As you all know, Australia has been ravaged by catastrophic bushfires since September 2019. Without digressing into political debates, many big-hearted Australians are simply giving their time, money and other support to help people and animals affected by the fires. Families have lost their lives and homes. Millions of animals have perished in the flames.The animal survivors, many suffering horrific burns, find themselves in a burned-out habitat with scant food or water.
At the Heritage and rare Fruit Network we recommend the following charities. These are reputable, established organisations with plenty of experience. (Beware of pop-up "Bushfire relief" charities, no matter how well-meaning they may start out as.)
The government and other organisations are donating millions of dollars to the fireys, farmers and people who have lost their homes. The animals need help too.

ANIMALS AUSTRALIA

By Jane Sandwood, guest contributor.
If you are interested in the growing heritage or rare fruits and vegetables, you are probably aware of the new trends in the food industry towards GMO labeling. While saving wild fruit gene pools is oftentimes the mission of heritage gardens, it is also essential to pay attention to the way you market and sell your produce to a consumer market that is increasingly seeking organic labels. This desire is largely a result of President Barack Obama signing a GMO labeling bill into law in 2016.
 
For gardeners  or farmers who grow heritage produce want to be able to label the products USDA Certified Organic, there may not be any genetically modified ingredients in the food items. In doing so, you can then label your products non-GMO, GMO Free, and so forth. Federal law now gives food companies the option to claim GMO ingredients in several different ways, such as providing a QR code or website with additional information on their packaging.
 
In time, this may advance the heritage foods movement, as labeling a food item non-GMO results in 87% of consumers believing the produce is healthier. Additionally, 55% of people think that genetically modified produce are more detrimental to the environment. Knowing these statistics, it is clear is that food growers and manufacturers will need to focus on transparent labeling to ensure that their products are trusted.
 
To learn more about the laws and restrictions on your organic heritage products, see this guide to organic and GMO labeling.

The Heritage and Rare Fruit Network has been conducting grafting days each year since 1990. We do it for many reasons, including to propagate and share the heritage fruit trees which people of past generations cultivated as part of a more self-reliant lifestyle.   By this means we hope to ensure that the heritage varieties of the past are preserved for future generations.   We also teach skills such as grafting. We share orchard design knowledge, including such techniques as selecting various rootstocks in order to produce trees in a wide range of sizes suited to a range of different terroir situations.   In addition we have access to a very wide range of fruit tree varieties to allow for a selection of ripening times over the greatest part of the harvest season - for example it is possible to select apple varieties that ripen from Christmas to perhaps the end of August.

We can access rootstocks at a relatively low cost. Our many members provide scion (tree cuttings) from a very wide range of varieties, so we are ideally suited to help people who have lost their fruit trees in fires or floods to recreate their orchards. Often we can provide varieties more suited to people’s needs or perhaps varieties they can’t access anywhere else. 

A short history: Following  the Black Saturday fires of 2009 we grafted fruit trees for the bushfire affected people in the Wellington and Latrobe Shires. We also grafted around 600 peaches, apples, pears and plums that were grown out for a year by the Murrindindi Shire predominately for the people in Marysville.   We held another grafting workshop for the Black Saturday  bushfire affected people in Calignee in 2010 after they’d had a year to recover.    Since then we have held grafting workshops for people burnt out in the Abefeldy fire in the Wellington Shire in 2012, and the Glenaladale fire in 2014.   In every instance the bushfire affected people have received the trees. The Wellington Shire paid for all the rootstocks (averaging less than $3 each) for the fire-affected people in their shire, as well as providing a support worker, a barbecue and sausages for the day   The Latrobe Shire paid for the rootstocks for the first batch of trees grafted after Black Saturday in their shire, and the second batch at Callignee were paid for by a government bushfire recovery agency.

The rootstocks for the approximately 600 fruit trees for Marysville were largely donated. Some were paid for by money raised at H&RFN grafting days.   The Landcare group helped organise the grafting for the bushfire affected people at Glenaladale, including a barbecue and sausages.   On the day, trees were also grafted for the general public. These were sold for around $10 each and the profits from the sales of these covered the cost of the trees for the bushfire affected people.
 We have learnt and shared many skills that allow people to have trees they couldn’t otherwise have.
 
This comprises two lots of four different apple varieties grafted to a single trunk at right angles, and would suit an espaliered tree trained to cover the corner of a building.   Such an espalier could include varieties ripening over a six month period from the same section of a wall. 

In conclusion: As best we can, we would like to make our diversity of knowledge and skills available to help people affected by flood or fire, and in doing so respond to the wishes of the locals as to how we can help.
 
ContactWebsite: http://heritageandrarefruits.weebly.com/contacts.html
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/heritageandrarefruit/

 Last year we created an email group and everybody with scion to share was able listed their varieties and share the list in the email group.
We had a get-together on the Saturday before our first grafting day and people shared scion.  It is hoped to do similar this year.
So, I send out a list of pears, apples, plums and cherries I have collected, and anyone conducting a grafting day can circulate it within their group and people can make choices before the day.
Also the lists of what everyone else has could be circulated and if attempts are made to collect scion from other people, to bring through with me.

Then anyone who is interested in growing rare and heritage fruit can organise a grafting workshop in their own local area. We suggest that these could include up to 20 people. I would be there to help get it off the ground, with hopefully one other grafter to help me teach people how to graft, and graft at least one tree for every participant. 
If there is more than one experienced grafter to help then going over 20 people could be considered.   If I can cover costs on the trip I will be happy. Last year with the trip around Western Victoria the groups charged participants $20 which gave them the first tree free and additional sales of scion for $2, rootstocks $6 and additional grafts $2ea.   This should cover my costs and leave a profit for the groups organising the workshops.   
I am attending on the understanding that any profits goes to non-profit groups such as those organising the workshops along with the payments of costs to any additional grafters.

The intent is to try to create a self sustaining group in the area of each workshop and assist them with future grafting days in the years to come.

Please message me with your email address on Facebook if you intend to organise workshops for-

• the Sydney area around the 23rd/24th July
• The area between Albury and Sydney on either 20th,21st or 22nd July
• along the coast between Sydney and Bermagui on 25th, 26th and 27th July .

Neil Barraclough
Neil on Facebook
10th June 2016

By Neil Barraclough
The Bengworden-Meerlieu 6th Annual Grafting Day combined a celebration of 25 years of grafting days. Seen in the photo from left to right were
Laurie Kirkham who learnt to graft at our first day and grafted many of the trees in their orchard as well as grafting for others in the following years.
Then Liz Kirkham, myself, Peter Frost, Janis Jones, my brother Ralph, Peter and Nola Mowbray, all original attendees with the two Peters, Ralph and myself all first day grafters.
Too late for the photo were Dennis Gedye, another grafter from the first day and Jane Gurling (talking to Angela Downey) who grafted at many of our early days but not sure about the first one. Getting five of the original grafters and seven of the early ones back after 25 years wasn't a bad effort. It was a bit of a reunion as some of us hadn't seen each other for over ten years and we were a very close group,

Well done to everyone in the Home Produce Group for a great organisational effort and thanks to grafters, Sal Testa, Ralph Barraclough, Nathan Goodman, Peter Frost and anyone I missed because I was yapping too much as I grafted.

The apple pie competition was won by Christabell from Picnic Point Apple orchard, well done.

By Neil Barraclough
Perfect day for grafting at the Yinnar Community Garden and with Neville Burley, Sal Testa and myself grafting it was a very relaxed day. One space left in the garden for a fruit tree so what did we put in? Just down the road there is a seedling apple that is just the best cooker in existence so it was grafted on to an apple rootstock and planted in the garden, ensuring its security should the one on the roadside be removed. The day finished with a bit of a demo of multigrafting on one of the gardens trees and a discussion of traditional pruning methods.
Well done Yinnar Commuity Garden on a great day.

Neil Barraclough
28th July 2015
Monday's first grafting workshop in Lorne organised by Swami Samadhijyoti Saraswati saw us make a start to setting up a nursery bed for propagation of rootstocks for future grafting days and various projects around the Lorne district.

The day started off with some beautiful home cooking and then local arborist Steve gave a talk on sharpening secateurs and knives.

Then local blueberry propagator Mathew Vincent gave a talk on planting trees emphasising the need for a square hole rather than a round one so the roots didn't just go around the inside of the hole. then he gave a brief talk on propagating blueberries in pots, 4 parts perlite and one part peat moss(?). He then showed how he cut the through the node on the bottom of the cutting encouraging rooting.

Great day organised By Swami with thanks to Annie the host and Mathew and Steve. Perhaps Swami would like to share her intended projects with us.

By Neil Barraclough, July 2015
This photo shows eleven apple varieties grafted on to a single rootstock to produce an "instant espalier".

The top one is a Lady Williams which should keep till at least September and the next one down is a Christmas Apple which ripens just after Christmas.

The other 9 varieties should give apples from when the Christmas Apple finishes to when the Lady Williams starts, meaning you will have apples from 9-10 months of the year from a section of wall or fence.

A normal espalier take perhaps 4-5 years to develop its laterals in the right place and only one variety. A reason why you should learn to graft: you won't be likely to find one in the local nursery.

The Christmas Apple was an old tree at an abandoned home on a farm at Stockdale and the original tree has died - lucky we saved it.