Tag: sea buckthorn

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Harvest time – small, but small can be beautiful.

britishseabuckthorn

This week is the week for starting harvesting. I had thought that the first berries I would pick would be Sirola, the early german variety, but these are at least two weeks off being ripe. Surprisingly Sudarushka; Inya; Chuiskaya; are all going to be ready for pickling over the next week. Klaudia will be the end of next week. Altaiskaya is the last of the bunch.

I still have a suspicion that berries are disappearing to a silent pest. I am certain that birds are not an issue this year. Rockets, kites, scare crows and foil tape has formed a continuing campaign to warn off winged pests. But I am looking to the ground for this issue. Mice or voles are in the grass stripes in the middle of the inter-row passages. Etna berries have been targeted; Klaudia too. The issue is that these areas also contain the beneficial insects that I look to bio-control pests in the spring and early summer. So do I cut these areas out? Altaiskaya have reasonable yields of berries and I will look to these areas to be completely mown so rodents have to cross bare ground to reach the fruit. I have a roving barn owl, and small rodents are nervous when there are magpies and similar omnivous birds in the area. I need to solve this problem for next year as I will see that as the first commercial crop whereas this one will only produce some tasters of what is to come.

I have not mentioned the Latvian plants much. Of the four varieties they are all well covered in berries – much more successful than the Siberian varieties. But they do have thorns. They will not be ready for picking for another three weeks I suspect. It looks like Goldrain will comes first, with Sunny close behind. Mary and Tatjana coming maybe a week after that. With the thorns in mind these bushes will be harvested through a cut and freeze process, which will be the same as the german varieties.

The second field with the german varieties is covered in berries. In fact every bush is loaded down with fruit. But certainly these look at least a month off yet, with the exception of Sirola which I mentioned right at the beginning.

It might be of little interest to some readers but the really exciting thing this year is that the few remaining Finnish plants have also burst into action. These plants arrived in the UK in 2009 as tiny seedlings: three female varieties, two male. The males, Rupdolph and Tarmo have done better than the females. All are dwarf varieties by comparison with the german counterparts. Of the females Raisa and Terhi probably could be said have been more successful, but most of these failed to survive. So it is gratifying to see some produce and it seems fitting to find a Scandinavian in London to enjoy them.

So having planned for harvest to start mid July and go through to mid September I now expect it to be all over by the end of August. It sounds early, but until this process has run through for five years it will be difficult to gauge.

in the background with this I am still looking for grant support for development research. Analysis is the way forward that I have chosen. I have two forms of sea buckthorn plant here. The german plants which seem to survive with little or no management; and the Siberian which require managing with kid gloves. Commercially the former is clearly the way to go, but for want of market diversity finding a way to grow the Siberian exotics with no thorns, larger berries and new taste still remains a goal. To achieve this will need monitoring what I do, and fine tuning it on the basis of results – both good and bad. That will be a funding drain and a high risk venture. Funding assistance will speed up the process and allow that all important holy grail of seeking to develop consistent quality with consistent yield.

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Confused about sugar – but some valuable advice on the way

britishseabuckthorn

The pace of life is fast and that is a modern phenomenon. It is this that has pervaded everything we do. Mobiles make to accessible at all times; emails create instant access; food manufacturers provide food on the go; transport links make it possible to travel further, faster and more frequently. All these come at a price.
Decisions you make need thought, need time. Our politicians are pressured continuously by media to respond to each and every problem as it arises. What do we end up with, but invariably with knee jerk reactions which are shallow and not well thought through, or overly bureaucratic and draconian.

At the Food Matters Live event there were two presentations given on juice. Juice is currently under scrutiny from different agendas. There are those who are pushing teeth management products who suggest that juice attacks tooth enamel – therefore it is bad.
There is the current drive to lower fat, sugar and salt which clearly is well founded in an attempt to reverse trends of obesity, diabetes and cardio vascular disease, but all sugar is not always a problem.
Juice has natural sugar in it. Diet and nutrition is complex. Sugars bound in fibre within fruit are a composite package, not a simple nutrient that threatens us when it is in excess.
It is clear that food manufacturers have to be responsible in product design to conform with the need to improve the health of the national diet, but similarly responses need to be well thought out.

In my last blog I mentioned the Norden Scandanavian group of countries have created a nutrition plan. The statement that they see their food as being “just food” is I think pertinent to where food manufacturers should be heading.
I have heard of a response to reducing sugar in juice to result in the removal of natural sugar and replacement with artificial sweetners. In my view this is nothing but complete madness. Taste is always said to be the most important issue when designing a food product, but as political and industry focuses on health should natural nutritional value not come before taste.
I believe in the values created by farming organically but not slavishly. I see the nutritional value provided by natural ingredients as having the best potential to interact with the human body to deliver a balanced diet. Start chopping it up and removing naturally occurring nutrients and you mess with the capacity to deliver an optimum outcome in terms of the body utilising the nutrients available.
Maybe this is a very unscientific statement, but I am not convinced that we understand the full complexity of how nutrients work together; the levels and reasons for bioavailability in the body; the efficiency of absorption under different states of health. There are so many variables.
That is why I see it as essential that one tries to grow food commodities, focusing on nurturing their nutritional strengths. The components that create the unique strengths in a food commodity need taking through the processing system in as complete a state as possible so the consumer benefits from those naturally occurring nutrient.
As is understandable, this is a farmer’s view. There are many multi national companies undertaking R&D on the delivery of healthy food incorporating targeted ingredients created as a result of extensive trials. The validity of this work is underwritten by the question – how do we feed a growing population in the world?
Again my blog has wandered away from sea buckthorn but I consider these deviations to be valid as sea buckthorn is a food. It is more than just a food, as its nutrient content gives it a potential to act as a supplement as well as a food. It also needs to be relevant for the market place – a market place which is changing to become conscious of the health of its customers.

All the plants in the plantation are now dormant. the current job at the moment is digging out broad leaved weeds that are close to plants. The ground conditions being so soft makes this operation easy. Being soft it also means that the plants are susceptible to wind damage. Whereas last year I was using 18/20 lb 4ft bamboo canes to provide added support, those plants that need support will have a 25mm square wood post. It is a problem with clay soil that, when soft it provides little support for the main stem.

Winter management also requires pruning of young plants. I have looked at manuals and there are a number of ways of pruning. I also see wide variation in the growth habits of different varieties. I decided last year that I needed advice on this, so at the euroworks conference in Finland I asked a highly respected agronomist, Kirsten Jensen, whether she would come to England to show me how to sort this pruning problem out.
Discussions at the conference also raised the subject of the suitability of varieties. Devereux farm already has 24 different female varieties. The German varieties are now maturing having been planted in 2009. Their yield is growing but not stable yet – last year the best tree gave a yield of over 12kg, others however only 4kg.
The Latvian plants look healthy and strong, but some have thorns that need respecting.
The Siberian varieties will be producing their first crop this year, but it is unclear as to what the impact will be of transferring them from an environment with a prolonged very cold winter to a winter where temperatures only occasionally dip below freezing.
Suggestion in Finland where that varieties from other Russian states might be more suited to our very temperate climate.
So as a result Kirsten has agreed to come to the farm in mid February.
There is now a plan brewing to turn the visit into an event. There is growing interest in sea buckthorn in the UK, so I am planning to hold an event to explore and discuss the development of UK sea buckthorn. This would cover some of the topics raised at Euroworks, such as harvesting, pests and diseases; a practical walk around the plantation with Kirsten to look at pruning and plant management issues; the opportunities and challenges of developing the market.
The date will probably be around the weekend of February 14/15 2015. Any one interested should contact me on my email – cottonmist.eagle@virgin.net.

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Vigilance needed or just good management

britishseabuckthorn

One of the principle topics for Euroworks 2014 Finland regarded the sea buckthorn fly. This little fruit fly has the capacity to reduce a crop into the realms of unprofitable enterprise. All crops have a break even point and most of those require a good crop in the first place – the profit only comes from doing the job well.

So it is important that the appearance of the fly is known, challenged and limited in its capacity to reproduce so that every year the population grows. The use of sticky fly traps was discussed, and there was some suggestion that flies can be more sensitive to different tones of yellow/orange in the type of trap. It seemed however that the trap that was brought to the conference with around 1000 flies on it was yellow and had done its job. But these traps are only there to indicate the presence of the flies and allow identification of different species. Once in the crop then the damage will be done.

It seems that most of European growers are organic and will maintain this status in order to deliver a natural product to the consumer. This means no sprays are an option in the control of fly. Some other fruit crops utilise netting for hail control which doubles as providing pest control as well. This is fine for small orchards, but in commercial terms I see mechanically harvested sea buckthorn as being larger orchards so netting becomes expensive both in capital purchase and labour. So vigilance in observation as with the arrival of caterpillar or bird attack sounds like the order of the day.

The suggestion from Germany that fleece under the trees will stop the viability of pupae also sounds an important option. Preventing the ability of one year’s generation to pass onto the following year must be critical if we are to control the fly. I have an uncomfortable feeling that the fly is present in our native environment although currently living off other hosts. It would be valuable to know if foragers have seen the tell tale signs of sea buckthorn fly damage.

It was suggested that the fly seems to like sweeter varieties , so maybe its willingness to eat some of our very sour native wild stock is less enthusiastic. Only time will tell.

So this coming week as I return to spreading compost under my plants I will be starting to consider when/how to place and secure fleece in this coming year. Of course it might be that the UK will not have the problem for a while yet, but that is no reason to be complacent. All crops have pests and sea buckthorn is clearly no different. The problem comes when one looks for natural solutions alone. But the solutions will be largely reliant upon timing, attention to detail, sharing information and a little innovation.