Spring is a time for being upbeat and now that field work has started some management issues are coming to light.
The fact that variety Klaudia decided to break dormancy on December 31st has not made any difference to its wellbeing. For ease of growing it has been great. The long wet spring has not helped our heavy clay soil. This last week I applied the first dose of Liquid Live, compost tea, supplied by the Soil Hub. Using both compost and compost tea focuses the mind on soil micro organisms. Although the soil surface might be aerobic, when it becomes waterlogged this will not help the development of a healthy soil.
As sea buckthorn is wind pollinated the ability of males to fertilise females is key. The Russian males, Gnom variety, have a sad yellow tinge to their leaves. I have found that these plants have been susceptible to problems in the past. The females of all varieties do not have this problem. When planted, some, but not all our plants have established nitrogen fixing root nodules already established. The presence of frankia in the soil is an essential for this process to work. Technically the process operates best in a soil pH of 6-7.1 ( Zhitskaya et al 1987). Excess application of nitrogen as a plant feed inhibits the efficiency of this nitrogen fixing operation, but this is in a natural state. Molybdenum has a role in the formation and functioning of the system but at a rate of 330 micrograms/kg. At Devereux farm all the females are healthy. The males need managing, but we are registering as organic I need to ensure that additional treatments fit with the Soil Association regulations.
Recognising that Gnom has been sceptible to disease is an issue. It also tends to have more surface roots and throws up more suckers. I take from this that as a plant it finds growing roots on the surface as easier. But of course in a wet winter/spring, heavy rain will flush out nutrients, so these surface roots will be less able to access available soil nitrogen and other nutrients. The treatment for now is a foliar feed of Liquid Live together with a soil drench of the same material. This will be repeated next week. Each plant will also have an application of organic chicken manure based pellets. The ground still being wet is also holding off the ability give each plant a heavy mulch of compost but this will be the next operation to start to improve the organic matter in the upper root level that should improve the fungal population.
Non organic growing methods would provide a wider armoury of intervention, but organic for me is a learning curve. Building soil health is a slow and continual process. It is crucial that the males are healthy to provide their role in the fertilisation process. I shall look forward to next spring now with knowledge that this year there will have been heavy applications of compost right across the site with the aid our bespoke deisgned mechanical spreader.
The use of machinery saves time. Time is a precious resource, but how it is used is equally important. Applying compost tea using a back pack sprayer, rather than tractor mounted machine is slow. The process does mean that each plant gets a good soaking, but as importantly it gives time to inspect every plant.
As I have been applying the compost tea this week, observations of different issues become apparent. There are the occasional plants that have full leaf on the majority of the plant, but retarded growth on a single stem. This could have a disease implication, but the leaves are still emerging and looking healthy. So these plants will need marking for regular observation over the next two weeks.
There are plants with vapourer moth nests. Not many, but again possibly ten which if left undestroyed would spread into neighbouring plants. These caterpillars can strip a plant in a week.
This period of plant observation allows the chance to look at how the Altaiskaya variety is recovering from the impact of last year’s pest invasion. A severe attack of aphids weakened many plants. It was variety specific, but caused concern for the ability of the plants to recover at all. This spring these plants are looking better, but where the soil type is heaviest it is marked how these plants are weakest. Again, like the Gnom males, these will need some special attention to build them up over this spring and summer.
The variety Elizaveta was also identified as one prone to disease. I see this as being associated with its fast growth and lush leaf character. The mature plants look really good, but amongst these there are still some plants, particularly immature ones, that have some dessicated leaf issues.
When considering this I now treat these Siberian plants as exotic then compared to the German varieties that were planted two years ahead of the Russian stock. The Siberian plants will have bigger, sweeter berries. Mostly they are thornless making harvesting so much easier. They should in the end have larger yield potential. But against this they will require a much higher level of management input. But then they will be unique in the UK market and provide a new innovative ingredient that otherwise would be only found thousands of miles away to the east in the depths of Siberia.
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