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Field Update

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Growing sea buckthorn at Devereux farm has been a steep learning curve. Our Siberian plants established in 2012 suffered 40% losses in 2014 through fungal diseases. Subsequent replanting in 2015 were successful and since then there has been no return of disease. I put this down to our organic management aimed at soil improvement, using both compost teas and composts over the years. It is the principle resource that I look to maintain the health of my plants.

Rainfall has become a very unpredictable variable. Last summer our sea buckthorn had to tolerate two months without rain up until the end of September. From then on the rain was incessant creating waterlogged soils until mid-March. I have considered this to be intolerable to sea buckthorn, but we do not seem to have lost any plants as a result.

As we are preparing a field for our new orchard it is being subsoiled to a depth of 1 metre. This cuts a slot forming each row, whilst also shattering the soil at a lower level. As we are told that climate change will give longer periods of drought I want our plants to develop roots that can source deep soil moisture. I believe the subsoil slot provides an easy route through our heavy clay soils, for new roots to grow to a good depth. It may not be conventional wisdom, but our weed control system cuts plant surface roots to encourage deeper rooting.

In 2012 we planted our orchard with varying plant spacing: at 0.8m, 1m, 1.5m and 2m. New plantings in 2015 had spacing of 1.5m, 1.75, 1.85, and 2m.  Row widths also are variable across the site – being at 3m, 3.5m, 3.8m and 4m. Having invested in a tractor mounted Ladurna cultivator to control weeds around the plants it has been valuable to be able to see how practical these measurements are when using machinery. The conventional 2m plant spacing and 4m row width provides plenty of machine operation space, but when land is valuable fruit yield can be increased by increasing plant numbers per hectare. Hence our latest new orchard we will be planting with 1.8m plant spacing with 3.8m row widths. This tighter spacing increases plant numbers by 15% per hectare, whilst allowing ease of use of machinery and optimum light for the plants.

Producing fruit is our principle goal, but producing high quality sea buckthorn is our objective. This year I have already started applying foliar feeds. Following trials by Mishulina (1976) there are indications that trace elements of Iodine and boron increase vitamin C levels. Last year’s berry analysis indicated good results with vitamin C in Latvian varieties. This year I will follow the same foliar feed spray cycle but adding two additional sea weed extract applications. This will allow five applications pre harvest. Followed by one seaweed and two foliar feeds in August/September. I have to accept that berry quality is as much a product of variable weather as management intervention, but we will look forward to comparing the 2019 and 2020 berry analysis results as the means of developing consistent berry quality in future crops.

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Sea Buckthorn for the long term

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David’s latest blog post.

David is a Director of the British Sea Buckthorn Company. 

I have often said that the sea buckthorn trial at Devereux farm is a 20 year project. The first ten years saw plants established but also lost to disease. The results are now – after ten years, developing with a cold store with a limited stock of frozen berries from the 2019 harvest. An evolution of progress.

The enthusiasm for sea buckthorn comes as being part of the global community of sea buckthorn growers, researchers, processors and manufacturers. Their collective investment has created expansion in production. Production, as I have found is not easy but the growth of a global sea buckthorn industry has taken 50 years to expand into 40 countries. For all the difficulties of establishing a growing crop – growing a market is an equal challenge, even for a crop based on significant nutritional quality.

Our health is key to being able to enjoy a normal life. Health is not a simple concept. It requires investment. Our personal investment managing our body’s functions has long term implications. Out of sight is often said to be out of mind. Appreciating the ability of our immune system to keep us healthy is easy just to accept. Our digestive system operates unseen, converting food to the vital mix of nutrients our complex body requires to function effectively. But how often do we actually buy food based on respecting the needs of our digestive system – even though it is our own personal system that maintains our own personal health.

There has been a quiet revolution developing in the nutrition world exposing the importance of the gut. There are tens of trillions of bacteria that live in our gut. A multi-functional soup of incredible complexity forming a balanced mechanism that breaks down food into constituent nutrients. This balance of species in this vast population is critical. This is not something of convenience, it is like a Ferrari, fine-tuned for peak performance. Put diesel in your petrol car and you pay for the consequences both by looking foolish and having to repair the damage.

I say all this because I understand the gut microbiome concept but not the detail. The concept is of such importance that it is becoming a subject I need to understand. As I get older I am appreciating the need for good health to allow a quality of life at work and at home.

Within so many issues the word balance is so importance. It is a pet subject of mine but I often reflect back on the Galenic way of life. A set of principles based on times when medicine was rudimentary so personal responsibility to one’s own health was essential. It suggests five principles of the food/drink we consume; the right amount of exercise; working in a positive environment; good sleep and good mental health as forming the basis of preserving our health. There is a sixth principle that requires each being proportionally balanced. A rational approach and one that can work even in the stressful world of 2020.

An interest in food takes you in many directions. Being a farmer in 2020 is concentrating my mind on significant changes coming post-Brexit for our industry. With great change comes the need for ensuring that you fully understand all the implications of change before decisions become irreversible. The current debate around how to feed a growing global population, together with the need to adapt to climate change will require all of us to change – but often evolution is better than revolution. Maintaining a balanced debate, taking all opinions into account and using compromise to bring everyone along a path of change achieves the progress that we really need to solve these issues.

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Sea Buckthorn – a rich source of antioxidants

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Thoughts from our registered nutritionist, Lucy Williamson DVM BVM&S MSc

It’s almost a year since I began working with British Seabuckthorn – as a Registered Nutritionist with a particular interest in sustainable foods, healthy for people and planet, this journey is an exciting one… British Seabuckthorn (BSB), responsibly farmed in Essex, contains an abundance of nutrients vital for long-term health and wellbeing. Packed with antioxidants, natural prebiotics, vitamins, minerals, unsaturated oils and many other beneficial phytonutrients, it’s a berry with fabulous potential.

The best food choices not only nurture human health but support the biodiversity of our ecosystems too, from healthy soils to thriving flora and fauna with essential roles to play in maintaining nature as it should be. So, as the British Sea Buckthorn Company nurture these principles in continuing to work hard to develop a crop adapted to our rather unpredictable British climate, here are a few ‘need-to-knows’ about British Sea Buckthorn!

A rich source of antioxidants 

Our everyday metabolism uses oxygen. By-products of this process are known as free radicals, which can cause damage to cells in a process known as Oxidative Stress – a key factor in ageing and chronic illness such as heart disease, stroke and cancer. We produce antioxidants all the time in our body cells which, by removing these radicals, keep our cells healthy. Many of the antioxidants we make require Vitamins C and E and British Sea Buckthorn is an excellent source of both. Our recommended daily intake of Vitamin C is 45mg; British Sea Buckthorn often contains more than 400mg/ 100g so it’s a very rich source! (current regulations concerning nutrient claims state a food must contain more than 24mg/ 100g to be ‘high in’ Vitamin C, EU Regulation No 1047/2012) Oxidative stress is higher in Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes so antioxidant need increases here too as it does after endurance or high intensity sport. BSB also contains other, powerful antioxidants including Superoxide Dismutase and Flavanoid polyphenols which have an important role in nurturing our all-important gut bacteria too.

As well as eating a more plant-based diet, we’re encouraged to eat fish at least twice weekly in order to benefit from its Omega 3 unsaturated oils. Many years of firm evidence now show the links between a good intake of Omega 3 and protection against heart disease and stroke in particular due to its anti-inflammatory role. Fish contains particularly beneficial types of Omega 3, DHA and EPA. These aren’t present in plants but a good intake of plant

Omega 3 (ALA)

Omega 3 can be used by the body to make EPA and DHA. Too much Omega 6 in the diet can restrict this process but as sea buckthorn contains far more Omega 3 than Omega 6, it has real potential here too.

Seabuckthorn as a natural Prebiotic: Fibre

FIBRE is a type of carbohydrate that can’t be digested in the small intestine. Instead, it passes to the colon (large intestine) where it’s fermented by billions of gut bacteria to produce many compounds essential for our metabolism. Collectively, the genetic make-up of these bacteria is known as our ‘Microbiome’. With 150x our own genetic makeup, our microbiome is to be nurtured; in fact, our ratio of human cells to bacterial cells is 1:1 so we’re just as much bacteria as we are human! We now know these gut bacteria have key roles in our long-term health, from optimising our immune system to protection against certain types of cancer and weight control. In addition, fibre maintains our ‘digestive health’, helping food to pass more quickly through the gut. In 2016, Public Health England, advised increasing the recommended intake of fibre for children (18g/day) and adults (30g/day), as a result of firm evidence for its health benefits, collected over several years. Sea buckthorn, along with other fruit and veg (diversity is the key to good microbes!) is a great source of fibre and also flavanoid antioxidants mentioned earlier, both of which are an important energy source for our microbiome and our gut health.

With an abundance of nutrients, too many to mention here, I’m excited to be involved with the British Sea Buckthorn story as we work together towards a sustainable food choice with so many potential benefits to our longer-term health.

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The Reality of Progress

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2006 sounds a long time ago but this was the starting point for the concept of growing sea buckthorn at Devereux farm. The idea generated from a meeting at the World Crop Centre, based at that time at Writtle Agricultural College. Sea buckthorn appeared from an assessment of crops that might be viable as alternatives to the commodity crops we grew – wheat, barley, and rape. The choice was made quite simple as the assessment flagged up the wide market interest in sea buckthorn. It could be used in food, drinks, natural cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and animal supplements. So the decision was made based on potential market diversity. This feels particularly relevant as we finally approach our first commercial harvest in July. 13 years is a long time to incubate a project and potentially we are now starting the most crucial part of the project.

With a crop in the orchard the first challenge comes with harvesting technique. Hand picking proved to be slow and uneconomical which is why we decided to adopt the German harvesting concept of branch cutting. We have since invested in a cold store in which to freeze the branches and commissioned the design/build of a berry separation and grading machine. As two separate machines, it is then planned to see how this prototype system works over harvest and upgrade the system into a single machine in 2020. Branch cutting has been developed using German varieties, with some innovative work also in Latvia. It is untried with Siberian. Branch cutting requires the plants to regenerate new branches. We will be looking for plants to produce berry bearing branches on a three or four year cycle. This means either cutting whole plants or cutting a third/quarter of the plantation every three or four years. Alternatively we only cut a third or quarter of each plant each year.

The secondary issue is that our ten Siberian varieties may react differently to being cut at harvest time. The system is a form of pruning but one normally prunes in winter when the plants are dormant. Summer pruning leaves plants open to disease. What we need is to encourage rapid regrowth. So our cutting procedure this harvest needs to trial different approaches with different varieties and then monitor over the next three to five years which varieties react best to different cutting regimes.

It was said that it takes 20 years to establish a new crop. It is becoming clear as to the reality of this statement. Harvesting is an on-going project, the next focus is marketing. It feels really good that to promote this year’s crop we have gone back to Writtle University College to find the person who will join us to drive the marketing of the sea buckthorn crop. Launching any new product requires patience, resources, risk management and will require new skills to ensure success. If growing sea buckthorn has taken time then developing the market will as well. All products are gauged on their qualities.

Assessing quality is another area that we need to develop over this year. We know that berry quality alters as the berries ripen. Starting this year we will begin to monitor individual vitamins to start to understand this process. This will start with a single varieties this year. After harvest we will then start to analyse other berry nutrient qualities. Sea buckthorn is renowned for its nutritional quality, but each of the six species of sea buckthorn (and 12 subspecies) grow in different climates and soils creating different nutrient concentrations. Nutritional quality is not just about what phytochemicals exist in a food ingredient, but how many, what they are and how they interact to provide dietary or health benefit. The sum total of the 190 phtyochemicals in sea buckthorn berries defines what sea buckthorn is. It is a natural vitamin/nutrient supplement, and as such, that is what made it attractive back in 2006 and is how we will see it as we start to sell it this year.

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The Tree

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First thing in the morning I take our dog for a walk before breakfast. The route is always the same but it is always very special. The path cuts through a group of silver birch trees that we planted about ten years ago. It then passes what has become an old friend – a small turkey oak. This tree was a sucker off the root of its 350 year old “parent” that crashed to the ground on December 31st 2000 – a millennium moment. This little tree is growing in shape and character just like the old tree that we had grown to love as a massive feature in our landscape. It is amazing to think it could live until 2300.

These trees are personal. They are almost family. At this time of year particularly, as the leaves are so fresh they add a vibrancy of life to my walk. I should not have been surprised when I heard the news this week that one of the ideas to control climate change was to create forests of artificial trees. Trees to suck the CO2 out of the air. The reporter said they would do this just like trees “but better”. It is a great technological idea, but it is not a tree.  It will not provide a natural living landscape.

Alternatively, it could be one solution to global warming – and the capability to do that is impressive. It is an indication that there are great minds at work to mend our world. We have grown to rely on technology. For me, springtime has a vibrancy as the farm’s crops start to mature. In the sea buckthorn field, the area between the plants are thick with grass, thistles, docks, nettles and other broad leaved weeds. They are weeds but they are also full of insects that potentially are controlling insect aphids that could devastate my crop.

The last few weeks have been incredibly dry and we are all becoming aware that climate change brings with it long hot summers. Summers that slow plant growth, create poor crops and can kill the plants we care for.

So the weeds are a problem because they compete for precious water in the soil. If I cut them down the insects I also look to help in controlling others will lose their habitat. The fact we grow the sea buckthorn organically is a choice, but it is a choice that makes you think holistically about the environment you work in.

The area between the rows of sea buckthorn provide a similar haven to the area under the plants providing a refuge for beneficial insects. So the weeds can go and I have started to remove them. In the past this has been done by hand, then by strimmer. Last year, at a Soil Association seminar at the gardens of the Belmont Manoir aux Quat’saissons in Oxfordshire there was the ultimate solution to weeding – a Karl Ladurna cultivator. It is the boy’s toy for an orchard.

Its capacity to weed is unchallengeable, but all machinery needs handling with respect. Its capacity to rip up weeds is matched by its capacity to pull up everything else in its way.

I have to admit that as I merrily drove up and down the rows of sea buckthorn, seeing the weeds surgically removed I was horrified to find how easy it was rip whole sea buckthorn bushes out of the ground. You soon learn to concentrate and respect the power in your control.

Last week saw the release of the IPBES Global assessment report on biodiversity. Valuing biodiversity is not easy in our technology based lives. I recognise that I could not farm my sea buckthorn organically without the beneficial insects and the complex of species that live in a healthy soil. Every species is reliant on another. One of the commentators on the report said, the problem with biodiversity – even with all our knowledge is that we just do not understand its complexity.  We have not even identified all the species on our planet so how can we understand what they do, how they interrelate to others and help to complete a healthy ecosystem.

We all appreciate biodiversity differently – it never fails to amaze me how much green space there is in London used by millions as natural space to relax. Technology is a modern wonder, but it will not replace the natural world – a natural world that feeds us.

Technology provides our quality of life, but the natural world allows us to live. We just need to respect and enjoy both – in balance.

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Inspiration and reality

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It’s nearly May. Potentially there are 64 days before we start our first sea buckthorn harvest. This is the culmination of ten years work. Ten years of working with like minded others with the passion to deliver a natural crop that encapsulates a power pack of nutritional quality. I too have that passion, but it is not emotion that will deliver the crop.

In 2017 our orchard was laden with berries. The realisation that handpicking was so time-consuming led to abandoning the crop – but it inspired two years of investment in machinery. Designing and developing a harvesting system that reflected on the success of being able to grow a crop.

So here we are. Two months to go and the plants look really healthy. Mid-March was the crucial period for pollination. It will be three weeks before we start to see the berries forming and can assess the size of crop. The memories of the icy storm of March 2018 that rampaged through the plants destroying the viability of pollination are still vivid in our minds. But that is nature and this is another year.

This coming week the design team are testing the harvesting equipment which has been through a development phase of test and modification. Our Landini tractor gets its full service. The Ladurna cultivator – our weed control solution after years of manual strimming will be put to work. Applying foliar feeds has also been a manual job, but two weeks ago the backpack was replaced by a 400lt tractor mounted sprayer. Finally, our sea buckthorn can be managed to an effective and efficient plan.

As we mechanise our sea buckthorn it might be efficient but this comes at a time when Greta Thunberg is showing the leadership that we all must focus on reducing our impact on the environment. It is sad that it takes a 15 year old Swedish school pupil to remind us of the critical nature our environment is in. Mr Gove, at DEFRA has driven the government 25yr Environment plan, but as Greta has highlighted it is not a 25yr policy plan we need but action.

Yesterday, as I walked our dog I thought about the whole issue of sustainability. Plants growing in the wild need the rain, the sun and the soil to grow, thrive and return year after year. Such a simple but totally sustainable system. One of the reasons for growing sea buckthorn was its low need for resources. No sprays, compost to improve the soil that feeds it and a low requirement for water. Hand picking would have been an environmentally low cost way of harvesting. It is fine for foraging wild plants, but not a commercial crop.

Our harvesting system is largely based on needing electricity. It is easy to say that is more efficient than direct use of fossil fuels, but electricity still comes from gas power stations.  As we develop our crop we need to not only be aware of how our actions impact on the wider environment, but take action to minimise those impacts. Whatever we do, we will use resources. The issue is questioning their use. Minimising their use. Compensating and mitigating for their use and ensuring that the process is true to its goal of ensuring we tread lightly in the environment that we need to work in.

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February Update

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Sea buckthorn is never short of surprises. By the end of January every one of our ten Siberian sea buckthorn varieties have decided spring is here. Klaudia started the party on January 5th, Inya was last by January 29th. This is a first as normally the last buds will start to crack open by the end of February.

Our sea buckthorn project started ten years ago. Importing plants from the extreme climate of Siberia to our coastal mild climate was bound to create unpredictable behaviour. We paid the price last year. Early leaf emergence leads to early pollination. The Beast from the East storm in March came as pollination started. Sea buckthorn is wind pollinated with males releasing pollen to be blown onto neighbouring female sea buckthorn plants. The freezing temperatures and strong icy wind made it impossible for any viable pollen released to reach or settle. The result was a few isolated berries on a few plants – nothing else.

There are always solutions, but solutions come having identified a problem but that is the nature of a trial to grow a crop.

Through the last 12 months we have been working on developing our harvesting system. In 2017 the plants had a crop with some Chuiskaya variety plants producing over 10kg. We tried to hand pick. The result was not only slow, but also too many berries being damaged.

The decision was made to follow the German harvesting concept of cutting branches, freezing them and separating the berries off the frozen wood. With the help of a LEADER grant we employed a harvest equipment design company to start on the task. The specification was for a small orchard producing up to 10 tons of berries.

Like all prototypes the initial design needed modifications. The development process will be perfected ready for harvest 2019. Experience from 2017 suggests that harvest will be in July and all ten Siberian varieties will ripen over that month.  Having seen a full crop in 2017, lost the crop in 2018, it will be a huge step forward to harvest a full crop in 2019.

It feels similar to the Brexit process. We all know it is going to happen. It is just the detail that remains to be seen.

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Change – nothing to fear.

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For over a month I have been listening to the speculation and division that surround Brexit and found it profoundly depressing. There comes a time when life has to move on. For farmers, Brexit is not just leaving Europe. It has triggered the Agriculture Bill which will radically reform our industry over the next ten years. The fundamental change in the removal of farming subsidies requires a positive response, together with the challenge of facing up to climate change.  Coming at a time of political and market instability does not help, but one cannot change reality.

Starting to grow sea buckthorn was a leap of faith almost 10 years ago. Finally we have a healthy crop in the ground, a bespoke harvesting system under development leaving the concept of producing and selling a product as the crowning task to compete the process.

In the face of a time of uncertainty it seems that positivity, focus and keeping concepts simple has to be the order of the day.

Our crop has high nutritional opportunity. With vitamins A,B,C,E together with omega fatty acids 3,6,7, and 9 headlining its attributes we have the potential to deliver product that is both natural and healthy. This is a time of year when consumer trends are published, a factor which maybe gives impetus in big business to new approaches to marketing, but marketing is not what is important. For alongside climate change, diet is becoming a massive challenge. A challenge that has developed in spite of government policy and regulation, a science-led food industry and vast amounts of diet related research.

It is interesting to see that one trend forecasted is that a balanced diet is gaining consumer focus. The concept of the balanced diet is ancient. The gut microbiome is a great new focus. The 100 trillion bacteria loaded in our gut that process what we eat and provide the body with the essential fuel and metabolites that drive our health. This concept changes the focus for narrowly based diets back to the idea that a healthy gut is what maintains a healthy body, not a bunch of specific nutrients.

It makes me think in terms of new crops we should be looking to grow on the farm. The UK is a small country that should not try to compete with countries that can grow cheap grain. We need to change to focusing on specialist crops that are focused on dietary benefit. Cheap grain has sponsored an unstable economy for agriculture, requiring subsidy to prop it up. Maybe finding crops with direct to market nutritional added value will help to redress the need for subsidy and create a real market for real food.

2019 for us will be a formative year, not because of Brexit, but because we will be producing our first commercial sea buckthorn crop. A crop made possible by the harvesting process. The first crop that we will nutritionally analyse. It will start the next process to define the best growing methods to improve the nutrients that we target as important for our consumers.

Brexit is bringing about change, but change has always been happening, so it is not to be feared but embraced.