I had intended that my prvious blog – only just written, was going to have some practical sea buckthorn content. Its content defined the moment however so I shall add this second one to update on some field activity at Devereux farm.
As we approach the third week in February the majority of the Siberian varieties arSudaruse developing leaves of a centimetre or slightly more in length. This process started with Klaudia in late Decemeber. This followed for the first time by Augustina, then Elizaveta. Chuiskaya; Etna and Rosinka followed. This leaving Sudarushka and Altaiskaya breaking bud last week – finally Inya and the males, gnom starting to show signs of life now. This unseasonal behaviour is not mirrored by any of the Latvian, german or finnish varieties virtually all of which remain dormant. I suspect that the Latvian Sunny will be the first to move soon.
Having had an incredibly mild December and January, February has turned cold again with ovenight frosts over the past two weeks with day temperatures around 8 deg. C.
This does not seem to have had any impact on the tender new leaves of the Siberian varieties.
The current focus continues to be weeding and pruning. The plants have come through the winter well. Certain varieties are showing the problems of the previous year. Altaiskaya in particular had infestation problems early on resulting in leaf loss and small branch die back as a consequence. Accompanying these issues come increased growth of suckers.
Weeding is a painful experience but it is tempered with the thought that my compost spreader is coming in April. I calculate that the site will take 350 tons of 25mm green waste compost being spread approximately 150mm deep right along the rows. This will help surpress the weeds. A second dose in the autumn I see as being a twice yearly application for three years, after which this might reduce to a single application.
Bird migration is an annual feature of life alongside the Hamford water national nature reserve. Around 2500 brent geese arrive from Siberia amongst the many other winter migrants. Over the winter the plague of jackdaws that striped all the berries have been absent. During the winter they tend to live in the urban environments within neighbouring districts, but this week they came back to the farm.
Pruning should be completed in the next two weeks, with the next task being to erect the netting that I am purchasing from a cherry farmer. There will not be quite enough netting structure to cover the whole site but enough to protect the older plants that will – I hope be giving us our first real harvest this year.
The arrival of the compost spreader will herald a tractor on site – so investment in mower and sprayer for compost tea. This together with the netting means investment in processing will move back to 2017. Increased freezer capacity will be a feature, but not the blast freezer that would be the best option.
It is interesting to see that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) consumer survey and new strategy has identified a consumer interest in the linkage of food production and climate change. As much of our food is imported I wonder whether this will translate into carbon footprinting in the future. Our sea buckthorn will be grown in the UK, but with processing still linked to freezing with energy requirement will have to look to renewable sources and improved technology for the future. The fact that we will not be investing in blast freezer capacity now is possibly not a bad thing as .adaptation to climate change will drive improvements in energy efficient systems.
So the sun is shining again and the frost off the ground – so now its back to the field with the pruners.
