A couple months of being unemployed provided me the time to evaluate my options and commit to a few new ventures on Prairie Plum Farm (d.b.a. Wholesome Harvest). Here’s a preview of some of the things in store…
CBD Hemp
Although the entry costs are rather high, I decided to use some of my plant breeding skills to work towards developing some locally adapted options of high CBD hemp. Fiber hemp used to be grown locally for rope production to support the war effort in the 1940s. There are remnant naturalized populations that have persisted on their own for over 75 years. Creating controlled crosses with commercially available varieties is the long term plan. The short term plan is to also produce high value full-spectrum extracts to be sold with oil from my hazelnuts as the carrier. I am amazed at the number of folks I have encountered these last 4 months who are using CBD for a variety of benefits… sleeping aid, anti-anxiety, anti-depression, and both orally and topically for pain management. I was able to eliminate one of my own prescriptions by replacing it with CBD with none of the side-effects. I look forward to experimenting with the various combinations of terpenes. Not only do they provide different flavors, they also contribute different effects to the various medicinal properties.
Increased Elderberry Production
You will notice the health focus continuing here. . . many people are aware of the delicious flavor of these native fruits, but are unaware of the anti-viral (not COVID19 unfortunately) and anti-oxidant benefits they provide. I will be planting an additional 180 plants from 5 commercial varieties and, hopefully, some advanced selections from another regional berry grower. I will be freezing, juicing, and freeze drying my crop going forward with these new plantings coming on line in about 3 years.
After 5 years of anticipating the first harvest of hybrid hazelnuts, it finally happened! Twenty-eight of the 75 surviving plants I planted as first year seedlings in 2015 had at least one nut – and some had many more.
It was exciting to watch the nuts develop throughout the summer. Some of the larger bushes (5-7 foot tall) had a very obvious fruit set. Others I had to refer back to my notes to see which had had flowers in the spring and carefully search the plants’ branches. The clusters are beautiful aesthetically but also, as a farmer, it is great to see clusters of 5 or 6 nuts at almost every node on some plants. That indicates great yield potential.
Immature nuts
One gorgeous cluster
Clusters at each node
The total weight of the freshly husked nut harvest was 7 pounds but just three bushes accounted for 6 pounds. The size of the nuts was also encouraging. I went low-tech and drilled holes in the bottom of a couple of plastic storage containers – one had 5/8″ holes and the other had 3/4″ holes. The harvest from two of the heavy producers had a majority of the nuts between > 5/8″ & < 3/4″ with some > 3/4″. I dried down most for further analysis (% kernel, dried kernel weight, etc.), but kept nuts from 2 of the best for use as seed for next year.
One of the best individual bush harvests – just under 2# freshly husked
Nut size – the notebook lines are 1/4 inch apart
The husked nuts drying – some with 1-2 nuts and others with over a pound
Some plants were so heavily laden that I applied liquid nitrogen fertilizer two weeks before harvest so the branches did not cannabalize their own resources to fill the nuts and then die off. It was very interesting to see additional branches shoot out as a response – sometimes multiple branches 3 feet tall! More exciting news is that in an inventory I took just last week 80 plants have flowers for next year, including 60 from the 2015 planting and 20 from the 2018 planting. Time seems to pass faster as I age, but sometimes it doesn’t pass fast enough. Looking forward to 2021!
Red-leaved new sprouts will bear nuts in 2 years
A substantial crop of catkins – next spring’s male flower clusters
If you are interested in more hybrid hazel information, you may want to check out the book I co-authored with my friends and former employers at Badgersett Research Corporation:
Rutter, Philip, Susan Wiegrefe, and Brandon Rutter-Daywater. 2015. Growing Hybrid Hazelnuts: The New Resilient Crop for a Changing Climate. Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, VT. 249 pp.
Although I haven’t posted anything about the hazel planting in a while, it hasn’t disappeared – in fact it is doing quite well.
Being a scientist by training, I’ve implemented a number of experiments to help me determine which practices are most beneficial in terms of improved plant survival and growth, and efficiency of labor and material use
Additives incorporated at planting –
The first one I spoke of in the establishment page: use of biochar with composted manure vs. only composted manure vs. no additives. As I described on that page the experimental design is not at all robust, but it seems the results are sufficiently different that some mention is appropriate. This year being the first major bloom season I noticed that the number of plants flowering (which is also linked to size of plant) is greater in the two areas where the amendments were added. Below is the percentage of plants flowering in the 3 treatments:
no amendments 21/54 39%
biochar + compost 12/13 92%
compost 9/10 90%
total planting 42/77 55%
Weed Barrier Use –
I used 2 foot wide heavy duty landscape fabric in two ways to help hazels compete with surrounding vegetation. The first way was to position it as close as possible to the row to the north of the east-west oriented row. The second was to make a cut perpendicular to the edge to the middle (1′) where a small circle was cut (“keyhole”). This was much more time consuming and many more earth staples were needed to secure the edges of the fabric.
fabric centered with keyholefabric to north of row
Once again the flowering behavior will be used to sum up (proxy for?) the size and vigor of the plants as a result of reduction in weed competition.
Fabric with keyholes 27/38 71%
Fabric to north 13/24 54%
No fabric (after 1st yr) 2/15 13%
Total planting 42/77 55%
Conclusion: it’s worth the extra effort to make the cuts and install staples.
Individual exclosures:
In an area prone to visitation by deer plus calves and sheep on occasion, I felt it worth while to protect the plants with individual exclosures in the 2015 planting. I tried 3 types: plastic mesh + 2 bamboo stakes, chicken wire + 2 rebar stakes, and clouches (from Plants Alive) + 2 staples.
chicken wirecloucheplastic
Results: the chicken wire/rebar combo was better than the other two anecdotally (no hard data). The plants too quickly outgrew the clouche and the plastic and extracting the exclosure material was difficult. The chicken wire could be used for 2 years, but was much more expensive. None of the 3 can be recommended to protect against browsing by even relatively small sheep as they can push them over rather easily – chicken wire combo presented better resistance to this than the other 2.
It did become apparent that some protection was better than no protection in terms of survival the first year. Part of this was as a deterrent to “mower blight”. One did need to lift the cages at least every other month to remove weeds/shade from within.
2-way vs. row mowing
By the time the 2018 planting was made the number of plants made creating individual exclosures cost prohibitive. I transitioned to a 6 foot perimeter fence that had 30 pound test-weight mono-filament line strung at 1 foot intervals. To exclude the sheep and calves, I also ran 2 lines of electrified wire at 10″ and 20″. I tried to keep the charge above 5KV at all times with a solar energizer. The 2018 planting was also at “final” (6′ within row) spacing so I could mow in both directions, which I did approximately weekly alternating north/south and east/west.
2-way mowingRow mowing
Results: I lost just 5 of the 95 plants installed that year and mown both directions – 3 to mower blight. Having the individuals isolated from huge clumps of weeds appears to help in survival. I haven’t done as well as intended at lifting and clearing out weeds in the ones protected by chicken wire, and when perimeter fence proved at least mostly effective, I removed the cages so mowing could eliminate weeds closer in to plants. Because of the age difference, no inferences can be made, but I figured folks might be interested in the 2 methods, plus the mono-filament usage.
I’ll try to get an update on nut production when the season arrives. The appearance of flowers on a majority of the 2015 plants was very encouraging.
Due to availability of some of my work force I’ve shifted from Saturday to Sunday morning for the annual shearing day. Once again Brent Winslow will be harvesting the fleeces for me. The time is a bit uncertain, but mid to late morning is planned. Any one wishing to watch and/or join in is invited. A lunch will be served after the shearing. I should have some Finn x Babydoll cross lambs already by that date for snuggles.
Here are pictures of the 2019 Lambs still available for sale. I’ve arranged them by breed with purebred Babydolls first and Babydoll x Finnsheep crosses second. Within each breed group I have them listed by age.
Babydoll Purebreds
106 Esther (white ewe, triplet from Claire & Kenny)
Shearing date has been set for the morning of Saturday, March 16th (usually around 10:00, but rather fluid). This is a fun day with friends, family, and interested members of the public invited. Potential new shepherds are especially welcome, since they are often pressed into service and, thus, have a chance to learn a bit about the process before they have to do it for themselves. A light lunch is provided. Lambs could begin arriving as early as the 15th, so there may be lambs to cuddle (or just watch frolic) during the event! RSVP appreciated.
Over the last 9 months I’ve been pondering how Brea could produce a black lamb. I think I’ve finally figured it out. It requires switching to the Shetland/Icelandic/Finnsheep mindset where white is not a color in the same way black and brown are. In their systems a better term would be the whitewash gene – and (warning, genetic speak to come) and it is at a separate location on the sheep’s chromosome than the black/brown gene’s location. The whitewash gene comes in 2 versions (a.k.a. alleles): W = will cover any other color gene and keep it from being expressed, and w (small w) which will allow the black/brown gene locus to be expressed. Under that system, black and brown are 2 alleles at the color locus, with black (B) being dominant to brown (b). Brea’s genetic makeup (genotype) can be inferred from her offspring when crossed with the perfect test genotype: wwbb. Since these loci are distributed independently (we assume, until proven otherwise), there is equal chance for either allele at the whitewash locus to get passed with either allele at the color locus. The chart below shows how Brea must have one black (B) and one brown (b) allele at the color locus and have one W and one w allele at the whitewash locus. Tioga, the sire to the triplets, was brown. Thus, he had to be bb since both color alleles need to be b in order for brown to be expressed and he had to be ww at the whitewash locus or else he would have been white since W is dominant. A basic premise in genetics is that each parent passes only one allele at each locus/gene to an offspring. Brea has 2 different alleles at each locus (= heterozygous) so can produce eggs having 4 different combinations. The appearance of the offspring is the interplay of all the alleles at both of the loci (plural of locus). In the figure below, the row under Brea’s name represents the 4 possible allele combinations Brea can produce. Tioga can only produce one type of gamete/sperm genotype (genetic package) see second column from left. The first row below Brea’s genetic contributions is a row showing the lamb’s genetic makeup when her eggs are combined with Tioga’s genetic contributions. The second row down is the appearance – in this case lamb color – produced by the interplay of the alleles and genes. The third row is the triplet who has that genetic makeup. Note – because the dominant whitewash gene, W, overrides the color gene we have no way of knowing Dazzle’s color genotype UNTIL she is bred to a wwbb ram and we can view their lambs. We know she is a carrier of the brown allele, because she had to get one from her dad. Sorry for the layout. I couldn’t upload my Excel version of the chart. Clear as mud??? At least it doesn’t have to bug me any more!
Brea
WB
Wb
wB
wb
=egg genotype
Tioga
wb
WwBb
Wwbb
wwBb
wwbb
=lamb genotype
white
white
black
brown
=lamb color
Dazzle?
Dazzle?
Daria
Daphne
=name of lamb
Danny Boy in blue snuggling with the Finn cross triplets: Dazzle on left, Daphne across top, and Daria at bottom.
The fun thing is… this also explains some odd outcomes from breeding Babydolls where only the B allele exists at the color locus (it’s “fixed”, in genetic terminology). Many years ago Fergie (black) gave me twins, one black and one white, when crossed to a black ram. I had sort of adopted a single gene model and where white is dominant to black, and I could not figure out how 2 blacks could make a white. In light of this alternate model, here is the explanation. Fergie’s mom was white, so she must have been heterozygous at the whitewash gene – Fergie received a w from her mom. Over the years Claire, Nina, Olivia, and Audrey have produced black lambs so are are all Ww. Sara must be, too, since her father was black (J. C.). Eureka! Science works!
Final preparations are under way for this weekend’s event. Latest shipment of cleaned and carded wool is wound in 3 ounce balls and labeled, and the last couple of batches of preserves are in the works. Sheep, wool, and tree fruits are the essence of Prairie Plum Farm and this is one of the few sales events of my year. Once again I will be packing up and heading to Melodee and Hugh Smith’s, Clear Spring Yak Farm in rural Welch, MN. It is a phenomenal venue for public events with indoor sales and demonstration area (and luscious food!). Come see the many fiber animals…. yaks, alpacas, rabbits, and, of course, my Babydoll and crossbred lambs! A fun weekend outing with opportunities to learn about animals and fiber to boot. And maybe replenish your fiber stash!!!!
The rovings, both simple and combed (a.k.a. top) have been rolled into balls for easy dispensing. Here are colored and off-white Babydolls’ and one silver Shetland’s most recent shearing harvest.
Daria is a honey – she is first to come to the fence to greet me. Her lovely fleece is coming in beautifully. She is one of the triplets born this spring to Brea and Tioga. She validates my desire to introduce Finn fleece traits into a fraction of my registered Babydoll flock.
Not quite a stunt double – this is Babydoll ewe lamb, Dayna, not the off-white flockmate, Dixie, who most likely will be traveling with Daria and I to Welch. Dixie is camera shy.
Numerous flavors of preserves will be for sale, some from fruit harvested from trees mown by the flock and others to provide variety and all to capture the flavor essence of summer for year-round enjoyment.
I wasn’t sure my operation was large enough for a solo booth yet, but made the leap as a learning step and a hedge against the forecasted rain. It worked out well partly due to the thoughtfulness of Jessica Anderson who stopped over to give me a break each day. Having repeat customers search me out in spite of my drastic relocation tells me the word on the wonders of Babydoll wool is getting out there! I had a great time talking to dozens of creative, adventurous folks – women especially. I’m loving seeing the younger generations get drawn in to working with fiber.
Once again I am sold out of prepared colored wool (except for yarn), so I am happy my flock produced an abundance of black lambs this year – 23 out of 28. I have rams in abundance so will carry them through the winter for their fleeces, then market them for meat if they are not scooped up for breeding stock.
One anecdote I heard that is very exciting… a woman who makes felted booties said she had tried using Babydoll wool and was unable to get them to shrink in spite of multiple passes through the agitation and hot water in her washing machine. She now refers to them as the Superwash breed! As someone who isn’t a fan of hand washing – I’m thrilled!
