Another week approaches and field work is becoming an all consuming focus – at a time when there are mounding piles of paper jobs waiting in the office.
I met my neighbour on Friday, who lives on an island in the middle of the Hamford water National nature reserve that Devereux farm is next to. We exchanged current thoughts and the topic turned to the vapourer moth caterpillar. The handsome, black furry beast that ravages my sea buckthorn plants. Not only is my neighbour allergic to its excretions but they are now so many on his island that they are starting to strip trees of their leaves. In his experience there are no predators and no means to control them. So when pruning on Friday and I came across another two plants with these voracious insects on them I was very particular about ensuring that I removed every one I found.
Next week I shall start the next round of compost tea foliar feed. It is particularly important at the moment as the fruit will be setting soon. Ensuring a supply of trace elements is suggested to enhance berry quality. Iodine, boron, cobalt and zinc potentially improving vitamin C. Copper and manganese influencing levels of carotenoids.
At the moment the plants look healthy but as I have reported before there are the occasional ones that have partial dieback. The leaves dessicate and I am adopting a precautionary approach and pruning out any such branches to reduce further infection. The same old culprit of Elizaveta variety seems to be a problem but this is in odd individuals. I am still concerned about the variety Altaiskaya. It seems to be going through a late flowering stage. The plants have come into leaf but compared with others they are backward. This is almost universal in all the Altaiskaya across the plantation
As with all jobs, most work is routine, so on the list now – the whole site needs mowing; compost tea every three weeks; removing all visible pests; prune out all disease; with a one off job being compost mulch across all plants probably starting in ten days time. This would normally be done in April but again lack of availability of machinery has made this not possible. On my clay soils I see it as important as it prevents the upper layer of the soil drying out and creating stress for plants roots that are close to the surface. The mulch is improving the soil ecology as the same time, which I see as an important contributor to controlling plant disease.
British Sea Buckthorn Co Ltd as our development business also needs the same level of concentration as that demanded in the field. 2015 will be an important year. The first berries will provide the inspiration for product development. But all plans need to be tempered with reality, and before plans can be fully formulated there needs to be reconciliation with regulation and resourcing.
