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The South Marysburgh Mirror GREEN INV - By Robin Reily An Apple A Day... Years ago when my wife and | knew even less about investing than we do today, we started saving to a tree-top with desirable features. The root stock deter- mines the overall size and hardiness of the tree while the grafted top brings the special varieties of each apple. You could plant an apple seed but the results will almost always be disappointing. : Apples trees are suscepti- for retirement. We chose to diversify into a dozen different mutual funds to spread the risk. After a few years we ana- lyzed across the funds to see what actual companies were commonly held. Well...we weren't very diversified...lots of Apple Computer. In the last decade, we have enhanced our apple hold- ings with real apples...the kind that grow on trees. The homestead we purchased included two old, overgrown apple trees and we've planted a dozen more. It took ble to a fungus called Cedar Apple Rust. And, if there is tree that thrives in the Coun- ty it is the red cedar (actually a type of juniper). Each spring, the limbs of the red cedars hang with a brown slime fungus. The wind floats the spores for two kilome- ters in search of a second home on your apple tree. Once there, it infects the five years of vigorous pruning to revive the old ones and the new ones are just starting to yield. Apples are a long -term investment that can pay dividends for many decades. Martin Luther, instigator of the Protestant Reformation, is alleged to have said: “Even if | knew the world was falling to pieces, | would still plant my apple tree”. There are thou- sands of apple varieties to choose from, all of them grafted .«.meaning someone joins a root stock with special features @ the store a made soaps j delicious local treats plus everyday grocery items & essentials and fabulous ice cream 613-476-6333 31 County Rd. 18 tree leaves and damages the fruit. The fungus’ spread is most active in a cool, moist spring, so a good local ‘investment’ choice is a tree variety resistant to Cedar Apple Rust. These are ones that naturally leaf-out and blossom later in the year when conditions are drier. While avoiding Cedar Apple Rust is particularly im- portant in the County, there are dozens of insects, fungus and bacteria that want a share of your growing profits. Even the Apple Computer logo has a bite taken out of it! Commercial orchards use a wide range of herbicides and pesticides to raise a profitable crop. If all you want to do is eat a nice-looking apple then just buy one at the grocery store and munch with abandon. You can depend on all sorts of luscious fruit being raised in California (if they can depend on getting rain in the future). Foregoing this easy route, and wanting to avoid some dubi- ous chemicals, we’ve employed some other strategies. Be- sides planting rust-resistant varieties we’ve used vigorous pruning, wrapping trunks in caterpillar-trapping cardboard, regularly gathering fallen fruits to prevent larvae from win- tering into the soil and, hanging traps to catch moths. This year, we’ve had further success by spraying an organic mix- ture of molasses, yeasts, seaweed and Neem Oil to deter fun- gus and bacteria. Even after all this effort, we anticipate ‘writing-off some of the losses. We eat the best ones, use others for cooking or cider, give some to our sheep and pigs, and some to the compost pile. Finally, having different varieties provides the diversifica- tion to have some trees better-suited to each year’s novel weather and insect conditions. As with any investment pro- gram you'll have some good years and some bad ones, or as they say in the Financial Times, a few stars--a few dogs.