Growing Gala in Ontario

Production of Gala has increased steadily over the past decade. Gala's crisp texture, sweet and aromatic flavour and unique colour are a hit with the consumer and the demand for Gala by the grocery chains and roadside markets continues to grow. At last year's Ontario Horticultural Crops Conference in Hamilton, a grower panel with Mike Versteegh from Denfield, Harold Schooley from Simcoe, Jack Vanderwindt from Port Hope and Jim Hughes from Waupoos shared some successes and challenges they have had growing Gala over the years. The discussion was rounded out with Dr. John Cline, University of Guelph, providing key research findings for Gala. Here are some of the points from this interesting session.

Gala, originated in New Zealand in 1962 and has many strains from the Standard Gala with fruit that is golden yellow with a red blush to Royal™ Gala with fruit that sports an all over bright red colour with darker wide striping on a golden yellow ground. Which strain is best depends on the grower but Hughes has tried three strains, including Royal Gala and Imperial Gala. He has found striped varieties are preferred over blush or solid strains in the marketplace.

Rootstock choice by this group of growers was either M9 or M26. Other rootstocks to be considered would be Bud 9, a dwarfing rootstock with resistance to Fire Blight and in the semi dwarf category from the Vineland series, V2 and V1. Some rootstocks have a brittle graft union with Gala and therefore, require staking.

Establishing a new planting takes careful consideration. Spacing and training system need to be carefully chosen in order provide good light interception and adequate support. Mike Versteegh prefers the V trellis-system and Harold Schooley the vertical axe. For Jim Hughes and Jack Vanderwindt, the slender spindle system makes up much of their plantings. Both Hughes and Schooley have experimental plots of super spindle with Gala after seeing the success with that system in British Columbia. Using quality feathered trees have proved to be the best choice and research has shown that quality feathered trees provide 43% higher cumulative yield by the 5th leaf in comparison with planting 1- year old whips.

Irrigation is a must in establishing new trees and Dr. John Cline pointed out that research has found that Royal Gala, trickle irrigated trees (by their 5th leaf) produced 40% more cumulative yield than unirrigated trees. This was attributed to greater fruit size and number of fruit per tree.

Count size Gala is where the money is. Good light exposure to increase spur vigour is important. Gala are vigorous, upright trees and tend to be top heavy. When pruning, all growers use 50% rule, which says all side branches with a diameter 50% or greater than the diameter of the trunk at point of attachment must be removed. Aggressive thinning is also necessary for size and all but Vanderwindt used Accel plus Sevin for chemical thinning. Vanderwindt has found this approach was too aggressive and now only uses Accel. Everyone hand thinned later in the season. Dr. Cline recommends a combination of 50-75 ppm Accel and 1-2 L /ha Sevin (see publication 360 for more detail) and then a second application of Sevin is useful for removing late bloom on 1-year old wood (lateral bloom).

Fire Blight is a big concern in growing Gala. In fact, many of the newer varieties are very susceptible to Fire Blight. All growers have had problems with Fire Blight in their blocks. Both Vanderwindt and Schooley make sure that cankers removed and destroyed, and in some cases whole trees taken out if badly infected. They also advocate eliminating or reducing the nitrogen fertilizer to reduce the vigour in their Gala plantings. During the growing season using predictive Maryblyt model to time streptomycin sprays, and controlling aphids and leafhoppers during the season are all part of the strategy to manage Fire Blight. Versteegh, when planting new blocks of Gala, makes sure that other Fire Blight susceptible varieties such as Gingergold and Idared are not close by.

Gala typically needs multiple picks to harvest the fruit at their optimum and stem end cracking can be a problem. All growers have used ReTain™ as a management tool for Gala but all caution that using the right rate is very important. Having the rate too high can impede colour development and maturity. Dr. Cline recommends a rate of 75g/ha, which is 2/3 of the recommended rate.

At the end of the day, the consensus of the group was that Gala has been an excellent variety for their operation and they would plant Gala again in the future considering both its strengths and weaknesses.