Three local men have started a project to locate, maintain and restore the Heritage apple trees at all the preserves on the Boothbay peninsula. Two of them, Ron Ross and Fred Kraeuter, are crazy for Heritage apple trees, but they weren’t always.

They moved here from New Jersey in 2010, when they bought a house and 3 ½ acres of land on River Road in Boothbay. “We had an apple tree in New Jersey,” Ross said. “It died and we cut it down. When we bought this place it came with seven apple trees, all bearing fruit.”

The trees hadn’t been well cared for. The men took it upon themselves to start learning about apples, thanks to a Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) program. Their interest was piqued, and now Heritage apples trees have become a passion.

Apples have played a key role in Maine life for 400 years, according to MOFGA. The Maine Heritage Apple Orchard at MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center in Unity is the headquarters for rare apple trees that originated in Maine. The first trees there were planted in 2001, and new varieties are being added each year.

Ross said apple trees are everywhere in Maine. “In early years almost every farmer had a backyard orchard,” Ross said. “Apples were critical for getting through the winter because they kept so well.” Over the years, many of those varieties have been lost.

Ross, Kraeuter and Boothbay Region Land Trust lands manager Michael Warren are determined to bring them back, through grafting, propagating, planting and pruning. Grafting is the method used to start new varieties. Generic apple tree rootstocks, or bases, are planted, and scionwood twigs or buds from different varieties of heritage apple trees are grafted onto them.

Ross said each tree is grafted with just one type of apple bud, but it’s possible to use branches from several different varieties. “I could do it but it annoys me.” The property does have one old tree grafted using leftover twigs. “We call it the Frankenstein Tree,” he said.

Last year, Ross started talking to Warren about all the different apple trees on the peninsula’s 26 preserves. “Michael has been taking care of them as best he could, but he’s one person,” Ross said.

They started formulating a plan, and the Apple Core was born. There are now eight trained volunteers helping them, and they are starting to identify the location of the trees and removing old bark from them. When the trees start bearing fruit, the group will begin identifying the different varieties. Now the work is being done at Oak Point Preserve, where the new BRLT headquarters are. Then, the group will head to Penny Lake Preserve in Boothbay Harbor, Singing Meadows in Edgecomb, Ocean Point Preserve in East Boothbay and others.

“Our hope is to reach a point where one or two volunteers will each adopt a half dozen apple trees and take care of them,” Ross said. “We’re not looking for big harvests at this point; we’re focusing on the health of the trees.”

The seven trees that were on the land around the house when Ross and Kraeuter bought their property have been restored and are pruned annually, bringing them back to their former glory. The men started planting, and grafting new trees and now have 12, and 60 across the road, with 50 different varieties.

Ross’s favorite of the mature trees on the property around the house is a Nodhead. The variety was discovered in 1823 in New Hampshire by a farmer named Samuel Jewett, he said. “When Samuel walked his head bobbed, so his apples became known as Nodheads.” Last fall the tree produced over 3,000 apples.

BRLT’s office and marketing coordinator Christine Selman is volunteer coordinator for the project. She is enthusiastic about it. “We’re very excited to have Ron and Fred share their expertise with us and the volunteers. The Apple Core Program is helping BRLT to address a significant area of our management plan for Oak Point Farm, so it’s really exciting that we’re getting this underway. We want the program to encompass the trees across all of our preserves.”

“Apple trees are great,” Ross said. “The history of the different varieties, and the subtleties of the tastes and textures. It’s like fine wines. I used to scoff at people who said they could taste those subtle tastes, but the truth is that when you taste an apple, you really can taste them.

“No two seeds in an apple are the same. Just like people. No two people are identical unless they’re twins. Every seed will produce a different kind of apple.”

Ross and Kraeuter hosted an apple-tasting at BRLT last fall. Another is planned for this fall. “We tasted 10 different apples and I thought sure Nodhead would win,” Ross said. “But my friend John Welsh’s Orange Blenheim beat me out. I think his were just riper than mine.”

This year’s tasting is Sept. 30, two weeks earlier than last year’s. The Orange Blenheims won’t be quite as ripe.

Selman encourages anyone interested in volunteering for the project to call the land trust at 633-4818. “We would love to have this program grow and hope that it will be a fun way for people to participate in the land trust, and learn a lot of really interesting information,” she said.