The hot, dry weather is now cracking our ground wide open. It is remarkable though how this does not stop weeds – particularly docks; ragwort and thistles from still coming back as vigourously as ever. The field with the German and Finnish varieties had been mown tro perfection a month ago, and it had a trim in between, but this week it looked like a jungle – so last week it was manicured to a lawn. The timing was good because i woke this morning and we have had a steady rain last night which will provide some relief for stressed plants.
Stressed but on the whole the plantation – even the youngest one’s is looking good. That said, there is always a problem lurking somewhere. This time it is with a couple of the fully mature german plants.
One has been gradually losing its leaves over the summer, and now a second has joined it.
In this field I have had experience of plants that die back, but return the following spring and now look normal and strong growers. I have also had one that died last winter from being a 2009 planted plant this is disappointing, but it was so wet that i expected some issues. The ground became waterlogged – and this is an issue that I need to improve – probably with a subsoiler rather than a formal drain.
((This is a red herring to the blog, but last Wednesday was our pre-arable harvest farm walk. The crops look really good – including tares that went in in the spring ( due to weather) rather than the autumn when one would normally establish them. Drainage was on the discussion list. The farm was last drained after the 1953 floods, when our seawalls where destroyed. So after 50 years it is time for the farm to be re-drained across the whole farm. A process that will probably be done over five years.))
Back to seabuckthorn – the German plants have not been given any compost tea or seaweed. Why? Well, because as productive, mature plants they seemed to be getting on fine without help. But as disease is something different, so yesterday these two plants with leaf loss had a good dose of seaweed and next week will have compost tea.
The seaweed having been applied yesterday with a good spray around the plants will be helped by last night’s rain – so for once, this is a management plan that is working with the weather helping.
Management is on my mind at the moment because there has been a circular email from the organisers of the EUROWORKS conference to ask for content of presentations by the end of next month.
Why is this relevant? I am an advocate for establishing standards in growing seabuckthorn. I am also giving a presentation at the Euroworks conference.
There will be growers/processors/ even researchers that believe that standards are un-necessary complications that are irrelevant and undeliverable. I sympathise with some of these views because seabuckthorn is a grown crop which means that every year the end result is at the mercy of different weather. There also are many different varieties which have been bred over the years that have different genetic characters that have a limited capacity to deliver different qualities of crop.
Standards can be interpreted in many different ways. They mean something different depending upon the audience to which they are directed and to which they are relevant.
They can be as much of a management tool; as a marketing aid; as a consumer understanding of a product; and in some cases a regulation.
The EU is covered in regulation, which is why many in the UK believe that the EU represents a bureaucratic and authoritative organisation – missing the point about its strength in binding Europe together in both security and global competitive advantage.
I do not see standards as regulation.
I first of all see them as establishing a management system so that I can produce a crop that is consistent with other EU growers. The term “Local” food is a marketing term that can mean anything. It can comes from the village next to a shop. In a global context it can come from the continent that you live in. So as a grower in the UK, I see myself as a European grower, growing a crop for the “local” market, which is a European country.
So a common set of management standards establishes an understanding that any buyer of my crop/product will be able to understand. This can be anything from standards for staff; standards regarding how one manages waste; to common practices that are understood to provide a buyer with a crop that has disease control, a harvesting method that minimises damage to fruit, is stored in a way that ensures it is ready for use and in a condition that is fit for purpose.
None of that says a set concentration of vitamins/minerals/polyphenols. These are issues that are subject to weather and varietal character.
Taste is an issue – but again it is subject to the variables mentioned above.
Part of the discussion is to develop an understanding in the marketplace as to what European seabuckthorn is and how it is differentiated away from other seabuckthorn that is grown around the world.
This issue is important as it should underpin a crop price for the grower; a confidence in market buyers and a recognition of the strengths of seabuckthorn grown in Europe that builds consumer loyalty.
This is a subject that will develop up to the Euroworks conference in Finland in October. The other two topics are cultivation technology and pests and diseases, which promises to be a valuable conference.
In terms of my current problem – losing the first tiny Siberian berry crop to rooks I gather that the same problem existing in Russia. But as there is so much seabuckthorn grown there, the problem is shared across many farms with a possible loss of around 10% of the crop.
I did find an American system – Bird gard, which transmits an alarm sound across up to 30 acres that only the birds can hear. I also have an engineer caming down this week with an “Rook Expeller”. I am not sure what this is – but I cannot wait to see.
As with many scarers it will probably need a number of different devices as birds soon get used to the one’s that do not create a fatal impact on them.
So for now it is back to the farm to brew up next week’s compost tea. There are developments and refinements in this that are exciting in that they improve the speed of the brew process. But that will wait for now.
