Tag: harvest

Growing our own

Update from the Field

britishseabuckthorn

David, who is in charge of managing our sea buckthorn field at Devereux Farm gives his update on what has been a difficult year in the field.

 

The New Year is a time for reflection and positive planning. I have to admit that it feels good to see 2019 behind us. The year started well with the building of our prototype harvesting system; purchase of a sprayer for applying foliar feeds; and the end of three years of transition to becoming fully organic certified. It was marred however by strong winds in March 2018 which created poor pollination resulting in a small, patchy crop of Siberian berries. This is the second year this has happened and it is a direct consequence of moving a plant from the cold climate of Siberia to our mild coastal weather. In effect it is an example of climate change but critically it is one that we can influence and the fact that we have seen good harvests from these plants in previous years shows that it was just one of those years.

Our harvesting method is now cutting branches, then freezing them in a cold store to -25 deg C. The branches are then put through our prototype berry separator. This removes the berries from the branches but some varieties, such as the Siberian Klaudia and Latvian plants carry a lot of leaf resulting in not all leaf being removed from the berries. So one project for 2020 is to modify the separator to refine the clearing process.

Choosing to harvest by branch cutting means that we need to prune our plants so they will be cut on a three or four year cycle. If plants are only going to be harvested once in three or four years it means we need to triple the size of our orchard. It was for that reason that we imported 4000 new plants from Siberia this autumn. This might sound simple but importing plants is a highly controlled process. Procedures are in place to prevent importing dangerous plant diseases into the country. It took 18 months to ensure the plants came from a certified disease free source – but better safe than sorry.

2019 has been a year of odd weather. By the end of September there had been no rain and the ground was baked hard. Since then it has not stopped and the soil is sodden. The unpredictability of weather was almost as trying as the activities of our politicians throughout the year. Brexit became a painful distraction through 2019 and at last it feels that we can now move on.

So for 2020 – again the Siberian variety Klaudia started to open its buds this week. By mid-February all varieties will be showing enough leaf to have their first spray feed. The ladurner cultivator will start to control the weeds under the plants as soon as the soil is dry enough. We will be extending our audio system to keep the jackdaws away, and trialling wind breaks to improve pollination. The focus for so long has been on growing sea buckthorn, but this year we will start product trials, juicing berries from which to offer British grown, organic sea buckthorn products, which we hope will be good news to those of you looking for a British product!

Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year.

 

 

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The Reality of Progress

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2006 sounds a long time ago but this was the starting point for the concept of growing sea buckthorn at Devereux farm. The idea generated from a meeting at the World Crop Centre, based at that time at Writtle Agricultural College. Sea buckthorn appeared from an assessment of crops that might be viable as alternatives to the commodity crops we grew – wheat, barley, and rape. The choice was made quite simple as the assessment flagged up the wide market interest in sea buckthorn. It could be used in food, drinks, natural cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and animal supplements. So the decision was made based on potential market diversity. This feels particularly relevant as we finally approach our first commercial harvest in July. 13 years is a long time to incubate a project and potentially we are now starting the most crucial part of the project.

With a crop in the orchard the first challenge comes with harvesting technique. Hand picking proved to be slow and uneconomical which is why we decided to adopt the German harvesting concept of branch cutting. We have since invested in a cold store in which to freeze the branches and commissioned the design/build of a berry separation and grading machine. As two separate machines, it is then planned to see how this prototype system works over harvest and upgrade the system into a single machine in 2020. Branch cutting has been developed using German varieties, with some innovative work also in Latvia. It is untried with Siberian. Branch cutting requires the plants to regenerate new branches. We will be looking for plants to produce berry bearing branches on a three or four year cycle. This means either cutting whole plants or cutting a third/quarter of the plantation every three or four years. Alternatively we only cut a third or quarter of each plant each year.

The secondary issue is that our ten Siberian varieties may react differently to being cut at harvest time. The system is a form of pruning but one normally prunes in winter when the plants are dormant. Summer pruning leaves plants open to disease. What we need is to encourage rapid regrowth. So our cutting procedure this harvest needs to trial different approaches with different varieties and then monitor over the next three to five years which varieties react best to different cutting regimes.

It was said that it takes 20 years to establish a new crop. It is becoming clear as to the reality of this statement. Harvesting is an on-going project, the next focus is marketing. It feels really good that to promote this year’s crop we have gone back to Writtle University College to find the person who will join us to drive the marketing of the sea buckthorn crop. Launching any new product requires patience, resources, risk management and will require new skills to ensure success. If growing sea buckthorn has taken time then developing the market will as well. All products are gauged on their qualities.

Assessing quality is another area that we need to develop over this year. We know that berry quality alters as the berries ripen. Starting this year we will begin to monitor individual vitamins to start to understand this process. This will start with a single varieties this year. After harvest we will then start to analyse other berry nutrient qualities. Sea buckthorn is renowned for its nutritional quality, but each of the six species of sea buckthorn (and 12 subspecies) grow in different climates and soils creating different nutrient concentrations. Nutritional quality is not just about what phytochemicals exist in a food ingredient, but how many, what they are and how they interact to provide dietary or health benefit. The sum total of the 190 phtyochemicals in sea buckthorn berries defines what sea buckthorn is. It is a natural vitamin/nutrient supplement, and as such, that is what made it attractive back in 2006 and is how we will see it as we start to sell it this year.

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The Trials of Mother Nature

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In June 2017 we were preparing for our potential first harvest of Siberian sea buckthorn. There were berries on almost all bushes, three to four kilos on some varieties – between eight and ten on variety Chuiskaya. Brix measurements started on June 22nd had figures of 6.5 to 10.5, with each variety jumping into double figures by the end of the month. The problem was that we had no means of harvesting the berries fast enough.

A trip to Siberia in September, then Warsaw to the Euroworks conference provided the opportunity to dissect the issues from harvest 2017. It seemed that the evidence was there that we could grow a good crop of berries – all we needed to do was develop a viable harvesting system.

Good fortune struck again with a trials harvesting equipment designer being based no more than 30 miles from our farm. Added to this, a grant application to fund 40% of the costs of the design and build was accepted.

What could possibly go wrong, harvest 2018 looked like being the culmination of nine years of work.

On March 17th the snow began – a storm now called the “Beast from the East”. The following days of snow and bitterly cold weather ran into what was pollination time for the sea buckthorn.

Sea buckthorn are wind pollinated, so male plants release pollen to be carried by the wind to receptive females.

The weather was cold and the wind was bitter. Of course the plants come from Siberia, where the weather is far more extreme. But our Siberian plants have adapted to our mild coastal climate in Britain. In their native environment they would emerge from winter in April/May. Our first plants start to emerge from dormancy in January, developing into full leaf by March. This development process triggers the development of pollination in mid March – just at the time when the Beast struck.

Hence the weather disrupted pollination. There are some berries on varieties Altaiskaya and Klaudia, but Chuiskaya plants– which were heaviest in yield in 2017,  now carry little more than 200 grams each.

This is the nature of farming, but in terms of timing this situation is an unprecedented setback.

Being positive the harvesting system is almost completed and the 200-300kg of what is left of the crop will be enough to test the equipment.

We are trying to irrigate some plants to see if it will improve the berry size. We will also be picking at different stages of ripeness to find the optimum brix measurement for the best taste. Waiting for full ripeness leads to falling vitamin levels and characteristic sharpness. We need to find a taste that is full of balanced flavour.

We have also tried digging up some of the suckers from Altaiskaya variety to pot on and use as replacement plants. Even though we used a mycorrhizal powder the result was a complete failure. The plants once potted died within ten days showing no recovery. It was worth trying, but we will look to buying in 2 year old plants from Siberia again when we expand the orchard.

Although it has been disappointing the vision of the 2017 crop is still firmly in our minds. The purchase of a ladurna cultivator for weeding; a mower and a tractor mounted sprayer for applying foliar feeds, and a harvesting system are all promising success to the future. It will just have to be 2019 not 2018 – learning by experience is often bitter, but are lessons well learnt.