Devereux farm is on the coast. Being less than two hours from London, this part of the Essex Coast has attracted people for decades to its beaches, mild weather and sunshine. Many of those visitors become so attracted to it that they come to live here. Such an attraction is based on memories of good holidays and as with all of us, those memories are so good that when areas develop we do not like to see them change. But change is inevitable and constant.
It was with interest therefore that I noted a familiar topic on change when reading the March edition of the Fruit Grower magazine. At the recent British Independent fruit growers Association (BIFGA)technical conference, Christopher Atkinson, Professor of Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Greenwich quantified a specific impact of climate change that I have not heard of before – but that which is very relevant to my growing of Siberian sea buckthorn.
He presented data that indicated evidence that winter chill is changing. The figures related to Kent top fruit growers: in years 1969 to 1979 the mean chill total was 2545 hours compared to 2235 hours from 1987 to 1997. The relevance being that every perennial fruit crop must have a certain number of chill units to break dormancy. To break dormancy they need to be warmed, but if the rate of chilling is upset then bud-break happens at an abnormal time then it upsets the timing of pollination and potential future yield. He proposes that these changes are down to a changing climate. On the basis that 16 of the 17 warmest years have been recorded since the millenium, I will be writing to Professor Atkinson to ask whether he has reviewed what the chill figures are for the last ten years in comparison with 1987 to 1997.
This sounds very familar with what is happening at Devereux farm. Siberian variety Klaudia has become the odd ball of the ten Russian varieties on site. Last year breaking bud on New Year’s eve, this year on January 20th, with all varieties breaking bud by February 17th. This is of course perverse in Siberian terms where the winter will keep the plants frozen well into April. The impact though comes when considering pollination. Sea buckthorn is wind pollinated so males have to open their flowers and distribute pollen to receptive female flowers.This process happens with swelling of flower buds taking a week, approximately two weeks ahead of mass flowering. Full blown flowering happening over a seven day period. For all this to happen the female and male flowers need to open at the same time, with a little variation for variety. But my experience here in the UK is showing that Klaudia is coming so early that it is outside this pollination window. It seems that Sudarushka has the same problem but at the other end of the spectrum – coming too late. This will impact upon yield and potentially these two varieties may not produce berries. It will be interesting to see.
It is for these sort of reasons that this week we installed the first trial electronic tags onto 48 plants as a start of using the Sectormentor data recording system ( www.tech.vidacycle.com). These tags provide auto identification to an iphone, to allow for easy recording of data on particular plants. The system will allow recording of all aspects of plant development, disease, pest incidence and yield attributes building up specific data over a period of time allowing us to adapt management technique to improve the crop as years go by.
But changes in climate are not new, neither are the ways that plants adapt and evolve to these changes. Back in January a presentation at the Naze, Essex Wildlife Trust new centre introduced a project in Suffolk at a site where there is a geological exposure of 4 million year old Coralline Crag. This strata being made up of layers of crushed sea shells being compacted at a time when the area was approximately 30m under the sea.
Back in the 1960s Professor Richard West took a core sample through this strata and on analysis discovered fossilised pollen from plants living 4 million years ago. This pollen having been blown from adjacent terrestrial landscapes, then to sink into the strata to become fossilised. These were identified indicating the type of landscape that one might have found so long ago. The research indicated specific plant family or genus, but clearly could not be specific on species.
This work inspired a fascinating project created by members of the GeoSuffolk group. Taking the plant data they have matched it against plants living today of the same genus and planted examples of them into the site. This has been done in a controlled way with the permission of Natural England, and offers an indication of the visual concept of trees that made up the forest and landscape of the area so long ago.
This landscape disappeared with the arrival of glaciation and it is a reminder that over millions of years the climate has been changing continually, although gradually. Our current form of climate change may be contentious as its rate of change is more of an issue.
As a grower of a crop transported from its native Siberia to the mild Essex coast, I have forced climate change onto my plants. The project in Suffolk indicates that plants do adapt and evolve as the same plant families exist now as they did 4 million years ago. It will be interesting to see how my sea buckthorn adapts to its changed environment.
As Professor Atkinson added in his presentation at BIFGA, the problem with climate change is that it is not simple nor consistent, so trying to plan to manage change is not easy. Change may be constant, but there are many variables that make it unpredicatable, but that is what makes the challenge of growing a new crop like sea buckthorn exciting.