Peach Nirvana: Peaches from Pits

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Biologicalenrichment

The very first peach I had ever seen growing on a tree was from a backyard gardener next to my family home in central Michigan. Peaches were not common there because of the late frosts and cold winters. My neighbor was using the Ruth Stoudt method of gardening with 6 inches or more of thick straw mulch on the surface of the soil. Looking back at that time in the early sixties, he was the first organic gardener that I knew.  He was a builder and bricklayer by trade. He said he needed this food because the other food was not good. One of his peach pits he threw out in his compost sprouted under the mulch and he let it grow into a tree. It was filled with delicious peaches. I remember thinking how spectacular this was and if it could be replicated in some way because I wanted one too. There it grew by the brick grill untended surrounded by straw. This location may have increased the late flowering due to the thermal mass of the grill and the dense thick straw. Years passed and finally I ended up in a large peach orchard in southwestern Michigan during a fruit growers convention. In this modern orchard system, there were large herbicide strips under the trees making the ground completely devoid of any vegetation. There were no grills or straw mulch.  Peach trees are short lived meaning 20 years is the limit. This orchard was ready to be removed and replaced, which is a huge expense. Not long afterwards I met a peach breeder who had several selections grown throughout the world. He filled me in on the peach agri-business and the large landowners who own thousands of acres of peaches in the southeastern U.S. who sweat it out every spring over cold nights dropping below 32 F when the trees are in full flower. It was a brutal financial reality tough on human physiology. They used every method they could to prevent damage to the flowers, including wind turbines.

At this time, it became apparent to me that you could pretty much grow any peach in any manner you wish. No one would stop you because the thin line of success is so well defined in commercial peach culture, anything outside of this is like gambling with no inhibitions. My idea of peaches from pits is kind of laughable. To grow a good peach is like gambling to begin with. To make the odds in your favor you needed to follow only the tried-and-true methods. Also never mention organic. You are free to do any sort of peach growing gymnastics. The house always wins. The house in this case is the standard fruit and horticultural industry good, bad or indifferent.

Let’s suppose you want to grow peaches for eating directly from pits. Maybe you hype it up and say people will have a new culinary nirvana like experience with your fruit. You tell them your peach from seed is magnificent beyond belief. The reality is you are now growing something that has never been cultivated. It is not a variety that is recognized. In fact, it is not a variety at all.  It would not be thought of as a peach. It would be a peach relative or a peach species and viewed mostly as worthless seedling peaches by almost all modern horticulturists. It would create confusion as this does not equate to peaches to the rest of the known world of peaches.

This is what I wanted to experience. I wanted peach nirvana. I felt the pit idea was sound. I viewed it the same way as growing a red oak from an acorn. Having a tree on its own roots, easily propagated and easily replicated immune to insects and disease is a good goal. One mature tree could easily produce 10 acres of peach trees with its progeny in just one year. A small orchard could produce an industry wide effect in a given region easily.  I did find a small group of enthusiasts with peaches from pits. Many of them seemed like they were embarrassed and down played their seed sources as experimental or rootstock plants. They had what is called in advertising as ‘weasel’ statements in their descriptions saying it is only for the hobbyist and cannot be trusted due to the variation from seed. The first one I grew from pits back in the nineties was from the Seed Savers Exchange where there was an Iowa white peach available from a member. He said he found it in a ditch. At the turn of the century this selection was done both from pits and grafted trees all from Iowa. Iowa would be Mars to any other peach tree grown in the United States so quite an adaptation in that region. From there I met a botanist who obtained what he thought was the original Spanish peaches in Texas self-replicating themselves from pits in the wild. A lot of times botanists would not pay attention to human introduced plants as if it was some sort of curse or disease. I was happy he thought it was of value. Eventually a few people sent me heirloom peaches which were pit grown with stories included. Michigan, Wisconsin and a few from locations where peaches were self-replicated by seeds in mountainous regions of the world were added to my plantings. I had an intern working for me who was an assistant for the state experiment station scientists that do fruit tree and peach research. I wondered if they would like to replicate my plantings there. The note came back as ‘this is not what we do here.’ A quick glance at their research projects includes hundreds of thousands of dollars devoted to evaluation of pesticides for peaches supported by the companies that manufacture them and the state of Michigan. Peaches from pits are not on their radar. Meanwhile, I began to create very small plantings at my farm from several heirloom peaches including the Latvian purple peach and the Mackinaw peach.

Latvian Purple Peach-Very uniform population.

As time went on and they began to fruit, I grew very fond of these seedlings because they were very immune to insects and disease. That was a surprise because untended peach trees that I knew in peoples yards were always riddled with insects and large brown splotches of fungal disease. Frankly, I think it was the fuzz. Praise the fuzz. You need thick fuzz which ironically has been selected to be minimal on peaches today. They could be grown organically AND from pits. The quality was very good. Did I find nirvana? Yes. Every time a new fruit ripened for the first time on a tree, I yelled out in great joy, “Are you kidding me?” as I tasted them. How is this so good?  The peach ripening on the tree is the only way. The small variation is less of concern.Equally, there is less selection pressure by humans for the desired traits of modern peaches which are highly refined. The peaches from pits flavor was let go in the process in finding a stable from seed tree with good fruit set. This highlights a common frustration I have. I need a larger grow out to test, refine and prove my selections and increase the pit production. 10 acres would be ideal. Maybe if I pony up at the table with the chemical companies, I can chip away at those magnificent funds they compete for from the state of Michigan.  Even if my selections were rooted or grafted to put into an orchard, a true from pit population is stable enough to do it commercially. The pit thing just needs to be ramped up to test its merit. Organic and from pits? It can happen.

Wild Texas Peach-Very uniform population of peaches that ripen in October.

Like all tree crops, it will be the seeds of the peach that will propel us forward to a more successful peach culture including the removal of the toxic chemicals used to cultivate peaches today. It will require a living collection to capture the changes going on in the environment to store that information for the next generation of peaches. If we arrest that evolutionary process, then we slow down the progress of peaches within our collective cultures across the globe.  If we keep using the older varieties as well as selections from these older varieties, then it will be too late to do anything. The peach has to collect this knowledge or genetic information one year at a time and then act on this new knowledge in the form of a seedling. The peach is a student of the climate. Clonal selection can hold them back in school.

The peach is ultimately saying, hey cut me a break brothers and sisters. Throw my pits out into the rough and tumble real world. I can compete. Watch me. Just give me a chance. A human is searching for nirvana. I know this. I can help with that. It is a laudable goal of all living things.

Mackinaw Peach: Named after the Seinfeld episode. From northern heirloom selections.

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Regeneration of the Land

Posted on December 29, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment
Regeneration is a slow but sure process. Like this eastern box turtle found at my farm, once the environment becomes conducive, diversity arrives in ever increasing numbers.

USING THE LAWS OF NATURE FOR MAKING DIVERSITY SPONTANEOUS

My 13-acre nursery was a very tiny island amidst the retail oceans of the plant world. I wanted to expand it to larger proportions but that was not possible. I always remembered the farm my family owned that had over 400 acres of Christmas trees. To me that was the perfect size. There you could grow Christmas trees in great abundance and sell wholesale to land far away from Michigan where evergreens were not grown.  I loved the openness of that land. It had huge diversity of plants and animals. I loved the swamps. The ditches created through the farm were teeming with life. There was always American Bitterns within them feeding and hiding in their stealth pose. They waited until the last minute to fly away when you drove by them with the tractor in the morning. You always hoped they wouldn’t ‘drop a load’ on you in their startled state of mind as they flew over. Fortunately I escaped the drop bombs. My nursery property was way different. It was hilly, rolling land frequented by bobwhite and meadowlarks. It was created from a field just like my families Christmas tree farm, but it was compact with an intensive garden design. It became a springboard for hobbyists and edible landscapers wanting something new to grow and eat. This put me in a specialty place in the mail-order market. As cool as it was, it had little practical application in terms of large-scale agriculture at the time.  People appreciated my quest for all things edible. My customers and colleagues did not know the backstory of my farm and the issues I faced while running it, but this did not matter.  My nursery specializes in a market where plants are generally plentiful and inexpensive. Yet at times I felt I was getting bombed from the American Bitterns of the world which comprised everything from regulatory, theft, low wholesale prices, state run nurseries, trespassers, over production, employees with mental health issues not to mention the U.S.D.A. But this too passed.

It’s funny in many ways because I was so small in comparison to everything else around me. I thought my farm was not diverse enough and I needed to expand. Once my plant inspector said I was very famous now and people in the state government wanted to know what I was growing. It was an odd request because everything I grew was already on line with my website plus they came twice a year to do the inspections. They must of thought I had a secret plant operation going on. I was confused. Certainly there wasn’t fortune tied to this fame. It appears TINY has the same issues as CONGLOMO but without the resources to deal with the problems. But lucky for me the plant diversity sprang forth in greater amounts as time went on in a relatively effortless manner. Nothing slowed it down or stopped it. Everything from edible acorns to yams, I found a beautiful world full of delicious foods filled with fruits, nuts, vegetables and grains. This continued uninterrupted no matter what was happening to my small business. Finding and creating plant diversity is incredibly easy, frictionless, successful and a joy to do for me.  In many ways, like music and creativity, it flows outward as if the plants were my form of art. Everything else was chiseled out of Quickbooks cold and calculated in reports and forms of endless numbers.

Eastern box turtle near my Callery pear-Asian pear-European pear hybrid seedling plantings. This area is now mostly devoid of grasses and is filled with seedling pears, American basswood, River grape, hackberry, black walnuts, multiflora rose, American cranberrybush and Amur honeysuckle to name a few. This area is frequented by cedar waxwings, red and gray squirrels.

It was this same diversity that was also noticed by the wildlife at my farm from the biggest to the smallest. Even the new plant life that arrived from outside my farm responded to this greater diversity I was adding. Keep in mind, my farm was a pasture harvested for hay before it was let go a decade before I purchased it. There were no woody plants in the pasture except a few black cherry, black oak and ash.  I kept witnessing greater amounts of wildlife from box turtles to bobcats, all of which benefited directly from this diversity. Even woodland flowers appeared. I did nothing. American beeches were seeding in along with American basswood. I couldn’t for the life of me establish American beech. I did nothing to remove the so-called invasive species or weed plants. You could clearly see their benefits. As the shade increased, the pasture grasses decreased. A couple of years ago, I was pruning my persimmon trees. Underneath one of the trees was a pile of Amur honeysuckle fruit neatly stacked. The fruit was meticulously cleaned of its seeds. About two weeks later, I visited, and the fruit was consumed by something else. It was this combination of seedlings growing from my mature trees as well as plants outside of my farm that created this tapestry of amazing diversity within a neatly organized structure.

Spring Beauty seeded in under the hybrid chestnut canopy and multiflora rose.

It was from this vantage point that I began using wildlife cameras to capture this beauty. This allowed me to see a wider range of animals including birds of prey and my neighbor’s cats with the coyotes close by. This is the real world of integrated plants and animals all thriving and surviving on a tree farm wedged in by grape farms and homes where people live their lives. People, plants and animals visit. Some stay. Some are invited. Some are not. There is no department head to ask permission to exist on my farm. It just happens and so does the ecological integration that follows. Nature makes no mistakes.

 Enjoy. Kenneth Asmus

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Peaches From Pits

Posted on December 27, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

One of my local customers told me about a peach in his front yard that had a lot of fruit on that he did not want. It was horrible tasting he said and filled with worms. Perfect. I was very interested. When I got there, most of the crop had fallen to the ground where they sat fermenting. This was a peach he purchased from a large mail order company. It was a seedling peach of some kind and he was unaware of the species or variety. It had semi-double white flowers. I picked up the gooey mess on the ground trying to avoid the yellow jackets. Jackpot. In my mind, I was in business with the world’s peaches.

I brought them back to my farm where I cleaned them and began the dormancy procedure. The barn was filled with a great fruity aroma that day far more pleasant than the pile of rotted fruit let on.With peach pits, it is a good idea to let them dry down a little on screens before putting them into a lightly damp peat moss mixture. It is best to store them at room temperature until December before refrigerating them from 34F to 39F for 60-90 days. The warm period continues the growth of the embryo which allows the seed to mature. Sometimes a portion of the peach pits take two years to sprout. Part of this is due to the incredibly hard pit and tight suture and the other is the immaturity of the embryo. To over come this, we use to put them on a bench grinder with a coarse grit wheel to remove a portion of the suture on one side. We would hold the pits with Vise-grips as we sanded away one by one. That was my ‘good idea’. The pressure to pop that pit must be immense. In the evolution department the ‘good idea’ of peach pit survival tactics is to spread out the years of establishment and go dormant for long periods of time if the conditions are not conducive for growth and reproduction. This is exactly how and why peaches are spread out in the wild in the southwestern U.S. and how they were moved by humans throughout time. Peaches are loved everywhere and the pits were pitched by people on the move. There are peaches in Germany moved by the Romans. There are peaches in the United States tended by Native Americans moved by the Spaniards. Peaches get around. And to think it all started in China.

My plants in my polyhouse were very vigorous and twiggy. They began flowering in two years from seed. Obviously deep within its constitution was the precocious double red flowers. Despite being a lone tree in the front of an old farm house far from any peach tree, this tree had a story to tell of its past. The image above shows the surprise. The trees produced small, white and coarse fleshed mis-shapened peaches. They ran in size from 1-2 inches and looked like miniature furry tennis balls. They were pleasant to eat but they were not familiar in terms of their overall peachiness. They were the peaches with minimal peach flavor and maximum floral characteristics. It was like eating the seedless green grapes in the grocery store. This peach was also selected by humans who loved the flowers and did not matter what the fruit was. Jackpot. The value of the plant is its ability to comfort humans. The flowers bring happiness. This is a great goal. It is food for the mind. Could it be possible to create a forest of peach trees where you could just walk around and marvel at the glorious flowers in the spring while imbibing the essence of peach? Absolutely. Why aren’t we doing that? Whoa. Not too fast there agri-buddy. That peach pit needs more grinding on the wheel of human intellect and creativity before it sprouts.

Enjoy. Kenneth Asmus

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Diversity Discovered: The Wild Goose Plum

Posted on December 21, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment
“Wild Goose” plum variety of Prunus hortulana grafted onto American Plum rootstock

North America is filled with wild plums.There is no shortage nor threat to the wild plum. They can be increased in number very easily. There are seeds available from many seed companies and individuals who love to find them as if they were a secret treasure. Each region has its preferences. You will see the seedlings grown in both the wholesale and retail nursery trade. As far as cultivation goes, there are no indigenous North American wild plums in cultivation for fruit production in orchard settings. They are in the conservation industries ‘to do’ list but no one has 40 acres of them for people to pick and use in some way. There was a fruit farmer who was a customer of mine from northern Minnesota who was using my beach plums for a U-pick operation. He put florescent tagging tape on the plants to let people know those were the shrubs with ripe fruit ready to be picked. He was the only farmer I knew in the history of my farm where he took seedling plums into cultivation directly to the public in an orchard. He lived in a region known for its jam makers so there was a demand for wild fruit that made this retail loop possible. People were also willing to pay for that convenience rather than tough it out in wild while on the look out for bears, ticks and bald faced hornets. Not to mention trespassing on private lands or violating some sort of state or federal law that prohibits fruit collection. Today road side fruits are not in the most pristine environments where herbicide use is the wild plums greatest enemy. Even if they miss the foliage, the plants roots and stems absorb a portion of the herbicide damaging the plant. In my county the green protoplasmic removal companies get huge contracts worth a lot of money to spray things that appear to be bad in some way along the roadways or in the disguise of vegetation management. I see the carnage because I’m one of those people looking for wild plums in the late summer.

Seedling of Prunus hortulana Wild Goose Plum.

Not every plum species is available in commerce though. I don’t want to paint too rosey of a picture. There are gaps. Part of this due to the isolated nature of the plums in areas of the country that has no collectors. Few people are aware of the wild plums anymore too. One of these species was the Wild Goose plum. The species is a mixture of midwestern and southern strains spread out over several states where they exist only in fence rows, abandoned rail lines and other forgotten unmanaged places. I could not find a source of the seeds. One of the scientists who had a part in the plum group of the North American Fruit Explorers sent me scionwood of what he said was the original ‘wild goose’ plum. I did not know there was an original and soon I had the scionwood. I was hoping for the seeds, but he insisted I did not want that. He said the seeds were not reliable. Don’t use the seeds he said over and over. He was a fruit researcher and in that universe everything is cloned. The other plants are worthless seedlings. At my farm we grafted the scions onto the American plum roots as seen above. The trees did very well and I moved them to my outback planting in one of the most exposed hillsides to wind and sun. There the top soil was thin. The trees flourished yet there was no fruit production. Every now and then over the course of a decade I would check the trees and see nothing. One year in late July, I noticed crows in that area landing underneath the trees. It was very odd. They were very noisy. That caught my attention. I thought something had died there. I went over and soon found seven pits each carved out and cleaned of the fruit by the crows. Thank you crows for alerting me of the pits. I did not get a chance to taste the fruit yet, but it looked delicious. The crows said it was good so I am going with that. I grew the trees from these pits and planted them right next to the grafted trees. As they began filling out and flowering the grafted Wild Goose began fruiting in much greater quantity. I had created a fruitful population while increasing the fruit set of the grafted Wild Goose plum. Wild Goose was not the most productive plum tree but it was delicious and juicy. No wonder people cultivated this variety prior to the cultivated plums we eat today. Now I had a group of its siblings and each tree began fruiting in great abundance. This was the population I was searching for with each plant contributing to the population.

Prunus hortulana variety Wild Goose. The grafted form of the Wild Goose Plum variety.

It was from this vantage point, I began to see an outpouring of diversity like nothing I had seen before. It reminded me of my hybrid oaks at my farm. The road was getting wider with each generation with greater possibilities to select from as well as finding the most vigorous trees with clean foliage. It also created new plants that could potentially be used as a means for cultivar development as a wild plum. The issue was what do people like in a plum? The answer to that leads straight to the supermarket of Japanese plums in large sizes and colors with apriums and plumcots in tow. This was a land very different than wild plums. If that was the market my little wild plums would go up against, its the end of the world as we know it. It is just too radically different in flavor, texture and size. But certainly the flavor profiles allow for processing and development as a fruit crop as it exists in the wild however we define that as a whole. When I started looking into this further, I soon found out that the fruit industry has no clue nor cares about wild plums other than rootstocks. Even as a rootstock, those are slowly being phased out. If you say, lets grow it from seed and create a diverse mixture of flavors, then every fruit farmer walks away. Its an odd world of fruit. This species is not allowed to be grown in California, Oregon, Arizona and Washington. The regulations are based on what it ‘could’ contain not on what is actually found. No science is involved, only paranoia, feelings and money. So if virus infects something, then the best solution is to ban it entirely. That is how the fruit industry rolls and others follow in its footsteps. But so far, the seeds are allowed and you could potentially grow it if you lived in those states from seed.

Chickasaw Plum ‘Mini-Chee’ variety Prunus angusitfolia

It is a very common experience of growing plants from seeds that every plant creates its own diversity by using its seedlings to build on its existing characteristics. It expands its ecological adaptibility within its evolutionary framework. That is what I wanted to find for the wild goose plum. In the process, I discovered the heirloom fruit used by early Americans and a flavor not found today in the supermarket of plums. In my plantings, I had several types of plums producing near the wild goose including beach, chickasaw and an American x beach plum called Dunbars plum. The normal overlap of flowering in each of these does not necessarily equate to successful pollenation. It could be one is flowering while the others are long gone. There is little or no overlap. This creates an illusion you know what is going on. You really have no clue nor does not matter. It is the population that is created as the result of this diversity. It could even be self pollenated. This is the surprise and joy of growing a plum from seed. I would try it if you have doubts. Those doubts will soon be erased.

The crow knows.

Kenneth Asmus

Wild Goose Plum-Variety ‘Wild Goose’
Morning Sun Wild Goose Plum
Morning Sun Wild Goose Plum

WILD GOOSE PLUM SEEDS

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Canopy Closure: A Hickory Tree Makes That Happen

Posted on December 14, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

The first trees I planted outside of my nursery into the pasture were hickories. It was in the early 80’s that I acquired the property and began my nursery. The snap shot above tells the story. At that time, people shunned the hickory genus only because it was hard to establish due to the tap root. This led to a high failure rate when transplanting. Finally, with the advent of tubex tree shelter, the hickory tree was very easy to grow in my pasture. The pink tubes gave a sterile hospital vibe to the land. The tree tubes allowed for the slow regrowth of the tap root after cutting it off while digging the tree while at the same time protected the small emerging leaves in that first critical year. The warm, moisture and carbon dioxide rich environment in the tubes speeds the growth of the hickory and prevents dessication. I did not know this at the time, but the foliage of shellbark hickory has a wonderful nutmeg smell to it in the spring. It is this aroma that seemed to attract deer to the plants which would then munch on the leaves from the newly emerged sprouts. Eventually the trees grow past past the salad bar browse line. In the area shown above, the wind off the treeless hillsides was brutal making everything drought prone. The tubex shelter eliminated that problem. I was very fond of the Shellbark hickory, Cara laciniosa and most of my plantings have this species interwoven with its hybrids and other hickories. It was also one of the easier hickories to grow from a seedling. The tubes you see in the front row are Long Handled Almond or Prunus pendunculata. The others are all hickory.

Prunus penduculata or Long stalked almond is an oil bearing desert shrub hardy into Mongolia and Northern China. It has never fruited for me except once I did harvest a couple of seeds from the plants which are more like a large cherry pit. It is a distant relative of the almond we eat today. My plants came from the late Clayton Berg of Montana. Today these plants exist in the shade of the shellbark hickories.
Shellbark Hickory- Carya laciniosa

The overall purpose of my hickory obsession was to create a seed repository which would allow me to collect the nuts in a timely fashion and use them for nursery stock. It did work. But it was much cheaper to buy the nuts from other growers who also had a hickory nut obsession. There was few wild trees to collect from in southwestern Michigan. I did find three trees. It took exact timing to drop the nuts to prevent the squirrels from hauling them off. When a shellbark hickory nut falls from a tree, the speed of travel to the top of a human head can be significant. It is a large nut with a hard shell. With or without the outer husk, it is quite a knock on the noggin. One Dodge truck I was using by putting a ladder in the bed under the tree suffered serious dents in the hood as the nuts came raining down. I decided to go to a hard hat after that realizing my whole scenario of a ladder in a truck bed collection method was dubious to begin with. Should I fall in the process of my love of all things hickory, it would leave others wondering of my mental state. It certainly would make a good story. The police might treat it like a crime scene. Why the ladder in the pick up truck? Why the nuts? Who in their right mind would do this?

Eventually I went to shaking the nuts by climbing the tree or using pole pruners. When the nuts hit the ground it is like drums from a distant land all beating the praises of hickory. Collecting nuts off the ground allowed me time to understand and ponder the genus in terms of cultivating it and potentially finding varieties in my plantings. I did notice that it was extremely rare to find other species of hickories throughout the world. I did not have the luxury of travel to places where I could collect or reach out to other countries. It turns out North America is rich in hickory so I did not have to look far. I began to read more about the genus in the great manuals of Charles Sprague Sargent, Manual of the Trees of North America, pages 176 – 200. Here hickories were plentiful and rich in history with great diversity of subspecies. I began to explore growing them at my farm including the black, sand and nutmeg hickory, lecont hican and many other natural hybrids. Despite their southern origins, they grew very well in Michigan. I think many of these species had larger ranges at one time and show remarkable hardiness far greater than in their native ranges suggest.

Shellbark Hickory Carya laciniosa

As my shellbarks began to flourish and fruit, I would plant others of their kin near them and begin the process of pruning and maintaining the trees. The shellbark self seeded into other areas of my farm while creating another population randomly spaced. One area in particular was my ailing hybrid chestnut planting which was getting a hickory make over. I let them go. Now I had a self sustaining population of them filling in where other trees failed. It was the perfect forestry scenario of letting my so called ‘improved’ selections create more improved selections of all types. The hickories were expanding on my farm and the now the dominant species is hickory. I did not plan this. I did nothing. I saw those fox and gray squirrels run by very fast when I went out to collect. They created the hickory forest of which I started by using good seed trees. I gave up live trapping and moving them out of my farm. I found ways around them and their natural tendencies. Of course, they still got a few nuts but their value can never be underestimated. I often wondered if whole landscapes could be planted like this using the natural tendencies of squirrels to create forests. It seems very easy to do. You would plant the seed trees and leave. It would only take 40 years.

There are many different crosses of hickory that you can grow from seed. Some of the best I found were natural crosses of the shagbark hickory of which this is one.

One such hickory hybrid is the lecont hican. It is a water hickory and pecan hybrid cross. Carya aquatica x illinoensis. It has an amazing speed of growth far greater than any other hickory I have grown. You could easily grow a four foot tall tree in one year in a small pot. For a hickory tree, that would be considered a miracle of science. Yet, a fast growing hickory tree was not jumping off my shelf in the retail nursery trade. I grew this plant off and on for twenty years. As much as I loved it, my ethusiasm did not equate with sales. It was a lone tree on the dusty plains filled with other nice ideas of retail sales. Few wanted it. The great thing about was its hardiness as well as its growth rate. To this day, I have not idea from the trees I have established what the nut production is like. It was completely hardy to at least minus 20F which was kind of shocking to me since I was getting the seed from Louisiana. I currently have mature trees of it at my farm. They maintain strong growth with a central leader and no narrow crotch angles like the pecan has. The population is very uniform when growing them from seed. Without a doubt faster growing selections could be made for a form of hickory lumber that could be developed making sizable trees in half the time of other species we currently harvest. Planting was done in my polyhouses using 10 inch deep bottomless containers with straight sides. The trees take a year off after transplanting but then grow quickly again. It is easily limbed upwards to create a straight and knot free lumber just like black walnut. This particular selection of hickory was harvested at one time and sold as Bitter pecan. Bitter pecan is lecont hickan and is a naturally occuring cross fround in the south where wild pecans and water hickories grow. No one really knows this selection much but I did find out that each year I purchased the seeds, they were different in size and shape. This is normal in hybrid populations. Some had smoother shells and others were rough like the water hickory. One thing they had in common was the tannic tasting nut.There was no way you could eat it. It was very similar to bitternut. It takes several minutes for the intense dryness of the Sahara desert in your mouth to disappear. It is very oily and could be used as an oil crop. This particular hickory highlights a situation that relates to other tree crops. Even if you develop something very positive and useful for the future of agroforestry and other forms of forestry, it may never see the light of day in terms of practical applications. It highlights the slow moving ideas in conservation and agriculture where everything takes too long to work out the details. It would only take a hundred acres of this cross and you would begin to see miracles of science take place. In some ways it is like creating a solution without a problem. The problem is not clearly defined or doesn’t exist. Without a problem, no action is taken. There is no money or energy to give it the lift it needs in terms of practical applications. Meanwhile back at the farm when I round the corner in my truck, I give them a mental high five and think of all things hickory.

A note on Canopy Closure: Canopy closure is used today for soybeans or other annual crops. For corn and soybeans a certain density of plants per acre plays a role in achieving this state where the ground is shaded by the leaves of the plants. If you were to create a canopy of pure shellbark hickories and you want it solid hickory and nothing else then the normal 40 by 40 ft. spacing used for pecans is too tight but it would create canopy closure must faster. The real issue is that shellbark hickory is a much wider tree with lower limbs that spread outwards. It has a broad spreading open canopy. I was fortunate to visit a shellbark hickory tree in a yard that a ninety year old farmer had planted when he was 16 years old. He dug it from a nearby swamp. The tree was huge and was dropping nuts on his house making for quite a racket in the fall. At night it interrupted sleep, so they did some pruning to directionally train the limbs. Judging by this tree and others I have seen in peoples yards, a spacing of 80 x 80 would be ideal. If I was developing it within mixed plantings, I would go to 100 feet apart. If you were planning on doing the squirrel thing like I mentioned above, I would plant 7 trees per acre.

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Explorations of Diversity: The Sloe Plum is Not That Slow

Posted on December 10, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

Within the first decade of my tree farm  I planted many wild seedling fruits on my farm. Some of these are the wild crop relatives of sour cherry, sweet cherry, plums and apricots as well as species that are wild collected and not in commercial agriculture. I grew everything from seed. I knew that the genus Prunus had many untapped species that could be used for food and drink. I was particularly interested in the jelly, jam and syrup fruits. These would be fruits that would require cooking with sugar or processing in some way to be edible. I knew from my readings that many had potential health benefits. I thought of them as a treasure chest of nutrition that could be spread on a piece of toast. One of these plants was the sloe plum, Prunus spinosa. It was not available in the nursery trade. I began growing a selection from seed called ‘Plena’. ‘Plena’ was a clone known for its heavy flower production. Sloe plum was not found in North America as a wild plant. The arboretum seeds that I received were a welcome surprise from a friend here in the states who sent them to me. I originally produced about 25 plants and planted them on a hill that was sand with two inches of topsoil. There in two foot tall Tubex tree shelters, the sloe plums made their debut in North America. After several years, small flowers were born in clusters followed by a few fruit. This continued for another 10-15 years. By then I began to see larger clusters of bright blue fruit and the spur type sharp thorns. The thorns are a common characteristic of the plant and gives it its second common name:  Blackthorn. It was one durable little shrub. Picking fruit one by one is a challenge without getting stabbed. It requires very thick gloves and a methodical movement within the thicket to prevent blood shed. It’s a dance done with canvas carharts and rubber gloves. Be nimble my friends.

I began creating new plantings on my farm with the seedlings I was growing. To be honest, few people had knowledge or even knew what this plant was. I began asking others if they had any personal experience. One person told me ‘It was invasive’ and another sent me a fruit recipe which included vodka. Another person shared with me how to make a shillelagh with the canes of the plants. When I investigated the claims of invasiveness, it was turned out to be completely false. It was based on its habit of growth. Sloe plums are stoloniferous and like many plants that have a running root system away from the central plant, this tendency is a strength not a weakness.  You can use the plant’s root cuttings to propagate it and distribute it further. As an orchard plant, you can use it for creating a fruit planting of the best selections bypassing grafting. Grafting is very short lived compared to in-ground clonal root systems which can go on essentially forever constantly regenerating itself. That’s a big plus especially for sloe plum because the fruiting canes fade with time after a decade or two and need new sprouts from the roots to replace the older parts of the plant.

At one point, someone said I had the only planting in North America, and it was of great value in terms of its use for flavoring. I was very happy of the results of the plants. But I was still in this la-la land of no disease or insects when you first grow a new species. Unfortunately, a disease called black knot showed up. This is a very common wind-blown fungus which infects the branches. It is a disease which completely destroys the plants ability to transmit food and water to the leaves. It encases the stems and the plant eventually dies. My planting which had now stoloniferously spread to an area 20 feet away in all directions from the original plants retreated dramatically. I lost over 90 percent of my plants. There was little left except for the burnt looking scab infested knots on the branches. Another planting I had done about a decade later did much better, only loosing 50 percent of the plants.  The black knot fungus is a great equalizer and removed the weak plants in the process.

Another not mentioned characteristic was the mouth numbing flavor which makes it nearly impossible to eat fresh. The incredible tartness and astringency has to be processed to enjoy. Yet this too is part of the plant. If someone were to eat it off the bush, they would clearly state it was not edible. Of course the 5000 year history of it being used says otherwise.

Eventually those few plants showing zero signs of the disease despite being in the middle of it all, took over the area previously occupied by the diseased plants. It even grew under the trail road we had near the plantings and continued into the nearby hawthornes and evergreen oaks. The disease is still there but it does not infect the seeds which cannot pass the barriers within the seed. Every generation starts new with no black knot disease. Seeds purify and maintain the germplasm so each new generation retains its place in the population free of disease. Once you have the disease, it is too late for methods of control. The spores eventually whittle the tree down despite pruning and spraying. I called this immune variety “Ocean Blue” and now both the population and the original selection or individual plant is used for growing sloe plums.

Ocean Blue Sloe Plum Prunus spinosa

Today a few sloe plum plants are being grown by distillers and a wine maker. They purchased a lot of the seeds and plants when I grew them. The astringency and sharpness of the tart fruit made me wonder how it would be possible to process. In Michigan, the fruits ripen in July and will remain on the bush in good condition through August or later. There is no frost on them to any degree to improve the flavor. The green interior and astringent blue skin is very distinctive part of the fruits flavor. It probably also protects it against insects and disease. The fruit has no problems in cultivation and could easily be grown without sprays. Nevertheless the plants cannot be shipped to California, Oregon and Washington all based on outdated or out right inaccurate scientific information. But the seeds are allowed.

One unusual seedling popped out of the population that surprised me. It is a unique hybrid plant I cannot entirely identify. It is a small tree with runner capabilities as well as incredible floriferous tendencies. Every year I am stunned by the beauty of this tree and its dense flowering. Bees flock for miles around to visit. Yet there is no fruit. To solve this problem, I have to go the extra mile and bring in other individual plants that are genetically different yet not too different and await fruit set. I have some new sloes from other growers that I plan to use right next to it. Some of these diverse populations are crosses with plums known for their larger fruits or have a unique flavor profile and are naturally occuring hybrids of Prunus spinosa. They too are all grown from seed at my farm. My lone hybrid plant needs some overlapping flowers of related species that will be compatible. It would be best to just use the sloes on my farm by planting a few seeds with a dibble a few feet away from the trunk in all directions. This surrounds it with neighbors that will help each other in their fruit production creating great abundance in its wake. If you help one plant, then all will benefit from the diversity. The lone unfruitful plant will become fruitful and the others will respond with greater yields too as the pollen from the lone unfruitful plant may be useful too. It does not mean it has sterile pollen. This is the nature of the Prunus spinosa population all done in a sloe manner. I like the sloe way of life. One helps all and all helps one.

The foliage of the sloe plum plant is sparse so the clusters of fruit really stand out on the outer perimeter of the bush. Pruning is done in the winter to address branches that cross and allow more light to penetrate the hedge like crowns. You want plants that are accessible for picking yet not too dense to make a fortress of thorns. The thorns are actually fruit spurs necessary for flowering and fruit production. Cross pollination is not necessary as far as I can tell. However, no one has grown a single plant isolated to see if it benefits in terms of yields from other genetically different plants. It would be a good idea to have several plants as this plant likely has the same pollination types as beach plum where a diversity will increase fruit production. Some strains may have developed this on their own in isolation over time in the mountainous regions of central Europe.

A book worth exploring: Cornucopia II A Source Book of Edible Plants by Stephen Facciola Kampong Publications, Vista 1998.

Not slow

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Structure and Function of Future Plants and Forests

Posted on December 6, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

One of the the great events of my family farm was the sand mining operations that left two large distinctively different ponds. In the process, it also created a completely different landscape. It was one we fully enjoyed as now the ‘swamp’ had swimming and fishing. The image above captures the vegetation 100 percent created by a bulldozer over 50 years ago in the process of pond construction. The bulldozer in its bulldozer way eliminated all the vegetation by crushing and burying wood of all sizes. The peat was stock piled and the sand was extracted. The peat was put back and leveled as the trucks drove off with their sand. Meanwhile the plants came back slowly while surrounding the moonscape reseeding themselves in great abundance. I use to go there and look down and wonder what will happen to this land. It was not pretty. Today is another story. With the images displayed, you see the red stems of the seedling blueberries in front followed by the white birch near a road and ditch which was installed to drain the swamp and lower the water table. As that dried up, the birch really took hold in the new black muck and moist sand. The white pines are seedlings that were directly planted by my father and his partner in business when we purchased the farm in the 1960’s well before the pond construction. The bulldozers went around them. The seed repository that was surrounding the land quickly filled in the vegetation. For that I was grateful as diversity only increased as time marched on. A small apple seeded in within this framework thanks to a bird that dropped the seeds years ago carried from a nearby neighborhood. It is the exclamation point of ecology at the end of the sentence of evolutionary history in a chapter filled with biological novelties.

One thing about diversity in plants is that it does little good to keep it for yourself. Whether you sell, exchange or give it away, the seeds and plants are restricted with limited effects with no benefits to the humans that need it most. At my farm while I was running the nursery, we decided to create packets of seeds and tubers that people could easily order and obtain in a timely fashion at a low cost. Saying goodbye to my Jerusalem artichokes was sweet with the help of the U.S. Postal Service. The fulfillment aspect of it creates an excitement in that you are finding and creating new types of food plants not found anywhere and putting it directly in use by those receiving their ‘orders’. I tried to find other companies interested but no one seemed positive of its potential. In fact, some found it repulsive. Wherever my little packets went, they are now part of that landscape and could potentially become established beyond the garden. I hope so. One customer told me,” Ken. Compared to anyone else, you have more artichokes than you can shake a stick at. That is nothing to be ashamed of.” I found that very amusing.

“Tell me more. Where is this delicious fruit you speak of? “

Without a question, the white tailed deer is one my favorite animals at the farm. I was always surprised how many people wanted to ‘take care of my deer problem’. I did not know this problem. I only saw a solution. When I first bought my pasture-farm, the original trails through my farm were small in number but hinted at the movement of deer in the area. There was not many of them. As my tree crops grew, so did the legend of the sweet high density fruits at the tree crop farm including the persimmon and pear as well as the nut crops of acorns and chestnuts in the deer community. Word was out. Certainly the deer could provide food for someone. I have nothing against that. But removing a plant or animal never creates a magical utopia. The deer provide a direct benefit for my tree crops and create diversity in their wake. The evidence is over whelming. It is difficult to explain because it turns out that it is highly complex. My wildlife cameras capture them eating different forage and I am always surprised about their diet. Even today there are few deer that reside on my farm full time. Most come from outside other adjoining properties and locations far away. I see where they sleep. I saw the birth of a deer. I saw the death of a deer. Sometimes I think they followed me around for a while because I would look up from planting and there they would be staring. I think deer are naturally curious and so am I. We share that in common.

Forages include star thistle, timothy, Queen Annes Lace, quackgrass and the ever so popular Ken’s favorite mulberry and apple trees.

You do not have to look far to discover beauty in art. The above drawing was done for one of my catalogs by Rob Lawson. It was taken from a slide image shot in the cemetary in Springfield, Illinois. The original is very nice but this drawing says so much more. It shows the structure and intelligence in nature far greater than the image I shot using Kodachrome 64. You can experience the structure of the oak and the function of the acorn because the drawing magnifies it. It is more than just an oak and an acorn.

A farmer nearby told me of this cherry dump on his property. This is where someone had to dispose of fruit quickly that did not have a market and it was dropped at the edge of a field. It can be several tons of fruit. It starts out as a pile of brightly colored fruit smelling like fresh berries before passing the wine stage quickly and then going to a kind of swamp gas aroma. Only the seeds that are not fermented or heated in the compost conditions make it to germination. Those that survive are in the position to grow fast to stay within the canopy. There is no way to recreate this. This sweet cherry-sour cherry forest structure tells a story of waste, reclamation and crop biodiversity. The birds cloak the tops of these trees. The chipmunk colony below benefits as the seeds drop one by one. A neighbor drops by to harvest the fruit for wine. I’m harvesting the fruit for tree seeds. It’s busy at the dump where structure and function meet.

Time to plant ideas. Who knows what will sprout?
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Diversity Explored: The European Chestnut

Posted on December 4, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

When I was first introduced to the European chestnut, I found it as a shrubby and stunted tree barely able to cope with Michigan’s cold winters. It was on top of a dune overlooking Lake Michigan near Grand Traverse Bay. The view was spectacular. It was a cool late October day and the cold wind off the lakeshore left me speechless. The tree’s size was further highlighted by an American chestnut next to it that was in pristine condition growing ever so vigorous and strong. I knew that this particular species of chestnut was probably not adapted to Michigan. I collected two nuts from under its branches thanks to the owner who helped me find them. It wasn’t easy. Deep in the grass, we pryed open a few burrs only to find those two precious nuts.

No matter where I looked, I could not find the European chestnut tree or seeds for my nursery. I need a batch of them for propagation. I knew this tree as the traditional chestnut of European origin used for centuries. I could buy them in the grocery store in a net bag imported from Italy. I knew they were also disease prone and not hardy enough for Michigan. For orchard production, the Chinese chestnut was the best selection and widely adapted to Michigan’s climate and soils. When the seed sources from California opened up a possibility of growing it as seedlings in my nursery, I was all in. I quickly changed my mind when I saw the massive one ounce nuts. My first purchase of 50 lbs of seed led to complete disaster producing only two trees that survived the winters of minus 20F. In my typical nursery fashion, I tried it again. And of course the effect was the same. I still have those two trees in my orchard. There was a tiny gap with sunlight streaming through and I was going to find the source. I saw the light!

Great Chestnut of Mt. Aetna 1700’s. Still alive today. Castanea sativa

Back at my farm, I tried another direction. I used hybrids. These are naturally occurring plant hybrids of mixed parentage created by someone, somewhere spewing out selections overcoming the disease and hardiness issues of yesteryear. As part and parcel of that hybrid population is your European chestnut. Often the American and Chinese are combined in the population of unknown percentages. One such group, was from seed I purchased from nut grower of the late John Gordon. He had the Simpson seed. It was perfection in so many ways. It was from Ohio and considered one of the most prolific. Other seed included the ‘okas’ of which most came from the late Gellatly at his British Columbia farm. I also found another nut grower here in Michigan where I purchased these hybrid nuts in small quantities. I even found what appeared to be the ‘Paragon’ hybrid grown commercially for a brief moment in time. Each time I did this, I was overjoyed at the vigor and health of the European hybrid seedlings. They had beautiful large dark green leaves and a straight growth habit. At the same time, the real world winnowed out the weak plants quickly. The one characteristic that surprised me the most was the immunity to chestnut blight. The callus material when it occurred was substantial. All trees produce callus when injured whether it be a snow storm or blight. Some trees are not able to keep up. Others quickly grow around their wounds. Old trees like humans have difficulty recovering from tramatic events. Blight is one of them.

This particular specimen of Castanea sativa has some blight on the bark but not enough to damage it to the point of no return.The three trunk formation here is the result of damage done early in its life in a tree shelter which was never pruned off. Instead I kept all three sprouts because in this area the wind was very strong making tree establishment more difficult. In short, I needed foliage and vigor to compensate for everything else going on in the environment.

I was not overly focused on nut production. It was not breeding but finding vigorous trees and creating from seed populations. Blight was a big motivator in these populations. Initially these were tiny groups of trees scattered throughout my farm. There was quite a bit of variation within the European crosses and what appeared to be the pure species types. By growing the progeny from these fast growing seedlings I thought I had tapped into the hybrid popular effect where things ZOOM UP. It was by letting them self seed that further enhanced my forest by creating greater shade and replacement trees if the others succumb to chestnut blight. On most trees, it took a decade to realize this potential. It was the back up plan to the back up plant. Now I had my forest. The European types although small in number were disappearing into the genetically different populations. In the meantime, most of the originals still produce at my farm and contribute to my chestnut forest. I was selecting for one thing only but in reality I was creating the healthiest trees to reproduce themselves loosely based on my subjective experience. In the grafted varietal world, you select one tree out of hundred and then destroy the ninety nine trees. This time the possibilities express themselves on a real stage of ecological theatre where one tree creates ninety-nine trees all of which are kept. It’s reverse orcharding. Selections can be done now or not at all.

The smooth bark with small ridges indicate the species Castanea sativa.

Even in the most traditional landscapes, tree crops need greater diversity to thrive. It has to come from outside to get the full effect of a population. The European chestnut in Greece is struggling. A leader in chestnut production, Greece has experienced a huge loss this year due to extreme drought and heat leading to a drop in 15,000 tonnes or 90 % of its average yields. In relation to its cultural importance, the European chestnut in Greece could disappear without the help of humans in some way. Dragging out the irrigation pipes is not much of a solution long term. The people who live in these mountain villages harvest and maintain these trees and forests. Without them the mountains would be deserted. The late Dr. Dennis Fulbright from Michigan State University use to show the nut growers in Michigan some of these wonderful slides on the European chestnut and how it was propagated, used as a tree crop and processed into delicious food. Today the desertification going on in these mountainous regions along with a failing economy tied to the crop and the families that make a living from it are in peril.

This seedling was grown from seeds in its native range and is likely not a hybrid.
The 5 year old tree to the right is Castanea sativa. It is surrounded by pawpaw. Korean nut pine and oaks.

This is where creating new seed populations could replenish the lost trees while propelling the tree crop forest forward. You need deep roots. There is a fig tree in a mountainous region of the Sahara Desert that goes down to 450 ft. deep. They found it in a mine shaft deep beneath the sands of the Sahara. It is considered the worlds deepest roots of any tree. It would not surprise me the chestnut is doing that now. It too is a mountainous tree species able to wind its way past the rocks going deep into the subsoil and rocks to catch the rain and snow melt of winter. Grapes do this all the time. My farm is surrounded by grape fields growing out of sand dunes with almost no top soil. Chestnut has the side branching and hair roots that develop along the forest floor. It has several deep structural type tap roots and that go very deep to extract moisture to fill the nuts in the fall. This occurs right at the end of the season where they all fill at once. If there is no rootstock limitations to interfere and slow down the seedling growth you then have a tree able to harness water far greater than before. New hybrid selections as well as existing trees that appear impervious to drought could create the new chestnut forest. This is exactly how Gama grass selections were done. You look for green healthy plants that thrive in the heat and drought in the worst of conditions. Even at my farm with my limited resources and few seedling selections, you can see the chestnut has this power within it. It is obvious in its growth and production of nuts as well as its thick and hairy leaves and stems. If you dig a chestnut seedling up it has a strong deep tap root. If you cut the root, more deep roots follow. How far does that go down? If any indication of the seedling trees I have, the equiavalent of a mature tree would be at least 100 ft. down. This is how hybrid vigor is ZOOMING DOWN into the deep layers of rock and soil underground. A back breeding program is too slow. The best trees already exist. You are solving your own problems while leaving a doorway open for others to follow. This is where the light shines in.

One of the ‘okas’ seedling of Layeroka. Gellatly.

This is the European seedling grown from the nut mentioned in the beginning of my story. Although it rarely produces nuts, the nuts it does produce make very nice seedlings some of which are growing nearby. It has a lot of dead wood in it but the tree has continued its life at my farm finding a portion of the canopy adequate surrounded by hybrid Burenglish oaks and butternuts. The light is bright.

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Explorations of Fruit Diversity: Black Mulberry

Posted on December 3, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment
This Central Park, New York, NY tree hints at the food possibilities of the black mulberry.When I visited this tree, I had the “we’re gonna need a bigger boat’ realization on what to expect.

The range of any plant can vary tremendously from high to low elevations, across whole continents not to mention human introductions. With many woody plants, these are not entirely reflected in the selections available in the nursery marketplace. It was this winter hardiness factor that interested me when I grew palm trees in Michigan. The Chinese Windmill Palm had a large range of adaptability and did survive here much longer than I expected. I was wondering if other plants had a broader range of hardiness and where I could find those. One of those was the black mulberry. It was considered a Zone 7ish plant and not hardy enough to survive Michigan. There are no wild black mulberry trees to draw germplasm from. The species Morus nigra was never used to any degree in the United States compared to the well-known species of Russian and White species which were staples of the conservation industry. They were the windbreak and fruit bearing trees for wildlife including the trees used for silk production which never came to fruition. I initially started growing black mulberry from the grafted varieties. I found four Pakistan selections with huge fruits from a nursery here in the U.S. only because that was all that was available. They are also food selections bred for human consumption.  I think anything with ‘Hunza’  attached to its name sounds mystical to me. Maybe I can live to 100 years old too if I eat mulberries. The selections grew vigorously. I loved the large lustrous leaves. When winter came and went there was no live tissue left. Only a brittle stem remained.  I remember walking by the sprouting trees below the graft union thinking at least I got a rootstock out of it. A week went by, and those sprouts disappeared via white tailed deer. Maybe not. Time to move on.

I began to look more closely at the Morus nigra species to find what is considered a good mulberry as far as cultivation goes. There was a lot more than I thought. I knew about the fruit variation found in wild mulberries in southwestern Michigan. When I had a social media account for my business and posted something on mulberries, a few people had very strong opinions on mulberries. The native plant movement had greatly exaggerated the claims on red mulberry as well as what was considered the proper identification. The cultivated mulberry that people consumed worldwide was the black mulberry. It was considered the best in terms of flavor and sugar content. A close second were the hybrids of it and certain selections of white mulberries known for their heavy fruit production. Many viewed mulberries as weed trees with no inherent value. That was me at the beginning of my farm. I cut down several smaller trees which were growing in my pasture. Before I became more knowledgeable about the Morus genus, I had no idea of the value of this crop and its importance to wildlife and people. It was the fence row tree growing into the wires and fusing with the metal that made me rethink the power of this plant.  I was impressed with the galloping mulberry, making its way across landscapes because birds survive on them for food.  Removing them does not create environmental health where better trees will grow. It is the mulberry that can grow in places where few things will grow, and it does it with great ease. The cracks of cement contain mulberries. This is the superpower of the mulberry. It will be the new fruit plant in the coming years of fluctuating climate. It’s not going anywhere, and we need to harness that fruit’s power into something wonderful for people. There is a huge repository already in existence in the wild trees. We could make use of that if we wanted. I began to wonder why there were few if any varieties of the wonderful black mulberry for zone 5.  For that, I would have to create it myself

Morus nigra grown from seed at my farm.

It was during a seed grown population that I finally got a chance to explore Morus nigra in its full glory. The population had the dark green, large round and sometimes lobed leaves in perfect formation. I was very excited when I was able to verify the seed source from a seed company here in the U.S.  Having a means of growing the trees in bulk would eliminate the need for grafting. I could remove weak and less hardy seedlings. I created a population to select seedlings from to develop a fully hardy zone 5 seed source with the fruit quality that people love in a mulberry. It cannot be too watery or insipid and it must have a flavor a little bit like a raisin with a mellow taste. My population could provide additional cultivars for fruit and wood quality. The mulberry wood is very beautiful with an orangish red hue to it. I have a plank I bought from a local wood lumber company of which I am making a table from.

Morus nigra at my farm.

The first batch of seedlings I grew were very nice looking. When I moved them out to one of my hillsides, I lost four of the five trees in the winter. What was I doing wrong? I discovered that overly vigorous trees in this species were not desirable. The plants growing late in the season were not adjusted to my climate as the wood never hardened off completely. They grow five feet in a single season. They died five feet in a single season. It was ruthless out there. The second time I expanded production upwards to the 2000 mark in pots in the greenhouse. This created a more uniform population with equal care for all plants under irrigation and protection. After two years, further plants were put out in the orchard based on leaf structure and fast but not too fast growth.  The plants from the second population didn’t have the southern long season take your time growth patterns that were in the first generation. I finally had a stable from seed black mulberry population.  In the last few years, I began taking better care of the trees for seed production. Deer do love the foliage, and it requires protection to make growth happen. I noticed that racoons and opossums were climbing the trees and eating the fruit. I am pretty sure woodchucks were up there. Their weight will sometimes break the branches at the crotch near the main trunk. This breaking is not completed so the cambium is attached still. It creates a wide branching pattern on the tree eliminating the narrow crotches and improving the fruit set allowing for greater production of fruit. What was great about this in my limited knowledge of mulberries is that all of this was done from the seedling level. There was no grafting. I named one selection and began to think about what to do in the future with the plants. This was one of the last tree crops I put in my plantings as seedlings. Today one tree is producing delicious small fruit that is like a drop of sugar. Another seedling with deeply cut leaves, in a location outside of my farm produces a white fruit that is sweet but has no flavor. Each of these trees are very distinct in growth habit and could be used as shade trees rich in fruit production and a joy to consume in the summer.

Now the Central Park tree was not just a magnificent giant but a real-life expression of the Morus nigra in its wide range of adaptability and success in a climate that is equally part of its heritage. Without the seedlings of its species, I would never have made that discovery. The seedlings led the way.

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‘Michigan’ Tree Collard: Annual To Perennial in Nature

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Biologicalenrichment

If you were to grow broccoli or brussel sprouts you might discover by accident a few plants that resprout from the soil level the following spring. It’s a common experience. It is not a reliable means of propagation waiting to see what winter brings but it does happen. When I started growing tree collards and kale, I noticed this type of regeneration. Collards in particular are often propagated this way using stem cuttings. This is done by refrigerating the cuttings in the winter and planting them in spring. Leaving broccoli or brussel sprouts in the soil for the second year highlights their biennial nature. After flowering and setting seed, the plant usually dies. This is common with kale. The tree collard on the other hand can grow large and thick with trunk like dimensions for many years. It is considered an annual only because we have cultivated it that way. It is much more reliable via seed on a larger scale.

Out of a population, I found a few ‘winter hardy’ tree collards. These were seedling collards left on their own in my Zone 7ish polyhouses that grew vigorously and continued their growth from their root mass. In the polyhouses the plants would freeze solid too but it was a slow dormancy and not the normal up and down of real world weather conditions. They flowered but often did not produce any seed. The ratio of surviving plants was roughly one plant per hundred. As bad as that may sound, it was quite encouraging to me as the odds were much more favorable than many of the plants I had experimented with earlier. A lot of perennial vegetables were short lived in my climate. What sort of plant physiology would be required for long term growth outdoors and how you would measure that? For a while I kept attempting at establishing Sea Kale. Sea Kale, as cool as it sounds, was not long in this world. For whatever reason, it rarely made it past three years before disappearing into the land of mulch. Maybe I needed a sea. It was a seashore plant to begin with. The seeds were very expensive and hard to get from overseas vendors. Sea kale was also very bitter likely requiring boiling in a change of water prior to consumption.

Eventually I moved my tree collards outside and decided to do cuttings of one selection. That selection was both vigorous and had good flavor. After the minus 27F winter, I finally had a perennial bridge to create populations from as well as a variety for cuttings. I named it: ‘Michigan’ I gave it to the Tree Collard Project in San Francisco to distribute and sell. They provided me the original seeds that they were offering as open pollinated tree collards.

How do you measure hardiness in an annual plant? Tension and compression with a pair of lopers. The hardness of the stems of Michigan was like apricot. Very difficult to cut. This hardness equates to hardiness. Wood is good. You need a lignin rich Brassica stem that protects the delicate water and nutrient transportation systems within the stem. It turned out that winter hardiness was related to the stem density. The ‘Michigan’ collard did this easily not only because of its growth but ability to grow a lignin type protective sheath surrounding the succulent stem. We often think of winter hardiness as some sort of magical find deep within the genetics of the plant which says either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to various environmental challenges like cold temperatures. This time the Brassica plant creates it’s own physiological response to cold. Wood.

The Collard Rules

Here grows a leafy vegetable full of vigor and health. One leaf invigorates a culture. Agri and horti combine feeding cultures across the globe. Now I have a whole leaf. The leaf is the answer. It has order. It has structure. Collards find and transport the nutrients deep within the soil. A perennial collard increases its ability to do this every year of its life. You can seed it. You can use a small cutting and stick it in the ground. The collard rules.

Kenneth Asmus

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