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It’s simple really – we want to map the location and determine the condition of all the orchards in Scotland. We call this project the National Orchard Inventory for Scotland.

Interested in supporting this landmark project ?  

How about making a wee donation to help it along !

NEWS – Area Reports are now available

– see the Inventory Reports page

It is a big job, why bother ?

Scotland’s orchards are an integral part of our cultural landscape and our history and our society. But they’ve been in decline for decades, and we have already lost many if not most of them. We need to act now if they are not to disappear entirely.

Luckily, there has been a resurgence of interest in traditional orchards in Scotland over the last 10 years or so, as lots of people are realise that the last of the orchards are in danger.  But to make firm plans for an orchard revival and to target resources most effectively, we all need to know where the orchards are. That’s why this project is a really important foundation for the long term task of reviving Scotland’s traditional orchards.

So what is an orchard ?

We are defining it in its broadest sense as a collection of at least 5 fruit trees. (If you’ve only got 3 – hurry up and plant at least 2 more!)

What’s the progress so far?

We have carried out the first stage – a Deskstudy – for all 32 local authority areas in Scotland.

We have carried out the second stage – Field Verification – in around half of local authority areas.

To date, we have carried out sufficient field survey work in 12 local authority areas to be able to report on those areas:  see the Area Reports page.

The Orchard Inventory project is currently seeking further funding to carry out the next tranche of Field Verification work.  If you are interested in funding this, then please contact us.

Process

The Orchard Inventory is achieved by a two stage process.  This first stage was a detailed Deskstudy using a geographical information system.  The Deskstudy found:

•  1859 sites considered with 1728 site proposed as candidate orchards to go forward to field survey
• Orchards found in 31 out of 32 Unitary Authority areas.
• South Lanarkshire, followed by Fife have the largest number of candidate orchards, at 213 and 186 respectively
• Dumfries & Galloway, Highland, Perth & Kinross and Scottish Borders all have over 100 candidate orchards.
•  The total area of candidate orchards is 714 hectares.  This includes mixed habitats such as garden areas or walled gardens that contain an orchard.
• South Lanarkshire has the largest area with 133 hectares, much of which is found in the Clyde Valley.
•  Perth & Kinross follows up with 87 hectares, including the Carse of Gowrie.
• Aberdeenshire, Dumfries & Galloway, Fife, Highland, North Lanarkshire, and the Scottish Borders all have more than 30 hectares each.

In the second stage of the process called Field Verification, local volunteer surveyors carried out field survey work.  These volunteers were working in collaboration with a local community organisation and ourselves so as to know where the orchard sites were and how to go about doing the fieldwork.

Finally the collected data was collated and analysed and reported on in Area Reports.

How to get contact us:

If you have or know of a great orchard and are concerned it might not have been included, go here

Interested in volunteer surveywork?  We are awaiting funding to continue the next tranche of fieldwork, but if you give us your details then we’ll come back to you when funding is secured for your area: click here

If you are a local organisation interested in funded collaboration to carry out local fieldwork, look here

Any other queries please email us at:

The National Orchard Inventory project is being implemented by Crispin Hayes Associates in partnership with Orchard Research & Enterprise CIC, Borders Forest Trust, and National Trust for Scotland, with support from People’s Trust for Endangered Species.  It is an SNH funded research project.

Funding support from