farmdoc's blog post number 325

In our Mole Creek orchard are 13 young fruit trees. On 2 March I noticed, to my dismay and disappointment, one of them – an apple tree – was snapped off where the trunk divided into branches. Reflexively I focussed my forensic skills, which beyond Medicine are barely mediocre, on the cause of this unhappy event. Invoking the galloping-horses-not-zebras aphorism, and observing the floppy-top fence intact and the gates snibbed, I set aside low probability causes – human, sheep, goat, wombat, lightning – in favour of three likely causes – possum, bird, wind. Wind’s unlikely because the broken tree was as equally exposed to wind as the other trees which, though several are flimsier and more prone to wind damage, are fine. I doubt a bird cause because, unlike some of the other trees, the affected tree had no fruit on it. And a possum attack’s unlikely, because the floppy-top fence had never been breached before, and though the tree broke about a metre above the ground there are no claw marks on its trunk. So I don’t know the cause. And now, nine days later during which no other trees have come to grief, I doubt I ever will. But there’s no doubt I must order a new apple tree for planting in the winter. As for my detective skills? Where are you when I need you, Sherlock Holmes?