much of the grunt work.

Each of his children — Don, Ross, Bruce and Ann — work in the business, as well as three of his 16 grandchildren — Steve, Brad and Cade.

“I think the industry is now harder and tougher — there’s always targets to reach and more tonnage to the hectare to produce — but it’s more ­interesting. I think it was run of the mill years ago,” he said.