The primary objective of growing sea buckthorn here at Devereux farm has always been to produce a commercial crop of consistent quality berries. This crop then has to be acceptable to the UK market. With sea buckthorn growing wild in the UK this might not seem like much of a challenge. All crops at some stage have been derived from wild stock, but it takes many years of breeding to tame them. Our wild varieties are picked by foragers who I admire as the plants bristle with thorns potentially making harvesting difficult and painful.
From the outset the Devereux farm project started by looking for plants with less thorns and easier harvestability. German commercial varieties fitted this criteria and commercially proven. To undertake this work you have to be inquisitive so our original thoughts widened the choice of which varieties to plant, so the German plants were joined by plants from Finland. Varieties of Terhi, Tytti, Raisa together with males of Rudolph and Tarmo joining the initial trials back in 2009.
At the time we also looked at trying to source other varieties from North America. These plants were primarily of Russian genetics, but regulations made it difficult to import them. This was frustrating as it was clear then that as plant breeding of sea buckthorn had been developing since the 1930s in Russia, this was the place to source varieties.
Projects such as ours often develop from opportunity rather than an exact plan. So in that same year of 2009, when the chance to attend the International Sea Buckthorn Association (ISA) conference in Siberia was offered this seemed like a huge leap forward. The visit was planned by the Incrops Enterprise hub, then based at the University of East Anglia. The University of East Anglia was developing then, and since has become a centre of excellence in plant breeding and research.
Attending the ISA conference was a real eye opener with several hundred delegates from around the world. Over a week there were many research papers presented indicating the huge depth of work going on in Russia, China, Germany, Scandinavia and Himalayan India. Results of the EAN Sea Buck project – an EU funded analysis of the global sea buckthorn industry; farming issues from organic methods, pest and disease management, harvesting, and processing. Papers on benefits, including one on improving cognitive impairment. This was inspirational.
The conference hosts, the Lisavenko Research institute of Horticulture for Siberia also arranged a visit to their facilities and orchards to view their varieties. Varieties that were being bred for the global commercial market focusing on harvestability, taste, yield and nutritional content. This presented sea buckthorn farming as a new reality.
In the following year a collaborative agreement developed between Lisavenko and Incrops Enterprise hub. The result was access to Siberian varieties for our farm.
That is now all history, the practical result at Devereux farm is one field with our original german and finnish varieties and a second site containing ten Siberian varieties all sourced from Lisavenko.
Six years on from when the first Siberian plants went into the ground, much has been learnt from trial, error and solving each problem as it presents itself. The plants are maturing and the fact that our soil and climate is alien to them means that they are still acclimatising.
This year approximately 2500 of the Siberian plants presented a good crop – our first real sight of delivering our primary objective, a commercial crop. A commercial crop has to have consistent quality and it is to this subject that we now have to focus.
The objective of planting mixed varieties is to have early, mid-season and late ripening so harvest is staggered over maybe two months or longer. This year has indicated that even though the varieties we have present a long harvest period in Siberia, for us they almost all ripen together. The weather we have had this year has been unusual so it difficult to assess whether the short harvest season is a factor just for this year or not. The second issue has been variable size of berry on the same plant.
Lisavenko declare the average size of their berries so we had a guide and an expectancy. The variable size of berries present a confused position on this and it is important. Large berries are easier to pick. Our crop had maybe 10% large berries and even these were not as large as the Lisavenko expectation.
To deliver a crop of consistent quality, understanding ripening times and size of berry are key, but there has been a third factor. German berries develop in thick clumps on branches. Siberian berries being larger, appear as individual berries on stalks. Our plants are presenting their crop as clumps which means that as the berries grow in size they become squeezed between each other often creating mis-shapen fruit. As we all know the UK market in supermarkets requires size to be uniform, and mis-shapen fruit is unmarketable.
So this harvest has presented the next raft of problems to solve. This is no different to past issues. We have resolved issues with pests, with diseases, with acclimatising the plants to our soil.
To start the process of resolving these issues we decided this year that there was only one way to understand them. Travel back to Siberia and visit Lisvenko itself – see their plants at their harvest time; see their berries being harvested and assess their ripening times. By compare their management techniques with ours we can make a plan to improve our agronomy in the field so that we can grow berries of consistent size and marketability. Extending the ripening season may be an issue we have to live with, but a shorter harvest will require the most efficient harvesting technique.
So with all this in mind, Ben and I have just travelled to Siberia for a six day visit. We were honoured by attending the Board of the directors of the Scientific committee of the International Sea Buckthorn Association. We saw new processing machinery that makes sense of our harvesting issues. We visited the largest sea buckthorn plantation in Siberia, saw it being harvested and assessed plants of all ages of maturity within that site. The visit provided the opportunity to discuss our issues with those at the fore-front of the global industry. It has been an intense visit, but provided much food for thought and resolved in our minds how to move forward for successfully delivering our aim to produce a commercial crop of siberian sea buckthorn in the UK.
