The seed sales permit just arrived! The seeds I’ve harvested, husked and tended are available for sale. I have some real winners and am excited to share these with others working to build the hazelnut industry – especially in the upper Midwest. Seed will be available by 10s, 50s, and hundreds of seed. Pricing will reflect the relative value that I perceive based on 12 years of working with these hazels (and a Ph. D. in Plant Breeding & Plant Genetics/ UW-Madison), first at Badgersett Research Corporation and then on my farm.
Shepherds Harvest is back this weekend (May 7 & 8) at the Washington County fairgrounds in Lake Elmo, MN – just east of the Twin Cities. I’ll be there vending wool products from my Babydolls and Finn crosses! I recently got in a shipment of processed rovings to add to sock yarn and skirted fleeces. The sock yarn is a new addition – combining machine washable Babydoll X Finnsheep wool and nylon for strength. I will also be selling North Star Farm Tour 6Farm Socks, a blend of fibers from 6 farms, including 2 types of alpaca, 2 breeds of sheep, yak and Angora goats. I plan on entering at least one of my Finn x Doll fleeces in the fleece competition. Becka’s fleece should place well with it’s lovely hand feel and freedom from particle contamination. I look forward to seeing lots of returning customers as well as meeting a whole new slew of fiber fanatics!
There was no Shepherds Harvest and there will be no 2021 North Star Farm Tour, but there will still be events at which I will be vending fleeces, rovings and more. Here are a couple of the events I will be attending:
Saturday, July 10, 10:00AM – 4:00PM. I will be at Sweet 16 Farm on Hwy 16 between Rushford and Houston within sight of the Root River and Root River Trail. Sara Wexler-Mann is the hostess and grows gorgeous flowers for her bouquet CSA. I will be offering skirted fleeces and some scrumptious rovings from Babydolls and Babydoll x Finn crosses. They range from intense warm black to shimmering white. I will also be selling preserves from the orchards the sheep help tend. Two of my sweet, youngest bottle babies, Inga & Ilsa, will be with me for cuddles and photo ops.
July 24 10:00 – 5:00 July 25 10:00 – 3:00, Howard County Fairgrounds, Cresco, IA
Once again I will be vending fleeces, rovings, and, hopefully, some newly minted sock yarn from my flock. Those who have followed my story know I have been breeding Finn in with my wonderful Babydoll genetics for a non-felting, soft, lustrous fiber of adequate length to spin by hand or with commercial equipment. These yarns are from some of my best fleeces to date in natural colors – medium gray, light gray and white for natural color work or for overdyeing with your favorite hues. I plan to bring 2 or 3 of my cross bred ewe lambs.
Other opportunities for a fiber fix …
I am taking part in the North Star Farm Tour 2021 Sock Project where member farms contribute fiber from their various species of fiber animals and we work up blended yarn and then socks – all by Minnesota craftspersons. This year’s version is slated to contain Tencel instead of nylon for added ecological kindness and yet retaining durability. These should be ready in November for sales directly from the participating farms and the organization’s new website.
And, if you are looking for wool and you think I may be able to supply your needs, contact me – wool is mostly air and not terribly expensive to ship. I can also send small samples if you need to first get your hands onto it in order to decide. Call or text 715-220-1183.
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.
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.
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!
I haven’t lots of images of my recent additions, but here are a few along with brief descriptions of their traits.
Bashful my youngest breeding ewe living up to her name and avoiding the camera. She is Hattie’s daughter and is fading early to a lovely light charcoal already for her second fleece. She reminds me of a panda with her distinct black eye rings which keep her from being a fuzz-face. No trimming around the eyes was necessary in recent worming/trimming session. Though not determined to be pregnant with the ultrasound, I expect just a single and it may be quite late in the season.
Head profile shot of Grace showing darker mousy tan nose often seen in Babydolls. I’m excited to see what her babies (2!) will look like!
Maisey, another recent addition from Nebraska. She has a history of twinning and nice leg set. She is, however, QR at codon 171 so may produce some lambs that will be discounted (unless they are to be wethered). Blood tests will be done to determine gene status of all lambs sold for breeding. She is expecting twins again this season.
