Three weeks is almost up since the last dose of seaweed on the seabuckthorn. So this afternoon I started on the plants that were in the critical area last year for disease. three weeks ago there were three suspect plants showing a sign of desiccation. this time I have found seven plants in six rows of 100 plants. The encouraging thing is that the problems are not in one particular variety. Two plants have one whole branch badly effected. the others are very small signs. So tomorrow I will prune out the problem. It is early in the season yet and it is only odd individual plants, but still disappointing.
On a more optimistic note though across the whole field the plants are on the whole growing fast. I am weeding around 100 plants each morning. The clay soil is starting to bake hard. On Sunday we had 5mm of rain, which is the first for 15 days. This has had little impression on the hardness but it is softer under the old dry grass cuttings around each plant. On the basis of this I think I am going to mulch with old hay that has not been used up by the sheep that have been living in our farm buildings this winter. I will mulch some with green waste compost, but some with the hay. The hay being at no cost is an advantage. It also is easier to get to the plants as the ground is still not hard enough for delivery lorries that will bring in the compost. Timing is becoming critical. As weeds are growing as fast as I can clear them from around the plants, I need to mulch having weeded otherwise I will be a slave to the plants all summer.
The males that were hit hard by disease last year have recovered well, but we shall have to see how successful pollination is this year.
My compost tea maker is still not working as I am still waiting for the compound that I use for seabuckthorn is still to be connected up to the mains electric. This is why the plants are getting a second dose of seaweed. I have dropped the rate of concentration down slightly to 200ml per 10 litres of water. I am thinking that will disease showing I will possibly reduce the timing of application down to two weeks. If organic disease control is about stress management then keeping on top of weed competition and regular foliar feed is about as far as I can go. I could give them some irrigation but having resisted this since I started I would prefer not to use this unless we come into a very long dry period. Our water table is still high, so less surface water I hope will enough the plants to grow deeper roots.
I visited the Natural and Organic Show in London last week. There were three stands with seabuckthorn. One from the US; one from Estonia and another from the Czech republic. Others showed interest but there was a general lack of knowledge about the plant. One interesting product was a natural sugar replacer – not stevia. When making seabuckthorn jam, I am concerned regarding the amount of sugar involved. Finding a viable replacer that is natural but low in calories may be of interest. Seabuckthorn is a fruit associated with health benefit. It makes no sense to produce products that will provide consumers with not only the healthy nutrient package of the fruit, but then follow through with companion ingredients that keep to the same health concept.
Healthy product message is about maintaining simple, understandable and consistent quality and purpose. With still eighteen months before our first harvest of a commercial size we now need to hone in on this message and concentrate on how to turn it into what consumers are looking for.
