Tag: sea buckthorn

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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 Tree

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First thing in the morning I take our dog for a walk before breakfast. The route is always the same but it is always very special. The path cuts through a group of silver birch trees that we planted about ten years ago. It then passes what has become an old friend – a small turkey oak. This tree was a sucker off the root of its 350 year old “parent” that crashed to the ground on December 31st 2000 – a millennium moment. This little tree is growing in shape and character just like the old tree that we had grown to love as a massive feature in our landscape. It is amazing to think it could live until 2300.

These trees are personal. They are almost family. At this time of year particularly, as the leaves are so fresh they add a vibrancy of life to my walk. I should not have been surprised when I heard the news this week that one of the ideas to control climate change was to create forests of artificial trees. Trees to suck the CO2 out of the air. The reporter said they would do this just like trees “but better”. It is a great technological idea, but it is not a tree.  It will not provide a natural living landscape.

Alternatively, it could be one solution to global warming – and the capability to do that is impressive. It is an indication that there are great minds at work to mend our world. We have grown to rely on technology. For me, springtime has a vibrancy as the farm’s crops start to mature. In the sea buckthorn field, the area between the plants are thick with grass, thistles, docks, nettles and other broad leaved weeds. They are weeds but they are also full of insects that potentially are controlling insect aphids that could devastate my crop.

The last few weeks have been incredibly dry and we are all becoming aware that climate change brings with it long hot summers. Summers that slow plant growth, create poor crops and can kill the plants we care for.

So the weeds are a problem because they compete for precious water in the soil. If I cut them down the insects I also look to help in controlling others will lose their habitat. The fact we grow the sea buckthorn organically is a choice, but it is a choice that makes you think holistically about the environment you work in.

The area between the rows of sea buckthorn provide a similar haven to the area under the plants providing a refuge for beneficial insects. So the weeds can go and I have started to remove them. In the past this has been done by hand, then by strimmer. Last year, at a Soil Association seminar at the gardens of the Belmont Manoir aux Quat’saissons in Oxfordshire there was the ultimate solution to weeding – a Karl Ladurna cultivator. It is the boy’s toy for an orchard.

Its capacity to weed is unchallengeable, but all machinery needs handling with respect. Its capacity to rip up weeds is matched by its capacity to pull up everything else in its way.

I have to admit that as I merrily drove up and down the rows of sea buckthorn, seeing the weeds surgically removed I was horrified to find how easy it was rip whole sea buckthorn bushes out of the ground. You soon learn to concentrate and respect the power in your control.

Last week saw the release of the IPBES Global assessment report on biodiversity. Valuing biodiversity is not easy in our technology based lives. I recognise that I could not farm my sea buckthorn organically without the beneficial insects and the complex of species that live in a healthy soil. Every species is reliant on another. One of the commentators on the report said, the problem with biodiversity – even with all our knowledge is that we just do not understand its complexity.  We have not even identified all the species on our planet so how can we understand what they do, how they interrelate to others and help to complete a healthy ecosystem.

We all appreciate biodiversity differently – it never fails to amaze me how much green space there is in London used by millions as natural space to relax. Technology is a modern wonder, but it will not replace the natural world – a natural world that feeds us.

Technology provides our quality of life, but the natural world allows us to live. We just need to respect and enjoy both – in balance.

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Inspiration and reality

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It’s nearly May. Potentially there are 64 days before we start our first sea buckthorn harvest. This is the culmination of ten years work. Ten years of working with like minded others with the passion to deliver a natural crop that encapsulates a power pack of nutritional quality. I too have that passion, but it is not emotion that will deliver the crop.

In 2017 our orchard was laden with berries. The realisation that handpicking was so time-consuming led to abandoning the crop – but it inspired two years of investment in machinery. Designing and developing a harvesting system that reflected on the success of being able to grow a crop.

So here we are. Two months to go and the plants look really healthy. Mid-March was the crucial period for pollination. It will be three weeks before we start to see the berries forming and can assess the size of crop. The memories of the icy storm of March 2018 that rampaged through the plants destroying the viability of pollination are still vivid in our minds. But that is nature and this is another year.

This coming week the design team are testing the harvesting equipment which has been through a development phase of test and modification. Our Landini tractor gets its full service. The Ladurna cultivator – our weed control solution after years of manual strimming will be put to work. Applying foliar feeds has also been a manual job, but two weeks ago the backpack was replaced by a 400lt tractor mounted sprayer. Finally, our sea buckthorn can be managed to an effective and efficient plan.

As we mechanise our sea buckthorn it might be efficient but this comes at a time when Greta Thunberg is showing the leadership that we all must focus on reducing our impact on the environment. It is sad that it takes a 15 year old Swedish school pupil to remind us of the critical nature our environment is in. Mr Gove, at DEFRA has driven the government 25yr Environment plan, but as Greta has highlighted it is not a 25yr policy plan we need but action.

Yesterday, as I walked our dog I thought about the whole issue of sustainability. Plants growing in the wild need the rain, the sun and the soil to grow, thrive and return year after year. Such a simple but totally sustainable system. One of the reasons for growing sea buckthorn was its low need for resources. No sprays, compost to improve the soil that feeds it and a low requirement for water. Hand picking would have been an environmentally low cost way of harvesting. It is fine for foraging wild plants, but not a commercial crop.

Our harvesting system is largely based on needing electricity. It is easy to say that is more efficient than direct use of fossil fuels, but electricity still comes from gas power stations.  As we develop our crop we need to not only be aware of how our actions impact on the wider environment, but take action to minimise those impacts. Whatever we do, we will use resources. The issue is questioning their use. Minimising their use. Compensating and mitigating for their use and ensuring that the process is true to its goal of ensuring we tread lightly in the environment that we need to work in.

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Change – nothing to fear.

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For over a month I have been listening to the speculation and division that surround Brexit and found it profoundly depressing. There comes a time when life has to move on. For farmers, Brexit is not just leaving Europe. It has triggered the Agriculture Bill which will radically reform our industry over the next ten years. The fundamental change in the removal of farming subsidies requires a positive response, together with the challenge of facing up to climate change.  Coming at a time of political and market instability does not help, but one cannot change reality.

Starting to grow sea buckthorn was a leap of faith almost 10 years ago. Finally we have a healthy crop in the ground, a bespoke harvesting system under development leaving the concept of producing and selling a product as the crowning task to compete the process.

In the face of a time of uncertainty it seems that positivity, focus and keeping concepts simple has to be the order of the day.

Our crop has high nutritional opportunity. With vitamins A,B,C,E together with omega fatty acids 3,6,7, and 9 headlining its attributes we have the potential to deliver product that is both natural and healthy. This is a time of year when consumer trends are published, a factor which maybe gives impetus in big business to new approaches to marketing, but marketing is not what is important. For alongside climate change, diet is becoming a massive challenge. A challenge that has developed in spite of government policy and regulation, a science-led food industry and vast amounts of diet related research.

It is interesting to see that one trend forecasted is that a balanced diet is gaining consumer focus. The concept of the balanced diet is ancient. The gut microbiome is a great new focus. The 100 trillion bacteria loaded in our gut that process what we eat and provide the body with the essential fuel and metabolites that drive our health. This concept changes the focus for narrowly based diets back to the idea that a healthy gut is what maintains a healthy body, not a bunch of specific nutrients.

It makes me think in terms of new crops we should be looking to grow on the farm. The UK is a small country that should not try to compete with countries that can grow cheap grain. We need to change to focusing on specialist crops that are focused on dietary benefit. Cheap grain has sponsored an unstable economy for agriculture, requiring subsidy to prop it up. Maybe finding crops with direct to market nutritional added value will help to redress the need for subsidy and create a real market for real food.

2019 for us will be a formative year, not because of Brexit, but because we will be producing our first commercial sea buckthorn crop. A crop made possible by the harvesting process. The first crop that we will nutritionally analyse. It will start the next process to define the best growing methods to improve the nutrients that we target as important for our consumers.

Brexit is bringing about change, but change has always been happening, so it is not to be feared but embraced.

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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.

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Soil Nutrients and Berry Nutrients

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The winter of 2018 has been a marked change from the norm of almost all the winters since we planted our first sea buckthorn plants in 2009. The norm up until now has been so mild that the Siberian plants have been emerging from dormancy in January. The variety Klaudia has always taken the lead, with the earliest having been December 31st.

This year however has been characterised not only by a week of dramatic snow this month, but also frosts through January and February. As a consequence even Klaudia decided that this was actually winter and finally only started to emerge on January 22nd. Growing any crop brings with it the issue that we have no control over the weather. It alters each growing season and that has an impact on the crop. Moving a plant from a country like Russia with its continental climate to the maritime environment we have at Devereux farm on the Essex coast was always going to bring with it an issue that the plants would need to adapt.

The principal first major event in the growing calendar is pollination. There were signs that our Siberian male plants where showing movement in the upper buds of the plant on February 23rd. The snow struck all through the following week, then thankfully it cleared, but as if to ensure that we did not forget it had happened a second dose came over the weekend of March 17/18. The relevance of all this is whether it will impact on pollination as some female varieties, particularly Sudarushka and Altaiskaya are not as forward with leaf development as some of the other varieties. As I write this now approximately 60% of the buds on the males are cracking open. This is a significant move from three days ago, so I suspect pollination might start towards the middle of next week.

On the basis that we had a good yield of berries last year the Siberian males (Gnom variety) have proven themselves to pollinate successfully. My concern though is that of all varieties they are susceptible to disease, and even fully mature plants die over a season.

Yesterday I attended a Soil Health seminar run by the Head of Horticulture at the Soil Association, Ben Raskin. As the sea buckthorn is registered as organic there are limitations to what one can and cannot use when controlling pests and diseases. One of the options discussed was biochar. This is charcoal enriched with beneficial fungi, bacteria and trace elements gained from seaweeds.

Part of the issue of growing trials is the need to find solutions to problems, and I need to find a way of supporting the health of my males. If the males are failing because of soil based pathogenic fungi then Biochar might help – so this will go on the list of work for this year.

The soil health seminar also focused on the use of different composts and woodchip mulches. The woodchip trials being both with composted and un-composted chip. Woodchip for our soil at Devereux will provide a great source of organic matter in a form that should improve the soil ecology, structure and nutrient content. Better soil will reduce stress on the plants and reduce the risk of disease. The other half of the reason to improve the soil is the hope that we can improve the availability of nutrients available to the plant that might increase the quality of the berries.

The nutrient quality of our berries is important as sea buckthorn is recognised as a “super fruit”. With this label it needs to maintain its capacity to contain higher than normal levels of vitamins, carotenoids and myriad of polyphenols that are the basis of its potential to deliver benefits. Omega 3 comes into this category – an important nutrient so often associated with fish oil, but now being increasingly provided through plant sources.

We always have to remember that like all crops, sea buckthorn is a natural product that is a product of the environment it grows in. Every year the weather is different and that will impact on both the yield and quality of the fruit. Soil management can help to reduce the variability of a crop and that is something we need to work on to deliver a consistent quality, good tasting fruit to customers.

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Investing in machines – benefits and challenges

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This week as a pair of hares came looping down the sea buckthorn rows it was clear that spring is coming. Varieties Jessel, Klaudia, Etna and others are showing leaf. The year is already underway and it is a crucial year when we have to pull all the knowledge we have accumulated since 2009 into focus to deliver our first harvest and take it to market.

Time is always a precious commodity. Weeding has stolen many days each year. Our first 2018 investment in a Landini tractor and ladurner cultivator will buy back this time. First trials show an excellent job, rotovating the weeds in the area close to the plants creating an organic mulch of the top soil. The first pass of the machine has cut the shallow lateral roots of the plants and we will have to wait to see if this creates any detrimental impacts. It may be the plants compensate by establishing deeper roots, which could be positive in the long run to help sourcing a deeper water table in dry summers.

ladurner cultivator

Adopting the Ladurner cultivator raises some thoughts regarding the sea buckthorn fly (Rhagoletis batava). It can destroy up to 50% of the crop, and although not seen in the UK yet has expanded across Asia and Europe. As we are determined to maintain our organic form of growing sea buckthorn, the option of using chemicals is not available to us. Netting all the plants offers a first line of defence, but over a large area can netting offer a 100% option?

The sea buckthorn fly lay eggs which become larva which overwinter in the soil beneath the plants. One suggestion is to create a barrier on top of the soil preventing the larvae from penetrating the soil and leaving them exposed to the elements and insect predators. The Landini will create a soft open soil under the plants for these larvae to burrow into, so our mechanical solution to weeding may solve one problem and create a worse one. As part of our trials we will look at increased autumn cultivations after the egg hatching season as this might kill fragile larvae in the soil.

Moving away from the farm, this week has revealed research on the potential hazards of consuming ultra-processed foods. Consumer demand for convenience and the food industry response needs to always focus on the fact that food is a primary means of maintaining health. The quality of ingredients and how they are treated impacts on the nutritional value of any food to benefit the end consumer.

Ultra-food processing is extreme but the issue of nutritional quality is something we need to focus on in developing our sea buckthorn crop, harvesting and how it reaches our consumers.

Our field management must cross check on sustainability. How we can reduce bought in inputs, reduce our impact on the environment – but more than that, maintain and improve the biodiversity around us. This will provide a good soil. A good soil will deliver a healthy plant and the necessary nutrients and trace elements that improve fruit quality.

Harvest needs to be fast and clean. The concept is simple but ensuring quality comes from being continually critical of the process. With 2018 being our first harvest quality is both our vision and our challenge.

 

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The importance of standards and nutrition

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UK farming and the rural economy has seen many changes over the past 35 years. The global market, the growth of the retail food giants and technological improvement has driven agriculture forward. Farms have grown in size and scale – developing businesses where enterprise seizes every opportunity to grow. Alongside this, smaller farms have changed through innovative diversification, driven by passion and belief in great product. Behind this though is the stark fact that all these farms – whether large or small are responding to the need to remain viable.

At Devereux farm we started to grow sea buckthorn as a means of looking for future viability. In 2002 our dairy herd was sold in a falling milk price market. It is sad to see this trend has increased with numbers of UK herds dropping by half to less than 10,000. The loss of our milking herd left a vacuum that we needed to fill and as farmers the desire to fill it with a natural, wholesome food product was desirable.

2005 saw the introduction of exotic fruits such as noni, gogi, and acai into the US consumer market. These fruits had by analysis high levels of nutrients and traditional medicinal use associated with health benefit.  Sea buckthorn at that time was a northern hemisphere version of these exotic fruits.

The subject of high nutrient content is difficult. Nutrient content is variable based on climate and the environment where the food is grown. The sea buckthorn that we grow is not grown in the extreme climate of its native Siberia. It is however of a genetic ecotype that has a capacity to produce a fruit with higher than normal levels of nutrients.

Harnessing genetic ecotype and providing growing conditions to provide a healthy plant is the basis for the success of our 2018 harvest.

Sea buckthorn has been widely studied and many research papers are published through a great series of books edited by Prof. Virendra Singh. Volume 2 of this series, on biochemistry and pharmacology exposes the nutrient diversity within sea buckthorn from around the globe. High levels of vitamins A, B, C, E; omega fatty acids; flavonoids; sterols, polyphenols alongside minerals are all present, but what we need to find is what is typical in our fruit.

All fruit has a capacity to add to a healthy diet. None provide an all-encompassing health silver bullet, but it is helpful to understand nutritional strengths, and to the grower these can be used to create credible standards of quality for consumers to judge on their merits.

With this in mind, this year we are developing crop trials alongside a highly respected UK horticultural institute to analyse our methods and fruit to start to move towards being able to create those credible standards.