By james art 
Despite the recent snow – and the frigid conditions this week – WisConsin Winters have not been so cold or snowy in recent years. Last winter, it was the highest in the record.
Trees are among living things that deal with the changing climate.
The trees provide huge benefits for both the environment and our lives. The healthy shed of wood pulls carbon dioxide from the air and stores it. The trees offer shade and cool spaces. They provide food for both wildlife and humans. The list goes on.
Liz Griffith focuses on the fruit variety. It runs Orchard Door Creek Orchard. Her parents revived him more than 40 years ago.
Griffith grows 90 types of apples, mainly Heirloom, including the core of Ashmead and Esopus Spitzenburg.
Griffith says that apple trees can live for decades and come with environmental benefits. “Oh, yes, I want to say that perennial agriculture is great for hydrology because we don’t work the soil every year,” she says.
This is a frosty January morning. Griffith is a layer, a cutter in readiness. This is a pruning season. Griffith calls him a beloved because it makes her feel related to trees.
“To get rid of broken branches, sick branches, branches that are only vegetative and simply block the air flow and sunlight. These are the ones you want to take out first. And then you are also looking to shape the tree for longevity and production, “she says.
Griffith points to the tip of Makintosh, which is strategically trimmed. “So one has lost his top, but in the last two years we have been growing a new peak and it looks great,” she says.
Griffith is approaching the manner of the way her parents did. The trees are part of an ecosystem that includes a damp area, a pond and a prairie. The whole system is managed as naturally as possible and non -chemical. A combination of grasses and perennial rye grows between the rows of trees.
“Usually it is an orchard in the paths. He currently looks very trimmed, like a golf course. We have to do this to enter the winter because rodents will enter and chew the trees if there is a cover for them, “she says.
Longer conversation with fruit liza Griffith.
Griffith says rodents have become a bigger problem in the last five years due to climate change. With more heated conditions, a tiny mammal called Pine Vole appeared in the orchard.
“We never had pine fields. Previously, they consistently got too cold in the winters to survive because they live underground and have traditionally been south, and now this is not the case, ”she says.
Griffith deploys “natural” rodent control strategies. Raptor boxes, Kestrel boxes and OWL are strategically scattered through the landscape of the orchard.
But it observes how other climatic effects develop.
“And my father, if he were here, would say the same. Now we are dealing with the litan of things that I have never had to deal with. We are talking about winter – WisConsin Winters were consistently snowy and cold and sunny. We now have these ups and falls – frieze and thawing, freezing and thawing, “she says.
Apple trees are usually durable and can handle an underground temperature.
“They hit their top dive when they became the most stressed and they can handle it,” says Griffith.
But if the softer time suddenly struck: “They will start to lose in sleep and then if it goes back again, really abruptly, then you get damage to the tissues of the tree – roots, pimples, such things – because it is not like it is not like Sleeping, it’s not so hard. This is a big problem, “says Griffith.
It explores ways to diversify and make the orchard more resistant – for example, introducing new types of fruit trees.
“I’ll try American Persimmon, which blooms really late. We also have a paw planting – they bloom later than apples, “says Griffith.
It is also considering food sprays that can help trees recover from unexpected freezing. And Griffith hopes to get a special portable windshield that can pull behind its tractor. The idea is to mix higher air from the higher areas of the orchard to the lower spots.
“I will try to write a grant for a portable freezing fan with a PTO tractor. This will suck the air from the top of the hill here, which is supposed to go,” she says.
For now, Griffith should focus on winter pruning. She is not alone in this cold morning in the orchard.
Emma Evert’s family has purchased apples here as long as he can remember. With his aging, Evert helped the crop season. Today she gets her first trimming taste.
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“When you spend so much time around them – fruits – you invest in it. And also, spending so many hours here … It feels like a family here – all these things, “says Eveite.
The orchard Liz Griffith smiles and moves to the next tree.