Springwatch Christmas Special Part 2

We had a great day filming with Springwatch and were blessed with wonderful weather.  You can see the results at 7pm on BBC2 on Boxing Day, and if you miss that it will be repeated at 3.15 pm BBC2 on New Year’s Eve.

The feature is about mistletoe and the damage it does to apple trees despite its importance as a wildlife habitat.

There was no shortage of mistletoe in the traditional orchard at West Bradley, unfortunately, as is the case in so many of our Somerset orchards.  Neil was eager to get at some of it with his pole saw and Kate was happy to get her hands sticky with the berries.

The crew, from Bristol, were charming, and included Scott Tibbles, son of the great wildlife cameraman Maurice Tibbles, and a great wildlife cameraman in his own right.

It will be a short piece in a review of the year, but we will all be glued to our screens!

Mistletoe - bah, humbug!

It’s fair to say that mistletoe is not our favourite thing.  Not at this time of year or indeed any time of year.  

Round here there are lots of neglected orchards that seem to specialise in growing it; the trees are in a sorry state and produce only meagre crops of apples. In time this parasite will kill the trees.

We have an invasion of mistletoe in one of our older orchards and we are puzzling about what to do about it - some of the trees will have to come right out while others will need radical pruning if they are to survive.

We have mistletoe harvesters in the orchard right now and really all they are doing is coppicing the stuff and making things worse.  If you cut the plant off you just encourage its growth elsewhere. 

And what’s more they claim they can hardly give it away.  Varieties of mistletoe vary in colour of leaves and berries and the less desirable versions with yellowy leaves and creamy berries - like ours - are not as sought after as the ones with glossy green leaves and bright white berries, some of which are imported.

The National Trust has a new campaign to encourage people to buy locally sourced mistletoe and also to plant mistletoe seeds on their apple trees.  With the demise of traditional orchards they believe that the plant is in danger of dying out and needs to be saved.

Mistletoe does in fact provide a habitat for several endangered species, such as the Mistletoe Marble Moth so if you have a tree that is so swamped that it is no longer viable for producing fruit you might feel better in the knowledge that it may be supporting these species.

Otherwise you should be managing your mistletoe’s progress with bold measures and a pruning saw.