Michigan Oranges

Posted on August 10, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment
Poncirus trifoliata. Japanese Bitter Orange. Hardy Orange. Trifoliate Orange

Not too long ago, the USDA sent me a newsletter that contained a snippet of nursery catalogs from the early 1900’s. It is interesting to see the drawings and written descriptions of plants used in gardens at this time. This was at a point where gardening became possible through the mail and new plants could be ordered via the U.S. Postal Service. Like the Sears and Roebuck catalogs before them, plants could be written about in wonderful prose featured in a print media. This allowed you to think about your gardening ideas and what types of plants you want around your home. Before the era of credit cards, you would just write out a check or send cash. Prior to the internet, this was exactly my business model 80 years later!

This is one of the first catalog covers done for Oikos Tree Crops by Finger Prince circa 1980’s. This was the beginning of finding artists to help capture botanical images in my catalogs. Finger Prince was deep in meditation until noon so you had to call later in the day to discuss your project.

As I scoured through the catalogs there it was in large font; HARDY ORANGE. I thought I was a pioneer of the trifoliate orange. Evidently it has been around a while. It was by accident I began to grow this species fruit in Michigan starting with an arboretum seed collection from overseas from a Zone 5 location. I started the seedlings in the 1990’s. I really didn’t know what to do with them. I remember thinking that a normal Michigan winter would likely destroy them. It didn’t. It turned out that the zone 6 rating for the species is accurate along with the ability to withstand the cold winter winds. The leaves are not evergreen in my climate.

There are few if any mature trifoliate oranges today in any northern landscapes. My guess is the early 1900 plants disappeared entirely as peoples tastes in plants changed along with incredibly cold winters. Michigan State University has one in Beale Gardens in Lansing, Michigan which puts it into a zone 5-6. There are others. One mature large plant just outside Philadelphia is in a public garden.The late Adam Tuttle had a sizable hedge created from them in Kentucky. The seeds and plants he produced were grown at my farm for sales. His planting gained national recognition for its hedge like qualities. The whole idea of growing citrus in cold climates is not universally accepted as a fruit possibility. The quality of the fruit comes into play making the trifoliate orange the crabapple of the orange. You can see by searching the species on line the whole range of experiences from weed to the holy grail.

The thorns of the hardy orange “protected” by mesh tree guard. The deer love the foliage of this tree in winter.

This hardiness aspect of it is not that far off, to the point that it would not take too big of a population to find hardier selections along with higher quality fruit with less seeds. There are hybrid selections of it too filled with unique possibilities. What is stopping anyone from doing that? Nothing. It is not on anyones plant radar. For a while I was trying to obtain 50 lbs of seed from abandoned rootstock trees in Florida and Georgia. There is a lot of them because of failed citrus orchards from cold snaps. There are very few seed companies that offer it. I get the feeling the seeds are not treated properly. Some of the seeds I have received are over dried. They would just rot going through dormancy. With that in mind, I had the thought to travel to these southern citrus growing areas which I could load up on fruit. I would then process it at my farm in Michigan. I have a Dybvig seed cleaner which tends to atomize fruit pulp. It would fill my barn with a wonderful citrus aroma. If you were to grow upwards of 10,000 trees you could easily find significant diversity even at an abandoned rootstock level. It would be a good start for the Michigan orange.

The plant does have a few attributes that might need our attention in terms of cultivation. When individuals look at a new or emerging species of fruit for cultivation, they often do not see the full picture. A plant breeders goal is not always aligned with the plants evolutionary history and its connection to cutures already in use. In the United States the trifoliate orange is a rootstock plant for oranges, a weed tree and an ornamental plant all in one. No one is cranking out selections to eat. A whole industry of citrus is being ignored only because it seems so hopeless to begin with. Citrus is also not a particularly easy crop to produce. There are many diseases and insects in citrus farming and maybe importing the fruit from far away countries is not so bad. This importation is not a solution. It’s a work around. Either way it is likely the citrus industry in the United States will move north.

In the meantime, I dream of a Michigan citrus industry filled with the fruits of a very hardy orange rich in vitamin C. I love the idea of a syrup made from the whole fruit or even a natural pesticide made from the peels. Maybe the fruit will be small and kind of seedy at first. The plants may be too thorny and the trees kind of a pain to work around. It may not matter because we love the orange. What if we could have that in our backyard and not have to import it from thousands of miles away? The weedy little rootstock tree becomes our savior in the end creating a new industry in its wake. Now if only I can find an abandoned and dying citrus planting rich in cross pollination and great diversity. This is a good place to water the root of ideas.

Enjoy. Kenneth Asmus

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Pawpaw

Posted on August 8, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

I always felt the pawpaw was the Sasquatch of fruit. I read about it in college. Later several people told me they had seen it. My botany teacher told me of a huge colony. I think someone showed me a fuzzy image of one at the Michigan Nut Growers Association meetings. The images are always fuzzy. They were taken in shade with low shutter speeds and high ISO if there was a choice on the camera. I was not sure where to look for the tree. I knew it lived in my area. I used to jog by a huge long grove but it was a single individual with never any fruit. You need two genetically different trees to have fruit set. There was no commercial seed sources of it and few growers of the tree. The plants that were sold were often dug out of the wild with no roots to speak of. They always failed. No one seemed to care about the pawpaw. The seeds were always over dried in the commercial seed houses. If you were to produce them from seeds, the plants require 50 percent shade the first year or two to get established. No one was willing to spend time with the tree and get it into production. I wanted to see the tree in the wild and how it grew untended. Every now and then I would spot them in the fall with their bright yellow foliage. There was one park that had several nice colonies of them. They grew like shumac with underground runners spreading in the nearby open fields and the maple forest. It was a robust tree but it was not in commerce.

With this knowledge in hand, I began collecting seed and connecting to people who knew the pawpaw tree more than me. The seed collection started by using the park and roadside trees just north of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Several people let me collect in front of their homes where they had no idea what the tree was either. I tried to enlighten them of the values of the pawpaw. To me folks looked confused. If you use the words “Michigan banana” then this paints a picture of tropical wonderment and combines it with a Sasquatch type cult following. I don’t think I was helping and few people wanted to eat them. It looked gross to them. I liked them but not on daily basis. The fruit has to be perfectly ripe and soft to eat but not over ripe. It has to ripen on the tree. Green fruit will make you sick. The skin is not good either and should never be eaten. The jet black seeds are lima bean in size and run along the length of the fruit. The whole thing throws people off. Yet if you eat one of the fruits when perfectly ripe, it is a wonderful treat and has a certain power to it just like an energy boost but with a calming effect. It is hard to explain. You have to experience it. So it was from here I thought having an orchard would help share this fruit when I invited people to my farm. I wanted to use it for seed and plant production too. That part had some obstacles but in the end it did work.

My first pawpaw planting about 15 years old.

Eventually in 1988, I began a pawpaw planting on my farm. At that time it was still a wide open field in many spots. I really wanted a source of fruit for myself but also wanted to produce seeds of the plants. The roadside trees were gettting nailed by herbicides and the yard trees were sometimes cut down by the owners. One of the parks run by the county built a tall chain link fence to prevent people from going into the park near an abandoned parking lot. In the process, they destroyed the trees completely. That was a bad day when I went to visit that fall.

The image above is one of the seventy trees I put out in my field of pasture grass on a windy hillside on that spring day of 1988. They started as little sticks of two foot tall trees grown from seed from the original plantings of Corwin Davis from central Michigan. I found another nursery who produced the trees and he used a back hoe to dig out the small two foot tall trees. They had long skinny tap roots. 1988 was the mega drought year and the trees immediately lost their tops in this location. Over time they resprouted from the root collars and grew luxuriantly past the two foot tall Tubex tree shelters I was using. Today this colony is roughly five times its size and has spread out into my walnut and pear orchards. Many of the original trunks are now long gone but the roots continued in great robust fashion. This is the part of the tree I love. It is a colony producer and will grow as an understory tree fruiting under oaks and walnuts constantly replenishing itself. You could probably age a wild planting to some degree just by the ground it takes up. The tops of the trees last roughly 20-30 years before the root suckers take on the new job of fruit production. That is a wonderful system of plant replacement when you have a seed that is filled with toxic alkaloids that no animal will eat it or even move to any degree. It just falls to the ground.

Here we are all those years later and so many wonderful things happened in the pawpaw grove. And continue to happen. An escaped pet pig visited once and left his calling card. He loved the pawpaws. The governor of the state of Michigan came along with his secret service. He laughed hysterically as I shook the trees while the fruit missed his nice blue suit falling all around him in a uniform pattern. The sound of the fruit hitting the ground caused joy for us all that day. My family, employee Tracy and the secret service all laughed. This is what happens when you visit the pawpaws. All the shackles drop off: the heavy weights are gone and there are no barriers. It reminds me of a story from India where a certain plant is in great abundance to the point that even the tigers are calm and unthreatening in this valley. Some say it is the purity and silence of the saints that live in the caves. Others say, no it is the herb. And others say it is both. Once in a while you will see on the wildlife cameras the possums and unknown people taking fruit not knowing what they were doing and throwing it on the ground after a bite or two. People told me amazing stories of their lives here in the shade of the pawpaws. All the situations seem to get resolved in this dense calming pawpaw environment. I’ve noticed people seem hesitant to leave and go to other parts of the farm. This is the effect I notice. It happens all the time. Most laugh. Some cry. Some go in silence and are moved in ways I cannot gauge.

Govenor Rick Snyder after exiting the pawpaw patch

I created several plantings throughout my farm and as they grow by their stolons, I train them by limbing them upwards and thin the density which creates greater fruit production. It is solid shade in most of these plantings with no understory of any type. The pawpaw may have a bit of an alleopathic propensity leaving the ground free of plants. The leaves are thick at first in the fall but are completely broken down by early summer the next year. The ground is smooth and easy to walk on like a super highway accessible from any direction. Even the multiflora rose and brambles disappear entirely.

What can be learned from the pawpaw grove? We need more of them spread out though the southern part of Michigan where the wind, water and sun are just right for this tree in giant colonies free of toxicity of modern society and rich in flavor, nutrition and health. Even if it is only eaten once, it is enough. The experience is there and people will remember it forever especially if it is connected to the land and the farmer or person who created the grove. Then there is an association to the fruit and the dynamics of the environment of the Michigan banana.

Farmerless fields can be long country roads where the pawpaw would flourish but only if we discontinued all herbicides. Shade loving pawpaw thrives in these often neglected roadside ecosystems where all organic matter accumulates in great abundance. It’s a win-win.

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What Happened To Corn?

Posted on August 7, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

If someone came back from a 9000 year journey and saw corn today this might be their first question. What did happen to corn? It is funny to me as this question came to me last year from a colleague who was visiting my teeny plantings containing teosinte. “Ken, what is this?” I thought he was going to say, “Bro. This blows.” There was some vague recognition that this was corn, but essentially I had changed it to the point of no return. I had reduced its yields to less than one percent of its current glory and created something unrecognizable and frankly useless by today’s ‘corn’ standards. To me it was perfect and exactly what I was hoping for. I cannot take credit for it but I did set the stage hoping for an outcome of any magnitude. I was thinking of teosinte as a new crop filled with possibilities as a new type of grain. It was not corn anymore. I wanted to see what our ancestors left behind and why. I don’t care about breeding. That is a waste of time. What I wanted was a population of plants that you could no longer control. Over time it would continue to expand in terms of its diversity and ultimately become infinitely diverse. This would be the engine of creation for the corn plant. If you plant it, it will manifest or express itself in novel ways never before seen in each new generation. I like that idea. Full creative genius corn plant in control of its own destiny.

Over the course of a decade of growing out this wonderful species called northern teosinte and using its natural crosses, I found that the corn we know is a distinct species separated by a huge expanse of time from its original line up of species corns. It is such a distant relative that the chances of naturally crossing are incredibly small to non-existent. People have tried and in laboratory experiments you can clearly see the non-results. The columns were filled with zeros out of thousands of attempts. It is super rare hoovering around the one in a thousand chance. I was fortunate that it did happen to me because it opened a door and gave me a wonderful treasure of diversity to explore.

As I continue to grow it at my farm I soon realize its value as well as understand why we left teosinte. The whole structure of the ear and seeds make it difficult to use. Some of the plants have kernels that are spot welded to the cob. The cob has a husk and sheaves that clasps the seeds tight so even in my seed processor it is hard to dislodge them all. The cobs contain all three types of corn including sweet, pop and dent. There is huge color variation. As a grain crop for human food, teosinte will add new flavor, texture and a greatly enhanced nutritional profile than our current corns. I am focused on the five percent of all corn grown that is used for human food. This is the area I think that will make the greatest progress in terms of health benefits to humans and a much lower environmental impact. No fertilizer should be used. No GMO is needed. No breeding is required. No irrigation is necessary. It is a plant that is more grass than corn and likely could be grown in drought conditions with poor soil. I can imagine the density of the plants will increase the yields. Geographical selections can be done over time including shorter season selections for more northern areas. You are combining sweet, pop and dent corn all in one giant collosal soup of diversity so this will add to its flavor and use as a grain for cereal and flour. Is it corn? No. It’s not corn. It’s a grass called teosinte. Is it really teosinte? No. It’s inbetween the two worlds of wild and cultivated both of which revolve around the same sun.

What did happen to corn? It took a hike, saved humanity and then went back home to take a small break. It needs to rest.

Bottom two green seed stalks are gamma grass another close relative

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Wild Plums On The Move

Posted on August 5, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment
‘Bounty’ Northern Selection of American Plum from Lawyers Nursery (Prunus nigra) Thank you the late John Lawyer for the image.

One of the great joys of growing seedling fruit is not knowing what is going to be the end result. You are using a tree as you would find it in the wild in an untended situation and putting it in a planting and then hope for the best. The environment you have is different than its homeland usually. Like the Bounty American plum, it was not bountiful for me but farther north and west it was considered a great seed source for producing wild like tart fruit in great abundance. I had a lot of questions and doubts forty years ago when I did exactly this type of growing where I used only seeds for full on fruit production.

I did not know about the beach plum. I knew it lived on a beach. I knew it was an east coast plant. That was it. The tentative feelings and doubts soon evaporated when I began to fruit these plants as unknown seedlings. This was a miracle to me. It was one of the easiest plants to grow and fruit with few problems. From the standpoint of sharing my discoveries to commercial fruit farming, it was not as fruitful. It was stuck in the hobbyist world. Wild plums are relegated to rootstock plants, tart jam makers and wildlife fruit. They are not the same species as Damson or Japanese plums. What you do have is a new fruit species rarely cultivated. This is the boat I am in today. It’s a good boat. It floats and I am moving forward but it uses oars for propulsion. The fruit is heavy. It is delicious. People like it. But in the end the wild goose plum will remain the wild goose plum. The beach plum is from a beach on the east coast of the United States and the Mirabelle plum is from France. It seems limited in application only because people view them as seedlings and nothing much else.

Chickasaw plum seedling

The aspect of using seedling trees in commercial settings is not done. Commercial fruit farming starts and ends with varieties. All seedlings are worthless and a few are good and a few more are even better than the good. Only the best are cloned. The rest are destroyed. I was told by a commercial plant breeder once at Cornell Universty that it was a one in quarter million shot to find the right apple for naming and release as a variety. Similar chances are found in other stone fruits too. For me to say, you don’t need this, just grow seedlings is blasphemous and careless combined with a certain naivete mixed with stupidity. Yet with this ignorance comes enlightenment in full display as now we have the full range of fruit possibilities all right in front of us. Now it is not patented nor can it be. Now it is variable. Now it is rich in flavors of all types. Now it is available to all who want it easily. A handful of seeds will make it happen. And yes, you can name and graft a few too. There is nothing stopping you.

Today I tell others of my “seedling tree where every plant is genetically different” philosophy to all of those who will listen. It makes it very easy because the plums have such wonderful flexibility and adaptibility.They are so easy to adopt and become part of our environment and diet. I am not doing this in terms of replacing clonal selections but as an adjunct to fruit growing to capture flavors and nutrition that the grafted varieties cannot get close to while at the same time eliminating pesticides and herbicides. This type of planting or orchard system is also different. My guess is it will take place outside of the orchard and fruit industry first. It will require a different model. It will be one that abandoned or retired pasture land can be used to highlight the value of these species exactly like J. Russel Smith author of Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture envisioned. This time people will have access to it on a broader scale. There will be some farmers who will champion this idea to its limits using processing ideas to create new flavors. Others can be employed in farmerless fields where there is no human caretaker. It will be the wild that will save the cultivated. It will not be a massive breeding program but a quiet one seed evolution of going from one to many without blinking an eye.

Beach plum seedling
Mirabelle plum seedling
Wild goose plum seedling
Beach plum hybrid cross with the American plum
Plums make me hoppy!

A new crop can only arise with new seed. Here is one more example of a great fruit crop available to all who want a fruit farm big or small.

Enjoy. Ken Asmus

Red Mirabelle Plum
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Capturing Vitality and Vigor While Pursuing Diversity

Posted on August 5, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

There is a huge array of vines that are used in permaculture for food production. Some of these perennial crops are rarely grown yet are very easy to grow and use. Part of the reluctance of planting them is due to the thought of creating and using a trellis system. The other part of it falls into the crop itself and how that would be used in your diet. For this reason, cucumbers, runner beans and pole beans are the mainstay of the trellis. Here are three examples of perennial tuber crops worth growing and using on a trellis system. Finding the right system for the right crop is critical for success and use of these delicious crops. When I was growing these crops in my nursery, they were very popular and had solid followings.

Apios americana

Groundnuts-For some time I would just let them sprawl over the ground or upward on fence posts or bamboo stakes. This greatly lowered yields. When put on a straight trellis they were fine but not easy to train as the tubers spread out and away from the trellis. Plus the foliage was not positioned to capture light efficiently in a vertical only system. Finally I used a hoop type structure which held the foliage up off the ground made out of one inch chicken wire. This was successful but difficult to weed or clean up. You have to remove that in the fall to harvest. Despite the weeds the plants grew over the top of them and the weeds did give some support. I remember crawling on my stomach from the ends of the hoops to get in there and yank johnson grass. It was not pretty but it did work. I still have groundnuts in cone shaped fencing out back. It’s not working well and the vines appear to be struggling every year for the last decade. Groundnuts need to be under consistent irrigation, rich organic mulch and a wider trellis system that allows the vines to go vertical and then horizontal like grapes in order to capture the sunlight fully. I would treat them like grapes but with mesh wire and arms that are at least two feet wide on each side to prevent mounding of the foliage. Foliage equals higher quantities of tubers.

Root and bulbils-aerial tubers

Chinese Mountain Yams- This particular vine requires a very large trellis plus it still has to be accessible for the harvest of the small round aerial tubers. They form on the axils of the vine. This is the easiest part of the plant to harvest and use. It is such a wonderful perennial vegetation yet the harvest of the main tubers even if done by hand with long drain spades is very difficult. Using the word harvest is a friendly term. I would prefer to say extraction like mining. It was slow and hard to retrieve full roots. For that reason you will see many unique growing containers and systems to capture the most from this species without having to dig three foot deep holes to retrieve a tuber. One of the most simple is evestrough like devices buried with the tuber planted just above it. This way the tuber takes a left or right turn rather than going straight to the center of the earth. Another is to use grow bags in or out of the ground. Very easy to contain. Despite its vigor, it is a plant that grows well but does not spread easily because it’s sterile (the plants sold are all female plants) and the bulbils freeze and turn to mush in the winter if left on the ground. But it does regrow new tubers under existing tubers so for that reason when I grew and sold them I used to till next to the vines to prevent competition and make it easier to harvest the larger tubers.

I used deer fencing for this tuber’s vines as it will support a lot of weight to it. Deer fencing is plastic mesh which is 1.5 inch square seven feet high. A wire on top as well as metal poles and guide wires to support the weight is needed. There was a lot of mounding of foliage on the top which required a ladder to harvest some of those tubers at the top. One of my customers told me they preferred locally grown tubers as they felt the imports were high in heavy metals. This species is grown as a female selection only and does not produce seeds. The tubers do not spread like Jerusalem artichokes. So once you have a trellis system in place, it will last many years.

Earth pea tubers

Earth Peas- This was the coolest little tuber with a crunchy pea flavor. The issue was using a trellis system with narrow 1/2 inch mesh to allow the tendrils to grab hold of the structure and move upwards effortlessly. You can use several of these diamond shaped metal fences that are encased in green plastic to stop rust. A three foot tall trellis is fine. The foliage is light and you don’t have to worry about huge production of foliage. The issue with this crop is reliable seed sources. Creating your own seed source helps in this endeavor while searching for unique varieties in the process. Because of its crispy texture and ease of cultivation, it is worth growing. It does better in cool climates. I really loved the flavor of this tuber.

Earth pea flowers

Farmerless fields can embrace the power of the vine. Tuber crops perennial in nature can supply us with deep rooted crops rich in nutrients from deep within the earth with nutrition far greater than our annual crops are now. This is one avenue to pursue by use of a simple trellis system and show others how these vital and vigorous plants can help us and our beautiful planet. Global in nature, we share all foods to help the world family reach new heights of health.

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Furry, Cute and Venomous Meets Crispy, Snackable and Delicious

Posted on August 3, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

Some of the most secretive plants are the most common. We pass by. We see it.  Yet, our consciousness does not reflect it as a discovery of anything significant.  I saw this trifoliate vine twining around an American hazelnut bush under the powerline and decided to investigate. I had just purchased my farm and this area had several nice hazelnut bushes. I dug down and saw some nice clusters of tubers along its root system. I was not aware of the hog peanut, but I had heard about it in one of my wild edible books. These books often paint a picture of a rich, diverse world filled with food opportunity galore. The hog peanut was one of those. I put them back in the soil not knowing what I was looking at.

A couple of decades pass and I decided to create an edible forest planting in a hybrid bur-white oak forest I had grown using Quercus x bebbiana selections I planted from acorns. The trees in this forest were roughly 30 feet tall. They were pruned and thinned to accomodate their crowns. There on the forest floor we would plant ginseng, gingers, fiddle-head ferns, gooseberry, violets and magnolia vine. One of my interns at the time told me of the hog peanut at his property in northern Michigan and he would get me samples of it to plant in the understory. He mentioned they were all over and especially prevalent in forest road cuts in the area. I thought this was a good idea because of both its nitrogen fixing capabilities as well as it edible beans that form underground. At this point in time, I had yet to taste them. We did the planting and for the next few years, I really didn’t see much of it. Finally, you began to see it was spreading quickly across the forest floor and creating large patches. Once again when I dug down, I found the tiny tubers encased with a thin layer of soil and very difficult to spot. I rubbed off the soil and tasted this delectable little bean like tuber. I remember thinking I wish there was more of them. The camouflage alone made them very slow to find and harvest. This was my eureka moment as now I had a face with a name. I saw this plant before at my farm in my forgotten planting beds where it self seeded. I discovered there were many types of hog peanuts all a little different. Some were black, mottled, white with purple specks and some were dark purple. After photographing and increasing the magnification, I realized how beautiful and magnificent these peanuts were. It was from here I began to both harvest and sell them. I began to experiment with actually growing them in a more cultivated setting.

I made a selection with larger tubers and named it Crispy Snack. I put it in a raised bed in one of the polyhouses where it was easy to get a handle on harvest for sales in the spring. Even in the bed, they are very hard to discover with their sticky soil coverings.  Cultivating a wild plant is a mix of ups and downs in emotions. One of the highs occurred by accident by growing the plant that had seeded into our cactus plants in our main greenhouse. It was popping out of the pots fixing nitrogen right next to the cactus. When I moved the trays from the ground cloth, I discovered a whole layer of tubers on the mat. It had turned out that the low nitrogen environment coupled with a lattice of roots on top of the weaved poly mat created the perfect growing conditions. I took this method and did similar plantings, but none worked so good to as the cactus. Look out for the spikes! Time to get the hog peanuts!

Today I still grow a few hog peanuts in 30 gallon woven poly bags. I harvest the tubers in the fall and then refrigerate until March. I plant them 2 inches deep. The bags are overkill in the propagation world of hog peanut but it elevates them off the ground as they swirl around in a cirlce in the bag devising an escape plan. Their plan worked as a few voles last winter scooped up a couple and moved them to another set of bags ten feet away. This was my foraging animal safety zone encased with a trellis of one inch cone four foot tall chicken wire. When the ever-expanding universe of hog peanut grew quite large (some would say overwhelming) in the Bebbs sweet oak acorn forest, the voles stepped in and soon that universe almost entirely imploded. They too love them and have a keen sense of smell far greater than any human plus they have radar for tubers. It turned out they are visually limited but have a keen sense of space and smell using a radar like bats. My visual acuity for the tubers improved dramatically as I began to spot even the tiniest purple or white color surrounded by that ever present soil cloak they had developed using its slimy outer covering.   In the meantime, the voles totally cleared the patch making a lot of short inventory for this product I was selling.

Resting under a pile of discarded weed mats.

There was an upside to this behavior. In the spring as the plants began to grow and produce a top, I began to notice their caches of hog peanuts and I realized they do not always eat all of those out in the winter possibly due to mortality  It is from here the new planting begins and the universe of hog peanut sets the stage for the outward expansion again. In one planting, there was not a single tuber left in 50 by 20 area. They totally disappeared yet nearby was a cluster of dozens of tubers all rammed together. This is the power of one cute little furry creature with superpowers totally connected to the hog peanut and its growth habit. You have to respect that. It’s from these satellite populations that create the patch again omnidirectionally spreading to fill the space of the forest floor.

Few know the hog peanut. Maybe feral or pastured hogs know of them but not humans. I heard from a few individuals of what I call the disgruntled with nature folks who thought I was poisoning the world with an invasive species of immense magnitude.  Apparently, compost makers as well as commercial landscapes find it hard to get rid of. It is difficult for me to explain the benefits and complexities of a plant that is so highly valued for its nitrogen fixation, food for humans, food for voles and other mammals and not mention browse potential for white tailed deer. I like to illuminate the value. There were several people who are focused on breeding the plant in some way. Increasing the size, using other species and finding ways to harvest and eat them in some culinary way is their focus. One of the real-life university researchers was surprised when I told him about the variation. I told him, few are looking. It you were to ramp this up to a semi-commercial level, I think a shallow sand base with the peanuts growing out of the sand on a weed mat covered with a screen would be ideal. You would then feed with liquid fish emulsion to improve the vigor and tuber yield. The harvest would then include using screens to winnow out the tubers and sand. The hog peanut has a very different life cycle and produces larger tubers in the second year. So this might be more of a bienniel crop or a crop where you only use one year tubers to seed in your planting. It is hard to imagine in many ways because of this unique complexity and variation of these tubers and its sex life for pod formation. I still don’t understand all of it and frankly either do the botanical researchers.

Back at the forest floor, the hog peanut universe is expanding and contracting. All it takes is radar and a venomous cute little furry creature to tell us the full story. We need to listen.

Farmerless fields do not need fertilizer from outside sources. They can be generated within using plants like the hog peanut to improve crop plant yields as well finding ways to grow and use a plant that is not on our radar of possible food solutions.

Enjoy, Kenneth Asmus

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A Raspberry Takes Many Forms

Posted on July 31, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

You got to respect them.They are a tad thorny and hard to walk through. They are a bit overwhelming at times yet bring you closer to wild fruit nirvana more than any fruit. They can fourish where few fruits can grow. As a pioneer species their ecological enrichment should never be under estimated. They are quick and decisive as they form dense colonies. This is the wild raspberry. My goal was to discover these wild flavors and see how that would work in my mixed plantings. Slightly cultivated, I began small plantings of wild collected seeds in Michigan along with other wild collected species that are known for their use in the making of preserves, syrups and drinks.

A little known side note on cultivated raspberries: I no longer sell raspberry plants as they require by the state of Michigan two inspections and sometimes lab tests for virus and other problems. You can bypass the virus barrier by growing them from seed which I highly recommend.

Japanese wineberry is the sweetest of the wild raspberries. It is very easy to collect and harvest large volumes of fruits because they sit on the top of the canes. It spreads by both tip layering and runners. Its use for for jelly, jam, syrup and wne. It is easy to process and the fruit is always clean. In Michigan, the species is not reliably winter hardy. I lost the tops of the plants if it hit in the minus 15 to 20 range. There are several forms of it and I found a group from a collector who thought it was higher yielding and slightly hardier. It has not self seeded at my farm. Its a thorny one and delicate movements like a ballet are needed as you weave through the canes. This species is collected here in the United States too for wine and jelly. Once while traveling from Washington, D.C. I saw many people harvesting at a rest stop along the highway. That is the perfect place for wineberry.

The thimbleberry represents one of the most northern forms of wild raspberry having a concentrated flavor with very tiny small crunchy seeds. This makes them ideal to eat as is or to make delicious jam and jelly. The colonies are thick and can form a monoculture of delicious wonderment. There are no thorns. The plants runner by underground stems. They produce fruit on 2-4 year old canes. It is not a cane that you remove after fruiting. You wait for it to finally die on its own. The clusters ripen over a very long period up to a month or more. This is common with a lot wild raspberries. They make you come back for more. I still believe I have cracked the code on cultivation by using my Pink Thimbleberries in southern Michigan. Thimbleberries are latitude sensitive and hard to fruit in extreme heat and dryness. The California based ecotypes I produced solved most if not all of that problem. Meanwhile thimbleberry jelly is still $17.00 dollars a jar. It can be grown from seed or cuttings. When I had the nursery, thimbleberry and wild black raspberry where the most popular of raspberries.

Wild black raspberries in my location are the most common of species. There is actually quite a bit of variation of them both in yields, size of fruit and color. The most two common types are yellow and black. The image above contains some Nortthern red raspberries as well. Wild blackberry canes tip layer their way along. The canes themselves are born from a crown and die after fruiting. New canes replace them quickly. They are the raspberries that are most known for their flavorable fruits. The seeds are medium-large and usually are taken out if making jam. Some people like to leave the seeds in which adds to the texture of the spread. This species is sensitive to drought which will cause the fruit to drop prematurely and never develp further. The roots of the species are shallow. I was surprised at how many people purchased this plant for their landscapes. The yellow form never was as high yielding for me until I found one plant with a massive crop. I started using that for a seed source. These produce best in full sun and wide open areas compared to the other species.

This image of a northern red raspberry on a wide open coastline of Lake Superior represents one of the most widespread species raspberries. It too is thornless and grows from runners. The seeds are tiny and it is like eating raspberry concentrate. The fruit size is small and variable depending on the colony you are harvesting from. Of any plant I have grown, it is the most powerful colony producer and has completely improved a part of my planting by creating a dense composite of raspberry mixed with Desmodium. Its thick in there. It is where the turkeys nest. It has become a groundcover only 3 foot high. You can imagine trying to get a toe hold in the ever shifting rock and sand along a windy coastline. You are going to develop a means to expand your presence by sneaking into the cracks and crevices and making do with what is around you. If you change that to an all you an eat buffet like my farm, then freedom has arrived for this Rubus family. This species despite its size and low yields is just amazing in flavor. Ironically it is found today in many cultivated raspberries too as it was a breeding connection maintained when raspberries went cultivated early on in American history.

Wild Black Raspberry
Wild Yellow Black Raspberry
Wild Dewberry selection grown from seed at my farm with the highest yields.
Pink thimbleberry in flower.

Farmerless fields can accomodate the pioneer species as a means to reforest and replenish the landscape using species across a broad spectrum of inherent capabilities.

It will be from this repository that will help us to tap into these wild flavors and nutritional profiles of a well known fruit plant. It’s not a test. It already works. Employ the raspberries!

Pink thimbleberry cluster.- Keweenaw variety

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Heading North on the American Persimmon Highway

Posted on July 29, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

One of the easiest ways to create a strain of plant is to find similar individuals in a climate or zone similar to yours. The reason you might attempt this is that you desire to grow a plant that is traditionally known not to be adapted to your location and likely has few varieties that would be useful under cultivation. You then raise many seedlings of this species and plant them in a location where the plants can flourish on their own. This is not the one in a hundred breeding while trying to create a highly selected individual plant from a massive population.  For the northern strain of the American persimmon, it is the 99 population that you desire. You will be able to use and enjoy reflecting on the most northern of its species in or outside of its range. The definition of northern in this case is central Indiana or Illinois. This is where the tree’s geographic range tops out on its own without the help of humans. There is a southern subspecies of American persimmon which is also said to have a different genetic make up. The American persimmon is not native to Michigan. The geographic maps always show a nice smooth line where something is found and is considered native. In reality, it is a dotted bumpy line with many satellite populations here and there in all directions, north, south, east and west. I view human dispersal as natural and treat it the same as any other vector. It is desireable and shows the level of integration found within all plants. Other people want the smooth line of understanding the movement of plants. It makes it simple. For me, I want the ever expanding universe of American persimmon. Others want a wide thick sharpie line on a map were everything is frozen in a 1491 timeline.

Since the American persimmon has been cultivated for over hundred years there are also varieties from this region known for their delicious fruit, low seed count and early ripening. When I found the American persimmon in southern Michigan, I found lone trees with no fruit used in cultivated landscapes but nothing else. So I began to find several individuals in the North American Fruit Explorers that I could purchase seed from and used this in my nursery for the production of seedlings. It was fortunate in that it was this clonal reproduction of female trees that allowed me to use these most northern forms with good fruit quality in my plantings. A few growers in Michigan had grafted selections of the many of the same northern varieties from the early to mid 1900’s. These did not ripen fully always. The flavor was very poor and the texture was grainy. There just was not enough heat units during the seasons to ripen them fully.

There use to be a farm I would drive by in Saginaw, Michigan that had a fantastic line of Norway spruce on its property line surrounding the land. The owner years earlier decided to make it his home in the middle of a treeless field and create this boundary marker out of trees. I always found that inspiring. I did the same thing only with persimmons. I planted lots of seedlings roughly 7-10 feet apart 5 feet within the property line. There was little or no competition for light at this time from nearby trees or anything that would interfere from my neighbors property. I remember cutting off a limb of a nearby mulberry tree but that was it. That tree still exists today encased by persimmons despite a set back created by groundhogs in that area. The power company removed one 300 ft. line I had which was 15 feet away from the poles. Other than that the total run is roughly 2000 feet with a few blanks in between.

This was my starting point for the American persimmon in the real world weather conditions of southwestern Michigan. I live in an area that is one of the cloudiest areas in the United States.  One of my maximum-minimum thermometers hit minus 29 once. Recently there was minus 27F but normally the coldest it hits is in the minus 15 F area. I am on the border of the fruit growing district surrounded by grapes mostly. The brix content of Concord grapes coincides with the ripening of persimmons at my farm. If they do not harvest the grapes, then likely much of the crop of persimmons will not ripen fully either. This is a rare event but it does it happen once every 10-20 years or so where Welch’s will not accept fruit. There have been both total success and  no success along with everything in between.  The trees always flourished but it was the ripening period of the fruit that was the ‘iffy’ part of growing the American persimmon in southern Michigan.

Since you have a nice population now which is fully fruitful you can make selections too. It is the population that you can draw from, like taking out a book from the library of persimmons and seeing what sort of knowledge you can gain from that one individual. The larger the population and the longer the time you taste test your way through the persimmon forest, the more you will discover. It is a joy and worth doing. You can make your seeds available and take cuttings for grafting on a new variety you have named yourself. It is not that hard despite half the trees will be male.

Either way you have created a crop where none existed before in a land where it was not thought possible to do. You have expanded the range of the plant, created a food opportunity for others to witness and share while you found a very easy way to tap into a plant that has been on the sidelines of agriculture for hundreds of years. This is rewarding on all levels which allows it to be moved even farther into ranges not acclimated to persimmon culture. But more important it allows people to actually taste a tree ripened American persimmon filled with sweet delicious goodness. That in itself is of great value despite its lack of use by the majority of the public and low interest in the fields of academia and institutions. The persimmon will hang its sweetness to catch you off guard until finally you too will be converted.

David Adams image Copyright American persimmon from my farm in Michigan.

In the farmerless fields, the American persimmon represents both wood and fruit potential and a simple means to begin our journey towards a more fruitful future.

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From Fruits to Roots: Tranquility Potato

Posted on July 28, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

Have you ever looked at the roots of plants closely? The part of the plant you don’t see is incredibly complex. Since I used a shovel to dig all the plants for my nursery I soon had a birds eye view of roots of many species of trees and shrubs. They were all different. You can look at the roots and see immediately what species it was. It is distinct as its foliage. I grew hundreds of species of trees and shrubs in beds that were tilled and planted with seeds. Because the medium I was using was very uniform created with lots of tilling, fertilizer, raking and mulch the roots of each species grew unobstructed creating patterns that you normally don’t see in uncultivated situations. Each species was different and followed certain structural designs. Within the species you would find unique variations the same way that you might find a variety or selection that has a different growth habit or foliage color. It is this variation found with the potato I found extremely interesting. It was not the tuber but the roots surrounding the tuber that caught my attention.

No one really thinks about roots. In the potato, the tubers are the focus. Recently I was reading a story of a selection process used for potatoes developed specifically for Texas done by actual real life plant breeders working for a university. It was a fantastic success story like winning the lottery of potato growing. There was no mention of the root structure of the plant growing in this hot arid climate. Instead they discussed the foliage and the yields. I was wondering if irrigation is required or how that works in a land that was not particularly potato friendly. I was thinking more about the roots again.

At my farm I began using seedlings of heirloom potatoes. It was by accident I noticed a couple of potato seedlings that had what could be described as a form of ‘compacta’ roots. Compacta usually describes yew varieties that are extremely dense in branching. They have a growth pattern where you have dense clusters of branching to the point there is often no leader like a normal tree or shrub. Often these are dwarf varieties never require pruning and are the opposite of all yews used in the landscape trade in the last one hundred years. Compacta is found in roots too but it is not common. You could easily say all roots are compacta because of the nature of branching in roots. For me it is a matter of density and structure. It reminds me of something I read in college about the emerging field of particle physics. My split ends are getting split ends. Ad infinitum.

Tranquility

Due to this clustering root habit compacta roots extract more resources from the soil much faster being able to attach itself to the soil particles in a way that the water is more effectively absorbed. It doesn’t just whiz by in the soil profile. It is caught working its way through the root maze. This creates a condition where the potato grows and ripens faster and finishes much earlier than other selections. That is exactly one of the characteristics of ‘Tranquility’ potato. It is a miracle to me but not so much to a crop scientist. The potato industry is laser focused on the varieties it already has. You can buy organic potatoes easily but it is rare you will see organic potato chips. Why is that? The whole industry requires certain criteria for certain varieties and sometimes it does not happen. Compacta roots is not one of those criteria needed for potatoes as far as the industry goes. It would take too much explaining. It definitely will be important in the future and any crop plant that can do more with less will eventually overtake standard older varieties because there will be no choice but to change. This will be the nature of all crops where the custodians hang on to old text books long outdated by extreme weather events and other related diseases and insects using conventional thinking. “I have one problem. I need to fix this one problem. I will find one solution.”

Tranquility

‘Tranquility’ makes the case for a short season high yielding potato. Planted in early May, the crop is  ready to harvest by August 1st. I would put it in the 70 day range for ripening fully from emergence of the foliage to finish. The foliage has been free of early blight with no signs of heat stress. The top begins to go dormant in late July and decays quickly making harvesting very easy. The foliage remains clean throughout its growth cycle and appears totally insect resistant. The main stalk is square in shape with a pyramidal struture to it from soil level to the top of the plant. The tubers are clustered tightly around the roots near the main stem. I hope to measure yields more precisely this year. Sizes run up to one pound each. The bright purple and violet color is distinct and desirable from a retail sales level. The potato has a pure white interior with a very smooth and creamy texture.  “Tranquility’ was grown from seed of a blue heirloom potato of which may have crossed with ‘Zolushka’. It was found in a seed bed that overwintered several years before I started noticing the yields which greatly exceeded all other seedlings I had grown up to that point.  It is uncertain if it is entirely winter hardy. It does have very good cold tolerance. Although grown from a diploid, it does not produce berries. I am not sure of the storage qualities but at my farm it could stay at room temperature for three months prior to sprouting without refrigeration. At this time, I cannot detect solanine but will have a test done with this along with yield data.

Potatoes wth no name: Each one is unique. A seedling potato could catch the attention of a human who may produce it clonally using only tubers.

There are many characteristics of plants often overlooked because we view them as quirks of nature with little value in terms of use by humans. It is these quirks that provide an insight into a life of a plant as we pursue its growth from fruits to roots and back again.

Farmerless fields can be a bright spot on all farms where out of nowhere new varieties are born done by the almighty power of nature.

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Scientific Thoughts

Posted on July 27, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

I took a class in college taught by a history of science teacher called “Scientific Thoughts and Thinkers.” One of my business major friends from Detroit who was super skeptical on many topics took it at the same time. He added a bit of comedy to the class. The teacher was super serious and objective with an in depth knowledge of science. The whole idea of this class was to cover the often taboo subjects at the time like the origin of life, quantum physics, ufo’s, spirituality, psychic powers, as well as the leading individual scientific theories and their formation over time. This included the failures which you often do not hear about. I remember doing a report on ball lightening. It was fascinating. At some point, it was suggested that a medium be brought in to gain first hand experience in tapping into an altered state of consciousness. I don’t think it was his idea but the thought was we could objectively verify this in some way and have a conversation around this confusing topic. He found a medium but the department was not happy to pay the fee she required which if I remember was 60 dollars at the time. (mid 1970’s) It was standing room only when she came. Evidently we rented a popular medium. It was intense and nerve wracking. The class quickly dispersed after a few questions. In the following class the teacher apologized for allowing this to take place. It was kind of an embarrasment for him. It seemed like over acting combined with theatrics. At first the real crime was we did not learn anything from this other than don’t rent a medium for under $60 dollars. As time went on I think we all learned a great deal from this experience. Subjective experience may lead you astray in many ways, but it is a starting point to find answers.

This is all of agriculture. It starts with subjective experience that anyone can do. It doesn’t require much in terms of technology, special skills or even climate. Then you share your experience with others. One of my horticultural student friends moved to the Artic circle in far northern Alaska. He discovered that only radishes grew in this location. But it was a crop and it attracted quite a bit of attention from the community he was living in. It might of been the first crop ever at that location. Over the years I met people who talked to snails. I met people who used radio waves to harmonize the environment. I met people who worked in agricultural applications of using algae and microbiomes of the forest. I met people who worked in secret on crop plants before 10,000 BC only. I met people who found new species of plants never seen by anyone before or since. No one believed them. I believe them all. I have to. Why would that be any different than my N-P_K fertilizer training in my agricultural classes? It does not require belief to work. It could be an emerging technology that we are witnessing much like the early scientific thinkers tapping into the unknown world of the invisible forces at the time.

Once at a horticultural show in northern Michigan, I met a woman who described to me a form of dispersal of true seed of potatoes in her planting that she had been doing for many years. She would harvest her potatoes as normal, dig the soil to extract the tubers but then rake out the soil and leave the berries that were consistently produced by the vines over the years. The berries would then overwinter outside and break down allowing it to self seed. Each potato berry carries with it genes from the past which can often appear to ‘manifest’ from many generations long before its arrival in North America. The plants physiology adjusts to its new home and continues to adapt over time using both its former life and new life as a means for adjustment to its climate and ecological conditions surrounding it. At first, I did not understand her experience and was a bit confused because like everyone else I thought….well this lady probably left chunks of potato in the soil and that is probably what is sprouting and making her patch. But as I continued to listen, I finally connected the dots of her cultivation and experience. Finally she said, “You are the first person to believe me.” No one believed her only because that experience is not what people believe to be true. Gardening circles on social media suggest removing and throwing out the berries because God knows what problems that could cause!!! She did the opposite over a period of time to create a self seeding potato. That may not seem like much but it does hint at the deep connection of her and the land she cultivates as a form of biological enrichment. As a side note to scientific breeding, this is exactly how the russet potato started and was created by Luther Burbank.

I noticed that many researchers I meet in my farming life are hard core scientists. Many do have a deeply personal and spiritual connection to nature in some way. On the phone in private they would share with me some stories if we got off topic. Some were more open and others had a veneer of frozen titanium created from their training they recieved in school. And at some point, all of us who work in farming, horticulture and related sciences find these connections in often random ways. It is just normal because we work in this medium called ‘nature’ within a soup of natural laws. Sooner or later we are going to experience things we can’t explain. We just may not talk about it. My thought is how can this made less random and a common experience to all on a daily basis? It does not have to be a type of over sharing and theatrics. It would be a genuine intuitive experience that would lead us to deeper connections and discoveries of nature far greater than the previous five thousand years. We can be the new scientific thinkers where no subject is taboo.

Enjoy. Kenneth Asmus

David Adams Pear copyright

At the basis of all farmerless fields is natural law. At the basis of all life is natural law. At the basis of all human beings is natural law.

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