Nothing to report!!

Well this year was/is a disaster in terms of berry harvest so that is why you have not seen anything posted here! We got about 2 l off of over 250 plants and those were not really great berries. I think it is time to thin out the nursery and get it down to something we can manage with good netting to keep out birds and some kind of windbreak. The wind whipped the berries off of the taller older plants and the Cedar Waxwings just keep eating till there was nothing left. Even under the netting which we pulled over the rows! They would fly down to the ground and hop up into the bushes. Then if you came along they flapped about till they were on the ground and out they flew. Bah.
I did see someone on another blog talking about using the kind of row covering you would use in spring to protect the plants from frost and I think if we are here and there is opportunity to do that, we will buy some and try it.
Here is an example as sold by Lee Valley. Our problem is we have several row widths and heights to contend with but I think I would still try it!
I don't even have pictures.

Until next time.

Clayton

Seedlings starting! Wow.

Only one but here they come.

New post over at A Prairie Journal iin Saskatchewan

Did some seed planting today and there is a little info over at my Home blog. Here is a teaser.

Genes and Biodiversity

I received a query about Edible Blue Honeysuckle several days ago and in the conversation that ensued was asked my thoughts on the issue of paying royalties to breeders and plant protection issues.
My response with a little editing follows!

"I have struggled with that whole issue myself. But here I am, trying to do a little plant breeding, and I do not see myself as the end seller so where do I get something for my work!

Very few of us are really interested in going into the wild to select plants and then propagate them to sell. And the chances of finding good material in the wild is extremely rare.

So take the institute in this conversation(University of Saskatchewan). I know these folks personally and have had many conversations with Dr. Bob Bors. They have developed the first round on basically volunteer efforts and dedicated staff until just recently when they have begun to get some of this royalty money in and finally some grants for further work. So the fellow who plants 40000 plants gets a thriving business and the U of S gets not even a thanks for developing them unless there is a royalty or something like it. It really to me is a tough question because if we did not have good plants to choose from we would miss out on the experience of having them. And if we don't like it we are left with trying to find something in the wild that will suit our needs. So then we are robbing the biodiversity out of nature.

We could try growing from seeds but I can tell you that I have now planted about 500 plants and so far have about 10 that are worth keeping. Some of those seeds came out of the wild so even I have decreased the biodiversity of the natural stand somewhat although I did not get all the berries from the plants that produced the seed so that is a minimal invasion.

The genetics are only protected by honest people who see this as an opportunity to help the development process! There is very little to stop someone from taking cuttings and calling them something else and growing them and selling. Very few small organizations can afford to have something genetically proven to be their material so what is the likelihood of them ever following up.  This is already happening with at least two Russian varieties which are showing up on the market. The truth is very few people(read gardeners) will freely donate money to help further plant development.

The truth is if we go to the forest and remove plants or berries to some extent we are affecting the natural biodiversity. If we go buy a plant that has some "protected propagation rights" we are actually saving the biodiversity of the natural stands. Having worked in Barley breeding for a number of years, we seldom went back to the wild  for plant material to breed into the program. This is good! Especially if all that was taken in the first place was some seed and not the whole plant.

I have a friend who has bred Clematis for years. It cost him around $800 for registering (not sure 3 or 5 years) and he should have gotten some royalties from the sales. When it came time to renew he could not afford to pay the registration again. So every plant sold since then has returned him nothing! He has never even payed for the first registration! But people rave about his Clematis!

I do have problems with specific gene or rare plant or animal patenting (especially taking something out of nature) particularly if it is not self fertile but can out cross into other similar plants or animals. There is NO protection from these types of things in the natural environment and so the so called protected gene enters the natural realm and causes havoc; especially for farmers.

So buy two plants (Edible Blue Honeysuckle require 2 plants to cross pollinate), collect the seeds, grow them out and make your very own selections for the rest of the plants you would like to have. Or find someone who already is growing them and get seeds to grow from them."

This is a very small part of the whole question and there are many more angles to be considered.

Cuttings

I have never been very good at starting cuttings of any plants. I do try to get some going from time to time but it is not my forte and the point is that since I grow many things from seed I just don't need more of anything. This year I did want to get a few extra plants of the selected EBH which I kept while clearing out about 70 seedlings last fall. Shoot cuttings of active growth were stuck into a tray with seedling potting soil and kept under a clear plastic dome. I kept it in the east window of my garage so there was morning sun bu not the heat of the afternoon. When I finally removed the cuttings the was a callus on many but no roots.

What has amazed me is that the cuttings which took had a mass of roots!

This is plant number 51. There were 5 cuttings and they all produced this great mass of roots. It is a definite winner when it comes to propagation.
I tried 2 others as well and #29 did not root at all and #11 had one poorly rooted cutting. These were all in the same tray along with several other plants like Clematis, apricot and chokecherry. Since I do not need more plants this is not a great loss but I would surely like to improve my methods.

Last fruit of the season

When we harvested the EBH this past month there were 2 plants with Japanese source that seemed not to be all ripe so we left them till a week ago. Here are a few pictures. It was a small picking but good to get them. There were fruit on only one of my selections from last years clear out of 4 to 5 year old plants. Hopefully they will produce next year.

 

These 2 plants have rounder berries than do the Russian and Kuril types. One of the plants in particular could easily have been harvested by machine as the berries released very easy and did not bleed at the scar.

I did some pruning on one of the plants which I will post a picture of next week.

Season done for now. I have several lots of seed to plant and some cuttings to pot up or stick in the ground. But weeding continues for sure.

Another season nearly over

Well we did get three pails of berries from our EBH and the fruit was good with the rain producing good berry size. Very few plants had fruit this year and we are not sure why. Likely the particular group of seedlings left in the nursery. Next year should be a good one again with two new plots coming into their third year in the ground. With the rain two years in a row there has been exceptional growth and so the plants are tending to be very bushy. The interesting thing is that there are a number of plants to be discarded because they tend to be weak and sprawl. Good for the selection process as out they will go!

My wife is trying to make jam and jelly from the one lot of berries. So far it looks like this will work. By cooking the berries in some water she was able to extract a good amount of juice and still have the pulp in a slightly watery state and made jam as well. We will have enough for ourselves but no selling (or very little) this year.

There is a report about Haskap Days at the U of Saskatchewan over on my regular garden blog as well as a very good report over on Bernis Ingvaldson's Honeyberry USA - The Honeyberry Farm website. Follow the links.
Bernis is a good writer and we were pleased to have her stop in. Sorry now we did not get pictures! Thanks for dropping in Bernis.

So now it is weed and clean-up time as well as time to get some of the 70 or so pots planted if I can make space.


All words no pictures this time.