Blog - The British Sea Buckthorn Company

This last weekend was our first sea buckthorn event. What we have been trying to do at Devereux farm is create a business based on the plant sea buckthorn. Why sea buckthorn? Sea buckthorn because it has so many qualities that are unique to itself. How many nutrients it has I am not certain. It may be 190, as quoted by so many, but it may be more. The benefits that these provide are diverse. I believe this because I have read some of the research work that suggests links with varied health benefit, but more importantly for me I have been taking sea buckthorn capsules since 2009 and believe that they have provided me with a higher standard of health resilience. You might say – give me the proof, and that is the issue about a natural product. It is difficult to find the proof. the proof comes from commitment, practical trial and consideration of the results.

I mention the word natural because it was questioned on Saturday as to whether one could define it. It is a term that we use when describing a product to help a consumer feel that they can understand more about its background. Natural for me comes from my background. I am a farmer, a grower of product that comes from the soil. A grower of product that relies on the environment to give it sustenance. It would not develop and mature if it were not for what it derives from the soil it grows in; the sun that provides its energy; the rain that provides essential water. There are levels of management that I provide, but these are there to provide protection from pests and disease. The development of product is largely down to what the plant can pull from the immediate area around it and create the leaves and berries that I want.
These are natural things. The process is a chemical one. A process of natural chemistry that is highly complex and varied. The demands of the growing cell are well known. The way that plants develop is understood. the complexity of the soil is understood, but if the soil that the plant grows in is healthy it involves a myriad of organisms that creates another world of complexity. Complexity of biological and chemical pathways that deliver essential components to the plant, often in return for benefits that the plant provides in return. These are the issues that I could associate with the term, natural.

I suppose it also comes with a level of acceptance that the process is not one in which I am in total control. Product creation that is as a result of a designed manufacturing process allows one to intervene at any stage and influence the process.
A natural production process may allow for some understanding of the process, but it is not designed by human hand. One’s understanding might allow for intervention to some degree but on the whole allowing a natural process to evolve, creates the production environment which allows reliance upon the processes of the soil and the air to create the product. It allows for complex chemical synergies within these environments to provide the mechanism to deliver the product.
Intervention to improve the production process is determined upon the level of knowledge that allows the right form of intervention to override what would normally proceed within the constraints of the growing environment. The environment is not always perfect. Weather patterns, pollution, chemical intervention and the health of the soil may all result in an end product of variable quality and even production failure.
Hedgerows are not always full of abundant fruit. It varies from year to year as conditions allow. Alternatively we farm and grow plants with a level of management to adjust the variations that the seasons and the years provide.

Thinking about the term natural brings me to the term – organic. What does it mean? What it means to me may be one thing. To the consumer another, and maybe to the organic accreditation bodies another altogether.

I see it as allowing the natural processes to develop my crop through natural chemistry, with a level of intervention which does not disrupt natural chemistry in the plant or soil. I know I have to intervene, because the natural environment is not always good enough to provide a consistent crop. But I have choices as to how I look to improve those growing conditions. Those choices could be to use a chemical that I am told will guarantee to protect a crop or improve immediate fertiliser availability so that the plant can operate independently of the soil. But how will the use of those chemical interventions impact on the holistic health of the soil and its ability to provide my plant in good times with the best growing environment? Will short term gain remove the abilities of the soil to deliver nutrients, micro-nutrients and control over pathogenic fungi and bacteria that might attack the plants in the future?

Chemical intervention may reduce the risk of a poor crop, it may also reduce the risk of reduced quality in the crop. Quality is what everyone looks for, so surely it might be better to use the modern interventions that science provides.

Quality assurance; lower risk of failure; improved production because of less disease all these are attractive. But can a healthy soil deliver the same, or similar results without the precise management inventions offered by chemical treatments.

The answer I would suggest is yes, but with increased risk to crop quality and yield. It requires as greater knowledge as the chemical route, with the acceptance that one is more at the mercy of the weather. A chemical route reduces stress in the plant helping it to cope with stressful times.

But all this presupposes that the end product quality it what you expect.

Quality is driven by agenda. It is driven by the need to produce reliable and consistent benefits that are designed by a producer for their market. It can be very specific. With product development comes viability and profitability. The latter demands that unnecessary cost undermines good returns. Quality that is created specifically in a targeted way is not wasteful as it has specific aims to channel dedicated resources into known output. Nature does not work that way. The resources dedicated are complex. That does not mean any less specific, but there is a set process involved within the soil that is channelled to create the processes that allow plants and crops to draw on its resources. The end result is not a process that has been designed for today’s markets, it is a process that has been evolving over millennia.

So what I draw from all this. Why is it important to me?

The attraction that I see in sea buckthorn is in its ability to harness a mass of bio-compounds that if consumed have the potential to deliver nutrients in a concentration that helps to improve health resilience. I am of the mind that the power of this is generated in the synergy of all the bio-compounds and the chemical relationship they have one with each other.

Intervene in this synergy and you reduce the ability of the whole to deliver the benefits that might be available. It is a natural construction, formed from a natural environment.

Hence when I view quality within the concept of sea buckthorn, I view it within the context of that whole bio-compound soup. A profile of natural chemistry that has a concentration that will be influenced by the environment in which it has been created. Do we really understand how that natural chemistry works? Do we understand how the human body assimilates all those nutrients within the context of their reactions together and their reactions within the human body’s functions.

So if it is difficult to define the precise relationship between the presence of a nutrient/micro nutrient and the ultimate benefits it can bring to health then intervening within the process of its production needs to be benign in order to best guarantee that any benefits that you look for are not lost.

I believe therefore that my way forward for growing sea buckthorn is to grow it as sympathetically as possible and look to harness the environment to grow the plant and not provide any measure that might change the biochemical profile within the plant. I need to ensure that it has sufficient water and food to develop and for the soil to be healthy. The end result I look for is a product of natural design not of mine.

This will lead me onto my next blog, which is what I have learnt from talking to Kirsten Jensen as a sea buckthorn agronomist who came to our event from Sweden this weekend. IT follows the concept above, but actually demands that I understand what sea buckthorn is first, rather than what I think it is.

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February 12, 2015 britishseabuckthorn

This weekend we have our first farm event for sea buckthorn. Since 2008 both Matt and I have visited conferences around the world to piece together how we are to develop sea buckthorn as a crop at Devereux farm. Matt has been to India; Tibet and Lithuania, I have taken in Siberia, Finland and several trips to Germany. Each of these is characterised by the openness of the community that makes up those involved with the plant. Networking is a key driver for development of all innovation in today’s world. In sea buckthorn we have the International Association based in Beijing that meets every two years. Across the world there are increasing numbers of interest groups being created. All of these help promote interest and understanding in sea buckthorn as a plant; its benefits and how to transfer those into product.

So Saturday is to be a gathering to discuss the role of the UK Sea Buckthorn Association. For some years there has been interest in Scotland based around an active practice of foraging for wild sea buckthorn. Engagement with Queen |Margaret University in Edinburgh has looked at the nutritional benefits and how they can be harnessed into product. We have two visitors from Cornwall with a sea buckthorn orchard being planted this winter. Growers are coming on the basis that we have invited Kirsten Jensen to come over from Sweden to give us advice from her experience as a sea buckthorn agronomist. The Devereux farm agronomist is coming too to compare notes and ensure we take as much from Kirsten’s visit as possible.
Sweden has a number of growers and a breeding programme for new varieties that are suited to their conditions.
Choosing the right variety is a key factor always and although access to plants is sometimes difficult I am hoping that we will learn of the advantages of varieties that are not widely in circulation.
Harvesting will be under discussion. The use of shakers seems to be an option but again not widely talked about.
One of the primary interests I have personally is how to prune my plants. With German plants now 6 years old these need some radical pruning. The Siberian plants are still immature so they will need a different treatment. This sort of knowledge is obtainable from books, but it is so much better to have practical advice first hand.

When we have had visitors before our kitchen has been bubbling and brewing new recipies using our berries. The latest offering is some spectacular Turkish delight really catching the unique flavour of sea buckthorn.

It promises to be a great way to start the year. The year when the primary problem to solve will be to keep birds off the crop. Having overcome disease problems in 2013, I feel confident that we will solve this in 2015.

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Changes in climate and food attitude

January 25, 2015 britishseabuckthorn

Climate change is a curious thing. There are still those that deny that it exists. There is the hangover of the confusion between concepts of global warming and climate change. There are still arguments over the impact of human activity.
We all like to make decisions based on factual evidence, but as with many things in life, there are so many variables. Variables that are themselves subject to systems that we are only starting to understand.
One of the attractions that I have found about sea buckthorn is the network of those for whom sea buckthorn is either a fascination or part of their life.
So this week I heard from two both reporting on issues that I would attribute to a change of climate.
As a farmer climate stability would give one economic stability. Seasons are important. Winter particularly provides a potential kill of pests and diseases.
Now though seasons blend from one to another. Weather is a series of record events whether heat or wet. For Devereux farm winter though has become an extension of autumn through into spring.
I heard this week from Finland where temperatures are oscillating from one week to the next, one mild and just above freezing, the next dipping down into temperatures that in the UK we would call artic.
Then from Mongolia, reports of temperatures that are below minus ten degrees C. At least half the normal chill factor that will confuse their ecology in the same way as my Siberian sea buckthorn finds my mild temperate winter.

Where will all this go – for all the computer models there is uncertainty which will impact on predicting how a crop will turn out at harvest. But that is life.

Another interesting issue this week has been the WHO report on where the world is heading. As with climate change, making long term predictions requires a level of belief that is sometime difficult to accept. But we know that the western world particularly suffers from obesity, diabetes and cardio vascular disease issues. Unfortunately as the global economic grows so it seems does the health problem. Is it credible therefore to predict that by 2030 one third of the world population will be in a state called “pre-diabetic”.

The message behind this is that food producers and the food supply chain needs to step up to the challenge. Regulators say that food is not a medicine, but diet is one of the best forms of preventative medicine that we have. it is continuous and relentless. It is an essential that everyone partakes in every day, in fact several times a day. It is time that we started to accept that food is more than calories, fat, sugar, salt – a package of negative factors. We must turn this around and look for the positives. Limit the negatives maybe, but that is just good management. There needs to be an understanding and belief brought back that the balanced diet is a way to a long, healthy and productive life. Yes, we are living longer now – but that life is under the shadow of a rising National Health Service budget that neither the government nor food consumers can afford.

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Progressing to viability

January 19, 2015 britishseabuckthorn

I started this year to subscribe to the Fruit Grower magazine. The trade magazine for the UK fruit industry. There is some commonality with other farming magazines – the worry about the economics of farming within a global economy.
Costs are higher in Western Europe, but that is not the only issue. It is clear that profitable farming comes from the ability to minimise costs through the use of technology; labour saving systems; systems that monitor disease and pest risk management; modern varieties and so on. The ability to employ best practice looks to optimise yield. But that comes with the access to being able to fund these specialist systems.
Yield is not the only issue. Optimum yield also means optimum quality. Quality standards targeting uniformity in size, colour, lack of blemish can generate both waste of perfectly edible product, but also reduce profitability.
Technology and systems that generate optimum output need to be matched by reducing natural variables such as poor weather and soils.

So I reflect this with my developing sea buckthorn crop. Yield claims for Siberian – and other varieties come from results achieved within their country of origin. The soils and climate offer the optimum environment in which local wild stock has been adapted to reduce growing challenges and create commercial viability.

Take these plants out of their environmental comfort zone and there is no guarantee of predicting either yield or quality. At Devereux farm it is already clear that there are some varieties that are accepting the change of soil and climate. My heavy soil is an unfair challenge, but alternatively providing stress is sometimes a means to improving berry quality. It is unlikely though that my soil will produce optimum yield.
Having said that my Habego plants have produced yields in excess of 9kg, but disappointingly this is not consistent across all plants.

Lack of consistency I would put down to poor drainage and a high water table in the winter. The use of both compost and compost tea has been very successful in reducing disease, but the success of this requires correct timing of applications. This has been a problem as applications have been by very manual input which is both slow and poor in productivity. 2015 will change all this as the development of a bespoke compost applicator; purchase of tractor sprayer for compost tea; mower will allow the delivery of a planned programme of management which I expect the plants to respond to. I also will look to gradual improvement in soil structure to improve plant growth. The final result being a berry crop.

The disease problems of 2013 lead to many plants being prematurely pruned so across the site there are different plants in different stages of growth. 2015 will provide a first crop from the Siberian plants but as a first crop this will provide no idea of potential yield. I hope it will however provide an indication of quality.

Hence the plan for this year is to analyse berries from the Siberian plants and compare the results against an analysis of European grown sea buckthorn as a standard.
This was the plan for last year, but the crop was lost to birds. If 2013 was the year that raised the challenge to beat disease, then 2014 showed that pest control is as important. 2015 I have a number of ideas for bird control. As a first crop it must be a quality crop. Then as the plants mature we will see whether we can achieve an optimum yield within the constraints of Devereux’s soil and climate.

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2015 – sea buckthorn management becomes a whole compost load easier

January 8, 2015 britishseabuckthorn

Today has not been a spectacular day, but actually also quite a milestone.

If you have followed this blog you might have come across the frustration of compost. Back in 2013 fungal disease hit the Siberian plants. Many suffered branch dieback losing single or multiple branches. Advice at the time was anything from prune the branches off to cut the plants down. Some I pruned all the branches back to the main stem; some I cut to the ground. Those with the latter treatment died. The pruned back plants have recovered, but as young plants they have lost time and energy when they should have been establishing themselves.
The following year I started to use green waste compost. Approximately 30kg around each plant, together with monthly sprayings of compost tea.

The combination cured all signs of the fungal disease. The problem was that without a tractor the compost was put out from a single axle trailer pulled behind my trusty Peugeot car. The process was slow – so slow that there was not enough time to get all the plants composted.
This year I borrowed a larger trailer, towed by a John Deere gator. This sped up the process and allowed a 13 ton lorry load to be shovelled in a day. Unfortunately again because this started in September and October was the month of the Euroworks conference in Finland – yet again the job was not completed before ground conditions became too wet to drive on.

So what was so special about today? It might not sound exciting but I had a long phone call from Stephen Eyles, an agricultural engineer who is going to design and build a compost applicator which will be towed by an orchard tractor. The design has to take into account the need for low ground pressure; varied application rates and as plants are of different sizes; also take account of the compost bridging when in the trailer preventing free flow to the spinner that will direct the compost to the row. The conversation gave me every confidence that this spring all 5000 plants will get their required dose. Furthermore, the tractor will provide the motive power for a sprayer so that I no longer will need to apply compost tea with a backpack. The result will be timely applications and more time for plant management.
So if nothing else happens in 2015, plant health should take a giant leap forward.

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Klaudia does it again

January 5, 2015 britishseabuckthorn

January 5th and it is the Lisavenko Siberian variety Klaudia again being the first to break bud. This has become the norm at Devereux farm although last year it was ten days later. It does not seem to affect the plant. We have had a few frosts in the past ten days, but only down to -3 deg C, with daytime temperatures up to 14 deg. It will have to be seen whether these new leaves will be damaged by frost as the month progresses.
Although temperatures have been mild rain has not. This weekend saw another 37mm, so the ground is very soft, but every cloud has a silver lining – it makes weeding easy.
Happy New Year

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New Year – New Plans – Open Day at Devereux Farm

January 4, 2015 britishseabuckthorn

With the New Year comes a whole new list of “to dos” in 2015.

From a growing perspective I have a new site at Devereux farm that I want to establish. I have had a conversation with a German colleague suggesting that a high capital intensive site planted with Habego has produced 300 tons off 25 hectares in year 4. Clearly there are some variables to check out – numbers of plants per hectare. As ever harvesting is also an issue. If this is mechanically harvested then what are the costs of the machine/ or was the crop hand branch cut.
Costs of production are key in western Europe. We need to produce gross margin figures under different systems so that we can compare systems.

Cost brings on the subject of income. Sea buckthorn growing has costs and it is labour intensive. Like top fruit, it has a number of years of to mature before returning an income. These issues need to be considered and compared to a conventional crop such as wheat to establish the viability of the crop. Farmers as primary producers often have their income set against world prices regardless of costs of production. World prices distort value as labour costs vary. Markets and consumers also have different local demands. Consumer demand for quality is key. Tastes vary from country to country. Prices paid across the retail counter relate to market demand and development. All too often retail price seems to be detached from farm production costs. If sea buckthorn is to establish itself as a UK crop it needs to be viable to the grower. Short supply chains and direct contact with the consumer allows for an understanding of value – the value that the consumer is prepared to pay, against the costs of production. Sea buckthorn is not a volume production but heaven forbid the time when like milk, the income to farmers is below the cost of production.

Costs are an issue that I want to explore at our open day at Devereux farm on February 14th. Kirsten Jensen is coming over from Sweden as an organic sea buckthorn agronomist to provide information on practical issues. I want to explore the issues of which varieties might be best for the UK. Then there is the discussion as to what is sea buckthorn – a fruit that might compete against the red berry market, or can it establish itself on its health credentials.
If anyone reading this would like to come, email British Sea Buckthorn Co Ltd. – at my email address – cottonmist.eagle@virgin.net

Happy New Year

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2015 – The year of the coming of natural ingredients

December 24, 2014 britishseabuckthorn

As 2014 comes to a close, nest year will finally bring the first crop from my Siberian sweeter varieties. As a crop emerges I need to consider product development.
Food Matters Live event exposed the concept that consumers are not interested in reading labels. They are looking for food and drink product that tastes great and is good for them. Why it is good for them is not relevant. It is the responsibility of the producer to ensure that this is credible. Social media has a capacity to spread the word as to what consumers think. Fact needs to be solid enough to stand up to sceptical dialogue. Product needs to deliver consistently to gain trust and build brand credibility.
So it was also interesting that Health Ingredients Europe also delivers a message that the days of fortified functional foods is giving way to natural ingredients. Using natural ingredients to fortify a product is more acceptable to consumers than just providing a nutrient to inject some “goodness” to provide functionality.

This brings back the concept of complexity and synergy. Natural products are multi nutrient carriers. The concept of fortifying with a single nutrient follows the pharmaceutical route. A single nutrient with science based evidence of providing a health benefit should be more credible than a natural ingredient which by its nature is difficult to analyse and define for health benefit.
But I would suggest that consumers are wary of processed foods. The western world has significant dietary problems. It would be too simple to say this is the result of too much processed foods. It is not, as there are social and economic issues as well. But perception is often as great a market leader as fact. Natural means a product of nature – not of human design. Interestingly Beehive marketing in the US stated at Food Matters Live that the concept of “natural” carries little weight in the US. But the UK and US markets are different.

So if natural is a strength in the marketplace, then this is a great time for sea buckthorn. The market trusts nature. The consumer expects healthy food and drink. Sea buckthorn is a natural product that for centuries has been recognised as delivering health.

The logic then is that sea buckthorn is the right product, at the right place, and the right time. The problem is that is a simple statement. At the Health Ingredients event in Amsterdam Julian Mellentin, a long standing and very well respected trend-spotter stated – “you cannot educate consumers about ingredients” – it is a crowded market. You have to “Find what they believe in and how they connect with it”. So the fact the sea buckthorn is healthy and natural does not guarantee success.

Success will come from understanding consumer concerns and matching them with what sea buckthorn can deliver.

I have been looking into analysis of sea buckthorn. What concerns me in this undertaking is that sea buckthorn is not a single entity. Each species; each sub-species; each localised environment; each commercial variety all offer different nutritional profiles or concentration limits of nutrients. Analysis will not deliver a generic answer.

The answer is tailoring product to consumer. Understanding that product must deliver specific requirements and being able to prove the pathway that ingredients within a product can deliver that requirement.

This is not easy. It requires time and resources. But without dedicating time and resources to prove that you know that a product matches consumer demand, how long will it be before your product is exposed by sceptical consumers who have multiple choices to select within the retail world.

Happy Christmas to all.