Once again, I am indebted to the Ontario Stewardship Rangers (this year aka Josh Bowes, Stefanie McCann, Jessica Rothwell and Eric Dopson), from the Lanark County Stewardship Council for spending a day at the farm and scoring my two main stands of trees for nut load (>1000 trees). This is the third year the OSR has done this, and each year I introduce changes to the system. The 2007 crew had the hardest job.
The purpose of scoring is to identify superior trees ahead of harvest. Different-coloured flagging tapes are tied to the tree in accordance with the assigned score. The superior trees are the ones I am most interested in selecting nuts from for on-planting, and for cracking analysis. We are a season away from mechanical harvesting, so all nuts from superior trees would be hand-harvested and counted before the mechanical harvester was passed through to pick up everything else. The following table indicates the scoring ranges used in the past three years:
| 2006 | 2007 | 2008 |
| None | None | None |
| 1-5 | 1-5 | Few |
| 6-20 | 6-20 | Medium |
| 21-80 | 21-80 | High density |
| >80 | 80-320 | |
| | >320 | |
The simplification of 2008 stemmed from the realization that counting the nuts on the tree was very difficult and often inaccurate at best (at the high end). Nuts are counted anyway at pickup time, so no more is needed than an estimate of ‘nut density in the canopy’. Thirty-eight trees in total fell into the high category in 2008, about 50% more than 2007.
Prior to harvest the trees will also be scored for other features, and expression of leaf-spotting diseases is one of these. The pairing of low disease expression with medium nut density in the canopy would boost a tree into the ‘of interest’ grouping, such that it would also be selected for on-planting and cracking analysis.
If one embarks on biomass nut production, as we have, where extensive plantations of non-select trees are used, it is important to find management tools which simplify and streamline management for production. Tree scoring is one of these, allowing one to focus on the trees that will eventually add more to the bottom line than others.
Thanks again to the Ontario Stewardship Rangers for their help for the day!
1 comment:
Neil:
I'm glad to see a scoring methodology emerging from your experience. Last year I tried a primitive system patterned after your 2007 model. I only had one colour of tape, though, so when I gathered from the bearing trees in my woodlot I fastened a tape around the trunk to distinguish the producers from the malingerers, with the height of the tape an indication of my subjective affection for each, based primarily on the number of nuts it provided, but no doubt on any number of other factors as well, as all subjective assessments inevitably do.
Moreover, the best trees were so obvious that I didn't bother with tape at all, so I guess it would be difficult for a scientist to duplicate my results.
I'll try to do better with this year's harvest.
Rod
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