Rod Croskery (he of the only site currently on my blogroll) wrote to me recently posing a question that I suspect many would like to ask:
[About the tree in Westport] planted in 1937 by Dr. Ford Goodfellow, the parent tree has very little trunk but an enormous canopy. [The owner] assures me that it has borne heavily every year for the last twenty. If the nuts are well-filled, the parent might meet your criteria for a good orchard tree.
This is a bit of a challenge, because it is growing in a site distinct from the farm. I responded to Rod that currently I was only interested in selecting from the population that I had on the farm. Many rural Ontario communities have populations of black walnut trees, many of which (I am separately informed) would be descendents of the original parent stock brought up by United Empire Loyalists a couple of hundred years ago. This ignores the other common knowledge that First Nations’ peoples also spread the black walnut eastwards from southern Ontario.
These populations I have observed to be regularly productive, so here is my suspicion: that the environment in many of these communities reduces the risk of early spring frost damage to the trees’ flowering, mainly, I believe, through low-level mixing of exhaust gases from heating systems. Most of these trees are within or just moderately above the mean roof line of the community, where such effects could be expected.
How could we test this? If you have a potential seed tree in such a community that you are interested in, I suggest you hang a max-min thermometer on the trunk at breast height (1.35m) on the north side, inside some sort of shield to protect it from the elements, and compare the readings with Environment Canada’s values at the nearest observation site on those nights when spring frosts occur. Do the readings match or not? Remember to reset the thermometer daily.
Because my fields are frost prone, I believe my good seed trees must be relatively later flowering than the rest of the on-farm population. Alternatively, my non-seed bearers are too early for my site, something I must quantify this coming spring. More on this later.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
2008 harvest report
Well, over 2 tonnes of fruit were harvested over about five weeks from about 10th October. This includes on- (75%) and off-farm (25%) sources. On-farm, harvesting of ‘3’ trees was independent of ‘1’ and ‘2’ trees (see earlier post on range scores). All nuts from fruiting trees were counted, though 1 and 2 trees were counted at time of pick up (three different sweeps of the fields), and the fruit pooled by field during each sweep. Fruit from each 3 tree was kept separate in plastic lugs in the field, and totals counted when there were no further nuts to fall.
All pooled fruit was processed first – weighed, hulled, then washed and dried. Fruit from 3 trees was weighed, hulled, washed, then sampled and dried. Three-nut samples of 3 fruit were retained for drying, then subsequent cracking and separating. This analysis will be reported under the 2008 Nut Report.
Within the global number reported above, there was much hidden. The two main experimental populations (Fields 1 & 3) are reported below (you can click on the image to open it in a larger format).
All pooled fruit was processed first – weighed, hulled, then washed and dried. Fruit from 3 trees was weighed, hulled, washed, then sampled and dried. Three-nut samples of 3 fruit were retained for drying, then subsequent cracking and separating. This analysis will be reported under the 2008 Nut Report.
Within the global number reported above, there was much hidden. The two main experimental populations (Fields 1 & 3) are reported below (you can click on the image to open it in a larger format).
Firstly, the nut range scoring system was successful in separating trees by eventual yield (at harvest). In each of the two fields, there are in excess of 500 trees. In each field, more than half of the population did not fruit. The number of trees fruiting (total n) was 187 (F1) and 254 (F3). The average number of nuts per tree was 20 (R1), 94 (R2) and 299 (R3). The biggest contrast between fields was for R3, where F1 gave 448 nuts per tree and F3 gave 151 nuts per tree. Correction of these totals by cross-sectional area (CSA) at DBH (diameter at breast height; multiplied by 100 in the above graph to be able to use the same vertical axis) almost completely reduced this variability to 5.09 nuts per sq cm of CSA (F1) compared to 5.53 (F3). I have termed this value Nut Yield (NY), which you can see was, on average, >1 for R1 and between 2-3 for R2 (remember the 100 factor in the graph above). Groups of bars for same range score number are from fields 1 and 3, reading from the left.
So what? (you might say). Well, it confirmed that it is not just tree size (measured here as DBH) which accounts for NY. There are other factors which make some trees more productive than others. It also suggests that you could forget about harvesting R1 trees and still collect just about the same total weight of fruit, or, put another way, R1 trees contribute very little, individually, to the total harvest, though they make some of this up by sheer numbers. As we are embarked on an inter-generational venture, as long as NY is the main contributor to total kernel yield (KY) per tree, it is only from R3 trees from which we should wish to select. We would want to analyze this characteristic only within the population of R3 trees. It also offers the means (i.e. a sufficient number of very uniform nuts) to set a cracking machine to crack optimally for a given set of nut characteristics, which is some of the rationale underlying US selection of black walnut ‘cultivars’ based on kernel percentage (K%; sometimes measured in efficiency terms as ‘crack out’), though high K% is the other aspect.
In my top-yielding F1 tree, nut number was >1700, with a NY of 7.88. However the top NY (16.15) was from the top F3 tree which gave only 343 nuts. Correction for size is thus immensely important to understanding productivity within a relatively uniform environment, and were both trees to show the same K%, the first would be of greater economic importance to me at this point in time. The former had a 2007 K% of 26% in a nut weight of 15g, which suggests a total KY of 6.4kg from this tree this year. Not insignificant.
Why do I think so many trees are not producing? Probably because they are too early for my site. I shall test this next spring, comparing a random sample with the ‘3’ trees.
Finally, you probably think I’m crazy to do so much counting. Learn to do it, for it will tell you a lot. Use range scoring first, though, so you only count nuts from the ‘3’ trees.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Those NAFTA nuts
I was quite surprised by some data I came across recently. I had been carrying a figure of $20 million in my head as the value of
(http://www.fas.usda.gov/htp/Hort_Circular/2002/02-08/U.S.Canada Hort.FEA.htm) the value was almost $110 million, or 10% of the global value of US nut tree exports.
So, I conclude that there really must be a niche here, and suggest that Barack Obama go easy on the idea of renegotiating NAFTA unless his purpose is to allow even more US nuts across the border.
Speaking of which, the last time I went south, the Homeland Security officer (associate? customer service agent?) in my traffic lane said, when I responded “nut producer” to his question ”profession?”, “We’ve got enough of those in our Universities…”
Scientific American Earth 3.0 Special Issue: Solutions for Sustainable Progress
Letter to the Editors (Published here in case they do not publish it there)
I do not expect a Scientific American Special Issue on Sustainability to contain an article of such doubtful value as that in Earth 3.0 by Mark Fischetti on Dickson Despommier’s vision of Verticality in the food system. As an agronomist, let me tell you what is wrong and inaccurate about this article. We’ll begin with the text box on Pros and Cons. 1. Fossil fuel for plowing fields and trucking food to market is not needed. Wrong. Are you really suggesting that people may eat only the food produced in their own building? And that a building can produce enough for 365 days of the year? Who will till that soil and with what? 2. Fertilizer and pesticides are eliminated. Wrong. Even hydroponic production requires nutrient inputs, and how many people have had aphids on their houseplants, and had to give them a shot of insecticide? Nature abhors a sterile environment, and pests will come in the revolving door with the residents. Who would want to breathe those pesticides on a daily basis? 3. Crops grow 24 hours a day, year-round, for greater yields. Two fallacies: crops generally ‘dislike’ a 24-hour day (many require a dark period, for physiological reasons) and yields generally follow the dictum energy in, energy out, i.e. requiring high intensity illumination to achieve the necessary photosynthesis. Are you sure you want this on your personal utility bill? 4. Consumers receive fresher food. Do you want to trade a sufficient diet for an apparent gain in some subjective measure of freshness? Other fallacies: ‘Pigs and poultry could be reared there, too’. Heard about the urban types who move out of town and try to rid the rural environment of all those nasty smells? And this sounds like a public health disaster waiting to happen.
I could go on in like vein, but it seems to me that Mr Despommier is a bit of an ostrich, with his head in the sand of ignorance when it comes to judging what doesn’t work in agriculture and what would work in an urban environment. Urban people have become used to a very rich, diverse and sizeable diet. Rural people work hard to supply it. He would like to see urbanites revert to a potato or two, a spinach leaf and a skyscraper factory chicken, now and again. He should be the first to go on this diet.
Sustainability is about the wise and renewable use of resources. It can be done within the current agricultural landscape without all the costs that Mr Despommier would like to see added. There are many possible strategies, in some of which trees must play a part. If you doubt what I say, please see my own blog, where you will also find this letter.
I do not expect a Scientific American Special Issue on Sustainability to contain an article of such doubtful value as that in Earth 3.0 by Mark Fischetti on Dickson Despommier’s vision of Verticality in the food system. As an agronomist, let me tell you what is wrong and inaccurate about this article. We’ll begin with the text box on Pros and Cons. 1. Fossil fuel for plowing fields and trucking food to market is not needed. Wrong. Are you really suggesting that people may eat only the food produced in their own building? And that a building can produce enough for 365 days of the year? Who will till that soil and with what? 2. Fertilizer and pesticides are eliminated. Wrong. Even hydroponic production requires nutrient inputs, and how many people have had aphids on their houseplants, and had to give them a shot of insecticide? Nature abhors a sterile environment, and pests will come in the revolving door with the residents. Who would want to breathe those pesticides on a daily basis? 3. Crops grow 24 hours a day, year-round, for greater yields. Two fallacies: crops generally ‘dislike’ a 24-hour day (many require a dark period, for physiological reasons) and yields generally follow the dictum energy in, energy out, i.e. requiring high intensity illumination to achieve the necessary photosynthesis. Are you sure you want this on your personal utility bill? 4. Consumers receive fresher food. Do you want to trade a sufficient diet for an apparent gain in some subjective measure of freshness? Other fallacies: ‘Pigs and poultry could be reared there, too’. Heard about the urban types who move out of town and try to rid the rural environment of all those nasty smells? And this sounds like a public health disaster waiting to happen.
I could go on in like vein, but it seems to me that Mr Despommier is a bit of an ostrich, with his head in the sand of ignorance when it comes to judging what doesn’t work in agriculture and what would work in an urban environment. Urban people have become used to a very rich, diverse and sizeable diet. Rural people work hard to supply it. He would like to see urbanites revert to a potato or two, a spinach leaf and a skyscraper factory chicken, now and again. He should be the first to go on this diet.
Sustainability is about the wise and renewable use of resources. It can be done within the current agricultural landscape without all the costs that Mr Despommier would like to see added. There are many possible strategies, in some of which trees must play a part. If you doubt what I say, please see my own blog, where you will also find this letter.
Whoa there with the chainsaw, Fred
It comes as no small surprise to me that 50% of the visitors to this site are, like wasps to a ripe apple, drawn by a single (November) 2007 post: What happens when a tree is cut down? Now, I don’t suggest that they are all asking this question in the same way. The answers could vary. ‘It landed on Fred’s head’. ‘Not much, it’s still there’ But I can guess that they are more interested in carbon cycle issues, and as loggers don’t generally dig up the roots, it is the decay of these that some are interested in. Others may be interested in how the surrounding tree canopy takes over the environmental services of the missing tree.
I didn’t start the blog with these people in mind. And it tells me that I don’t get many walnut-interested readers. I shan’t be doing much in the way of enlightening these readers with more explicit information (Fred’s not expected to recover), but I will add that I estimate on our farm that about 25% of the total sequestered carbon in our trees is underground. This ignores the carbon accruing in the other vegetation, and that added to the soil annually by herbaceous plants which die back over winter.
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