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Post by jocelyn on Apr 30, 2019 15:01:42 GMT -5
Some snow in sheltered spots in the woods, frost at the bottom of a 20 cm hole, 8 inches. Warm in the daytime, plus 8 or so, minus 1 or so at night. Buds on chestnuts at early green tip, blossums on scarlet elder swelling and about ready to burst. Pussy willow in full bloom.
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Post by jocelyn on Mar 27, 2019 17:17:50 GMT -5
hazel nuts don't need a whole lot of light either, and bear well if suited to your area.
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Post by jocelyn on Feb 27, 2019 7:41:01 GMT -5
Winchill of minus 28 here today, blowing snow. No school again, driving is poor. Plants are all napping under the now, so they won't mind the cold.
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Post by jocelyn on Feb 2, 2019 5:50:51 GMT -5
It looks to me that old fashioned seed saving and swapping will become important. Keep in mind that selective breeding by illiterate peasants has produced most of our current food crops. It is only lately that GMO shortcuts have happened.
I was talking to a plant breeder who had been working on GMO soybeans, but the project was scrapped when the traditional breeding was able to come up with equally good fungal resistance. We had export markets for NON GMO soy, so the GMO stocks were destroyed.
GMO stocks are not always better than selective breeding. Unintended consequences often pop up too, so keep on saving seeds, grin.
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Post by jocelyn on Jan 25, 2019 11:49:53 GMT -5
Quick update. Nuts pollinated Aug 2 and 4 are now sending out roots. Nuts pollinated Aug 4 and 6 are still in the fridge, and I'll let you know when I take them out what happens. I have some tiny scions I might try and graft when the new shoot is ready, might be better than waiting till the end of May outside. Those tiny ones run out of gas sooner.
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Post by jocelyn on Jan 18, 2019 9:19:55 GMT -5
We have dry summers now, so I plant in the fall. If it's something I can only get in the spring, I'll buy it and carry water for it. I'm mailordering a canker resistant butternut graft, and can only get it in the spring. I'll just have to carry water for it. It's for our woods, to spike the local population with resistance, so there is not hose/tap close by.
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Post by jocelyn on Jan 17, 2019 7:23:20 GMT -5
How thick a plant material do you think the UV would penetrate? There is about half a day where the petioles of the cotylydons lengthen and the plumule is exposed and is still a fairly tiny nub. The epicotyle doesn't lengthen right away. I can't innocculate as I'm in a blight free area. I can give out treated seedlings to the rest of the Nut Growers, if there is any interest. Some of the Maritime growers are dealing with blight.
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Post by jocelyn on Jan 9, 2019 12:48:31 GMT -5
We are having a storm right now, so it will be a while till I can dig out your seednuts:) CFIA will get back to me about the phyto. The rules are different for small amounts, so it might be OK anyway.
Send me your mailing address if you want me to post you some nuts, and maybe scions. I'm jclarke@pei.sympatico.ca
Nuts and scions will be a gift, but you will have to pay for paperwork and postage. How's that?
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Post by jocelyn on Jan 7, 2019 10:07:15 GMT -5
They are from my own trees. The taste is good, and the size about average. They are seedling trees, as I have been breeding hardier ones for about 30 years. If a phyto doesn't cost too much, I can get you one for juglans, I think it's 12 dollars for castanea, at least, that was the cost a few years ago. Try the seednuts first, so you can see if they winter at your place. We have warm spells of weather often in the winter and the trees don't wake up, so I think they are long dormancy. They mature nuts here in Mid October to very early November, depending on how late the spring was. We normally have 110 to 120 frost free days, at least light frost bracketing that period, so 100 days with no frost at all.
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Post by jocelyn on Jan 7, 2019 5:32:18 GMT -5
Hi Jannel. I'm in Canada and I grow them, on their own roots. Can you receive seednuts from PEI, Canada? I have no idea what your import regulations are, but know that some countries allow nuts early in the fall when there is still dormancy and no chance of roots. For Canada, once roots come from nuts, they are nursery stock, rather than seeds, and then need a permit to import. When still dormant, they don't.
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Post by jocelyn on Jan 4, 2019 11:17:13 GMT -5
Anybody interested in a thought experiment? Say one wanted to mutate sweet chestnut to up regulate a pathway that might lead to blight resistance.
How to? Wait till a chestnut seedlot has radicles and the plumules are just starting to show. Wrap the nut in tin foil so that the plumule is the only exposed part and pop in a lab sterilizer, UVC emmitting.....now what? Cook them in the sterilizer (irradiate) till you kill some, plant the rest. Want to play?
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Post by jocelyn on Dec 18, 2018 5:28:57 GMT -5
Yah, I'm with you. There are many approaches, and folks here seem to be using all of them; breeding a particular crop plant that can take more extreme conditions, and planting lots of different crops so that something will get the conditions it wants. For us, it was unusually hot and dry, but with a short season(frosts). The squashes, especially the early and mid season ones, were bountiful and extra tasty.
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Post by jocelyn on Dec 16, 2018 15:16:45 GMT -5
Depending on where you live, you might be able to raise some chickens for meat. For us, using purchased chicks and feed, it is economical to let them graze too. Our feed conversiopn is 2.88 to 1, on an oven ready basis. This lowers the carbon dioxide produced by shipping meat or feed. Grass grows with no inputs from us.
Yes, if we do nothing, it's going to cost us, and our kids and grandkids.
Nuts are good protein too, and we now have lots. Anybody close can have seednuts from me, for the postage.
Still, climate change costs with woody agriculture too, having lost 4 sweet cherries after two bad winters in a row.
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Post by jocelyn on Dec 16, 2018 12:06:08 GMT -5
Part of the trouble is that we bring our industrial agriculture biases with us when we measure outputs. Many parts of the world don't want/use/can afford/ machinery or chemical fertilizers. Small plots are worked by hand and shade/shelter belt trees are also food trees. Animal and human waste fertilizes the ground that produced it, sometimes with the addition of fish waste for coastal folks. In the affluent first world, folks have septic tanks and tile fields. We have planted a lot down slope of the tile field. Cherries, pine nuts, apples, sweet chestnuts, raspberries...and all yield heavily because of nutrients moving downslope from the tile bed. A wide range of food options mean that in the bad year, there is still something.
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Post by jocelyn on Dec 8, 2018 7:56:16 GMT -5
For what it's worth, I put out squashes when they already have male flowers. It is usually cool then, and it's 3 weeks most years till things get hot. By then, there are female flowers. I can't rule out slight physical damage to leaves as the purple finches and my hens like to hatch eggs under the squashes. When I have a vine or two that have males only till some time in August, it's the same seedlot. Observation only, no conclusions yet.
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