As a conservation charity declares a butterfly emergency we meet Steven McCulloch to hear how he’s creating a pollinator-friendly meadow system for managing orchards in Mid Devon.

You might not think so, but there’s an art to picking an apple. Half a century ago my Grandmother taught it to me; first you must gently lift the weight of the fruit in your hand, then turn and twist it upwards without pulling, testing for any give and listening closely for the ‘tick’ that tells you it is ready to come away.

Between early September rain showers, in my garden in the village of Sandford on the outskirts of Crediton in Devon, I pick the apples I can reach from my favourite tree. Behind me I can hear the soft thud of others falling to the ground, impatient for their turn; apples with names like Keswick, Russet, Fiesta and Court de Wycke.

The apple I am picking, a traditional English eating apple called ‘Lord Lambourne’, is derived from an orange pippin. It has matt, lime green skin, blushed with orange and antique red. It’s pleasingly acidic and tastes of strawberries and summer. This is a high point of the year, a time when I can choose from a variety of home grown English apples with personality and bite in place of the same imported and anodyne apples from the supermarket.

Apples and orchards in Mid Devon

In Sabine Baring-Gould’s “A Book of the West” published in 1899, he describes Crediton as ‘a great centre of apple culture and cider-making’. He devotes thirteen pages to descriptions of the apples, ninety percent of which are now thought lost, found in Crediton’s twenty-six thousand acres of apple orchards. ‘The autumn sun is shining,’ he says, ‘there is a crispness in the air, the leaves are turned crimson and yellow, of the same hues as the fruit. The grass of the orchard is bright with crimson and gold as though it were studded with jewels.’ Records from 1808 reflect the number of orchards even in the centre of town, including one description of a ‘good orchard, well stocked with apple trees of prime cyder fruits (from which there have been made in some years thirty hogsheads of cyder or upwards’).

But as the urban stretch has gobbled up land, nearby Sandford is still home to a good number of apple trees and orchards. Each year as September ambles towards October the air here begins to smell drunk with fermenting apples. Doorways fill with bags and boxes of apples with signs reading, half-pleadingly, ‘Please help yourself’. Wassailing is still an annual event. In January villagers process by flaming torchlight to sing songs to apple trees in Sandford’s community orchard, tying toast to branches and pouring cider on roots in hopes of a good harvest. Men appear out of the gloom carrying shotguns, taking aim at the sky to banish lingering evil spirits. It’s gloriously silly, and pagan.

Testing a pollinator-friendly meadow system

In another orchard, small and wonkily shaped, nestled between Sandford’s parish church of St Swithuns and a hotpotch of thatched and slate roofs, gardener and traditional hedge-layer Steven McCulloch has been working on an idea for testing a method of orchard management using a pollinator-friendly meadow system. Commercially managed orchards rely on spraying and regular mowing, but with a knock on effect on the insects and invertebrates they, and we, rely on for pollination. Steven’s idea is one that, if it proves effective, could help to buck the trend of declining butterfly numbers locally. Since the 1970s, 80% of butterflies and a third of moth numbers have declined. Conservation charity Butterfly Conservation recently declared a butterfly emergency after its annual citizen science survey, the Big Butterfly Count returned its lowest results since records began. As a child of the 1970s I might be one of a last generation to remember chasing clouds of butterflies in swathes of long grass in summer, of turning nettle leaves over to find clusters of yellow eggs, of watching the miracle of transformation, from egg to butterfly, in a jar with an air-punched lid.

I try to base all my decisions on what works primarily for what lives there

Curiosity and Care

Steven lets his curiosity and care for the natural world shape the way that he manages landscapes. “I try to base all my decisions on what works primarily for what lives there,” he tells me. “If it works for people, then that’s an added bonus”. I ask him about his idea. “I’m testing a way of managing an orchard that provides a reason for pollinators to hang around to pollinate next year’s crop once the apple trees have bloomed,” he says. “If you treat it as a traditional hay meadow you’ll have apple blossom through the spring and meadow flowers through the summer, putting fodder on the pollinator’s doorstep. This means that they’re more likely to build nests and reproduce locally. All pollinating insects, except honey bees, have an annual lifecycle so need this food source and habitat to reproduce. Moth and butterfly caterpillars need tall grass as their food plant before pupating and a healthy grassland supports so many insects and invertebrates. Removing all the grass in an orchard by regular mowing means there’s nowhere for them to go.”

Providing flower rich, nectar rich sources for bees

He’s introducing yellow rattle, an annual wildflower that feeds off the nutrients in grass roots, helping to limit its spread and allow other plants like meadow flowers to flourish beneath the trees. “A certain amount of grass is needed to cushion the fruit when it falls,” he says, “but managing it with a cutting regime that removes the grass at key times means that it isn’t causing problems and you’re providing flower rich, nectar rich sources for bees once the flowers have gone over.”

The test area is just over an acre of awkward-to-reach orchard, one that could define the term organic. The trees are a mix of old and new and grow wherever they please. When I visit on a July day the grass is clicking with crickets and grasshoppers and swaying gold. Previously sheep might have been brought in to keep the grass down, but their voracious appetites can prove a problem for biodiversity. I begin to understand the challenges for growers and why modern practice means that trees are grown in uniform rows in easy to manage spaces.

A system to support the essential ecosystem

In its second year it’s not yet easy to measure the impact of the scheme on crop quality or quantity, but anecdotally Steven reports noticing an increase in wildflowers, birds and insects. Could it be rolled out as a method of management in commercial orchards? Steven can’t see any reason why not, “it may be less predictable, but it isn’t a costly method. Managing orchards as hay meadows where grass is allowed to grow and go to seed supports the life cycle of insects and invertebrates and the ecosystem necessary for healthy trees, and ultimately, apples!”

He’s disappointed with the take of the yellow rattle, the orchard isn’t quite as yellow as he would have liked, but there’s always next year, and these things take time.

Back in my own little scrap of orchard I sit in the sun to eat an apple. It tastes complex; sharp and sweet, nutty and fresh. There are little black marks on its skin so I check each mouthful for maggots the way I learned to as a child. It’s a level of unpredictability often foreign to our anxious, pressured age, but one which makes the experience richer and more vivid.

Butterfly Conservation have created a petition calling for a government ban on neonicotinoids to protect our butterflies, bees and vital biodiversity. You can add your voice until 13 October 2024 here: https://butterfly-conservation.org/emergency

Read the first of my Sustainability Matters series by clicking on this link: Sustainability is more than skin deep with Friends with Nature founder Elaine Wan.