Plant and Nut Availability Update

Executive Summary:

Plants:
Standard tubelings still available for all categories (Hazel, Chestnut and Hickory-Pecan) except MP-BFL-Haz. We expect most orders taken now to ship around mid-June, some categories still available earlier.

Bare-root dormant tubelings SOLD OUT for 2013.

Nuts:
A few hazels and hickories still available from the 2012 harvest. Chestnuts from 2012 sold out.

Details to come, but right now we're preparing for the Short Course that starts tomorrow!

Season Begins!!

In spite of the snow outside the greenhouse, the nuts are starting to wake up from their winter dormancy. I'm sharing a close-up profile of a chestnut germling below.

We've planted over 4000 hazelnuts and 900 chestnuts to date.  We wait until they have germinated so that all seeds in a flat are nearly the same developmentally.  By doing so we can ensure watering and other treatments can be provided at near optimal timing for the entire population of plants in a flat.

We use subirrigation via flood-able tables to ensure even water availability to the tublings.  If you are familiar with the leaf size of hazelnuts (or chestnuts) you can readily see how water from an overhead source could be deflected from reaching the surface (and interior) of individual tubes (white containers above and below).  In order to ensure good capillary action we presoak the flats after planting.  Included in this presoak is a combination of beneficial soil organisms in a product called Actinovate.  These organisms become established in the soilless planting medium and help ensure pathogens causing rootrot do not take over.  This is critical for the continued health of the crop as the irrigation water is drained from the tables and reused.

Hazel Maze and Pick-Your-Own Chestnuts!

A long time in the making, we are now ready to open our Amazing Hazel Maze for the month of October. The season has been good enough for our chestnuts that we have some available for pick-your-own for the first time as well- definitely exciting to pick that food out of the leaves on the ground!

Below is the note we just sent out to our email list. For directions, check the "About Badgersett" page on the main web site
We hope to see you here, and we'll post more details here as we can.

This Sunday October 7, and the remaining Saturdays and Sundays in October, from 1PM-5PM.

Hello folks,

This is a quick note going out to our "nearby" friends from us here at Badgersett– this Sunday we will be opening our hazel maze for the first time, and we'll have pick-your-own chestnuts available for the first time ever as well!  The maze will be open for the rest of the weekends in October, but chestnut harvest is tapering off and they are likely to be harder to get, and maybe unavailable, later on.
Our half-acre maze is fun for the whole family- plenty of nooks and crannies to explore, and room for the kids to run around as well!  Once you've been fully a-mazed, spend some time touring the farm or picking up your own chestnuts.
Admission is $8, $5 for children 10 and under. If you've got volunteer credit, that can be used for half of the fee.

More harvest updates

We've machine picked the hazels here in Minnesota for the second time; one week after the first picking, and the results were again- better than anticipated. Many bushes which refused to be picked the first time, were very successfully machine picked on the second pass.

Right at the moment, though, our next emergency has arrived. We work with two other crops here, as not too many folks realize; chestnuts and hickory hybrids are also quite important to us.

Because of the rather strange growing season, we've been unsure until quite recently whether we would get any chestnut crop this year or not. They flowered extremely late, in mid July, and developed slowly, as from extreme heat we shifted to cool drought.

All these nut crops have the ability to alter their ripening behavior, from year to year. This year, the chestnuts have decided to all ripen at once; early and late varieties; and in a hurry; many of the nuts now dropping are not fully colored.

Then, today- we've had heavy winds; steady at over 30 mph, gusts over 45 mph, all day-

(the quality of this video was low to begin with; shot in very low light- but it looks like Blogger still has no clue about how to handle it. But you get the idea.)

Far far from ideal weather when you have ripe nuts in tall trees-

the wind throws loose nuts far from their normal drop zone; and due to the fuss and hurry associated with the new machine hazel picking- we don't have the chestnut and hickory plantings mowed down tight enough for easy harvest. Too late now. And today; it was really too dangerous to be out in the fields picking up nuts- the air was full of bombs; some of them with not-funny weaponry-

You truly do not want to risk being hit by one of these, flung at 30 mph from a height of 30 ft. Yes, you can wear protective gear, but a hard hat is not enough; you need a heavy jacket at the least- all of which adds up to nearly impossible working conditions.

Tomorrow; we hope. Meanwhile- if you have an urge to help out with harvest- now would be a really good time.

Chestnut blight arrives at Badgersett Farm

When we started growing and breeding chestnuts here in SE Minnesota, there was no chestnut blight (Endothia parasitica at first, then Cryphonectria parasitica; though my own preferred name is Cryphodothia pseudoparasitica*... long conversation...) known, for at least 50 miles, perhaps 100. It had been identified in Ames, Iowa, and seen once briefly around Zumbrota, Minnesota; but it certainly was not here.

For the first 20 years, as our chestnut plantings expanded, we never saw it. When we were ready to test our chestnut genetics against the blight, we sent seed both to Auburn University in Alabama, and to the Hubei Academy of Agricultural Science in China. Tests in both places were overseen by Dr. Hongwen Huang; I will put his reports here, originally published in our Root & Branch #4:

Date: Fri, 05 Apr 96 11:18:53 EST

From: hongwen huang

Subject: RE: report of blight resistance of your breeding lines in Alabama

Dear Phil:

In response to your request for the results of my

performance tests of chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica) resistance of your advanced breeding lines grown in Auburn, Alabama, the following statement is based on my observations and best knowledge.

As you know, I collected seeds of some 25 trees, representative of your breeding lines in your breeding orchard, and 4 random selections of pure American chestnut at West Salem, Wis. in Fall 1991. Twenty to 50 seeds from each line and selection were germinated in the greenhouse and transplanted in 18.93-liter polyethylene containers in Spring 1992. All seedlings remained in the containers in an outside growing area under daily sprinkler irrigation. This area was a designated plot for my research on evaluation of blight resistance among Chinese chestnut cultivars

using artificial inoculation of virulent C. parasitica strains. Three strains were used: SLA-155 and SLA-389 (provided by Dr. Sandra Anagnostakis, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station) and AL-W ( a wild strain obtained in Alabama).

An evaluation for blight resistance was initially started in Summer 1992 and repeated in 1993. Resistance was rated in 4 scales: very resistant, resistant, susceptible-resistant and susceptible. All pure American seedlings were completely susceptible to C. parasitica and were girdled by blight within 3 weeks and died. Variation of blight resistance was found within and between each seedling progeny

of your lines. Most seedlings showed resistance to C. parasitica, ranging from susceptible-resistant to resistant. There were 2-8% seedlings that were completely susceptible and died like pure American chestnuts. To my knowledge, all 25 lines you developed are resistant to C. parasitica, but heterozygotic for at least one gene of blight resistance (2-3 genes involved). Seedlings from each resistant parent line should be expected to segregate for blight resistance genes and the 2-8% susceptible seedlings found in this study should be those homozygotic for all alleles of the related 2-3 genes. This roughly fits the model of 2-3 genes regulating blight resistance. Since this experiment is not formally carried out in an official project, no records are filed and reported. I am personally responsible for the results stated above.

Sincerely

Hongwen Huang

Associate Prof.

Wuhan Institute of Botany

The Chinese Academy of Sciences

--------------------------------------------------

RE: report of blight resistance of your breeding lines in China

Dear Phil:

I would like to give you a report on an evaluation of your advanced breeding lines for resistance to chestnut blight.

Seedlings of the thirty-six hybrid breeding lines you sent to the Hubei Academy of Agricultural Science were planted at 2 x 4 m spacing in an experimental plot of the Fruit and Tea Institute of the Academy in Spring 1992. When I went back to China in June 1994, I evaluated all lines for resistance to chestnut blight in August. All lines looked healthy and have grown very well in Hubei. Most lines were rated as very resistant (defined as canker width = 1.0 to 3.0 mm on the trees when they were infested by the blight) to resistant (canker width = 3.1 to 5.0 mm). The resistance observed on these lines is comparable to what is usually found in resistant pure Chinese chestnut.

The cankers on these lines were gradually walled off after the initial infection. If you have further inquiries regarding the performance of your breeding lines in Hubei, P.R. China, please don't hesitate to contact me or Professor Zhang at the Fruit and Tea Institute, Hubei Academy of Agricultural Science.

Best regards

Hongwen Huang Ph.D

Associate Professor

Wuhan Institute of Botany

The Chinese Academy of Sciences

The test orchard in China is still growing there, and was also inspected by Brandon Rutter during his work in China some years back. Most of the trees are thriving, the primary complaint of the managers there being that some of the local folks insist on climbing over their razor wire fences to steal chestnuts from our trees. Hubei is a major chestnut producing province, so that's really quite a compliment.

Being quite familiar with the blight, and knowing it was only 50-100 miles away, I always expected it to get here in my lifetime. And now, it has.

Although I certainly know chestnut blight when I see it, I nonetheless asked MN State Forest Pathologist Ed Hayes to come and do the positive identification. This is his photo, in fact. It's the blight.

It showed up first on one of my "canaries in the coal mine". At the outset, expecting blight to arrive, I planted pure American chestnuts in two locations on the farm, expecting them to show any blight presence sooner than the resistant and semi-resistant hybrids. One on the north fence, where they are reproductively isolated from the hybrid breeding work; and a small population of male-sterile pure Americans among the hybrids. It was one of those male-steriles that showed it first.

This tree took 3 years to kill to the ground, and is now re-sprouting vigorously, as American chestnuts do. In those years, we've started to see blight elsewhere among the hybrids, a few trees succumbing slowly; a few with an affected branch. Most show no signs, but in the nature of epidemics, the true testing is yet to come. The blight is now here, permanently; as expected. More trees will die in the coming years.

Most folks respond "oh, that's terrible!" when we tell them; but we don't feel that way at all. It was expected; we prepared for it; and in fact we can now directly test our newest hybrid chestnuts against the blight right here, and all their lives long (the only kind of testing that counts in the real world). In many ways it's a relief.

But - it does mean that our chestnut tubelings can no longer be expected to be blight free (although they probably are); and should not be shipped to or planted in areas still free of the blight, to protect any susceptible trees still living in such places.

And it means visitors should be careful about carrying blight from here back to uninfected areas. It doesn't mean you shouldn't visit; just that you should be careful about what you touch, be sure to disinfect shoes (chlorine bleach is the standard), and generally think about what you do when.

*The blight fungus in this case is not actually a "pathogen" or parasite, an organism that causes disease for a living. In China it mostly lives as a free-living "saprophyte", an organism that lives by breaking down dead matter. It lives that way in North America, too; extremely well. Judging from the infection patterns we see in our plantings, that's most likely how it got here. Not from some visitor bringing a disease; but just as the natural spread of an invading fungus, slowly taking over more territory. It grows quite well on oak bark, and in forest litter; it's here to stay.

Still time for Holiday Nuts!

Hello folks,

It's late, I know! We did just get most of our outstanding nut orders shipped today, and although we expect to sell out by Christmas we do have a few left that you can snatch up, if you haven't already. We thought we should let you know:

DATES:
If you make your e-mail order by 5 PM Monday, and you made it early enough that there are still nuts left, we should be able to get it shipped on Tuesday for Christmas delivery via our standard nut shipping (that is, at least, according to USPS). Barring, of course, further blizzards.


What we've got available:

FIRST TIME: BADGERSETT HYBRID HICKORIES! These look mostly like shagbark or shellbark hickories, but the shells are thin enough to crack with a hand cracker! Most nuts taste like premium pecan, some will have a good real hickory taste, and some will even taste like black walnut. Limited supply, and in 1-pound bags only. NOTE: though they'll crack with a hand cracker, you'll want a nut pick.

We still have Orchard Sampler, Large, and Old Fashion chestnuts here and ready to ship, though this year's Old Fashion is nearly gone.

We are shipping hazels (and now offer a smaller 1-lb sampler), but keep in mind that hazels on your order may still slow delivery. Employee sickness has slowed down our husking in the past week.

Order nuts here: http://www.badgersett.com/nuts/ordernuts.html

Check out some updated chestnut plier peeling method videos here: http://badgersettresearch.blogspot.com/2010/12/updated-chestnut-peeling-video.html

As Dad observed in a recent press release, "It sounds so simple it can seem silly- but it’s actually the difference between an easy happy experience, and yet another path to Holiday Hell."

And see our nut recipes here, including gluten-free stuffing: http://www.badgersett.com/info/recipes.html

(and a quick note about plants: we have a good supply of chestnuts and hazels for 2011 delivery still, however we are SOLD OUT of Select material, and Guaranteed XL. More than usual of our material this year is classed Experimental, since for the first time we'll be selling seedlings of Cycle 4 material. More advanced genetics, and better nut quality, but "Experimental" because we don't have the long track record we require for our EFB-guaranteed material.)

Happy Holidays from Badgersett!

Updated chestnut peeling video

We're pretty proud of the fact that we've actually invented a new way - or two new ways - to peel chestnuts.

Here's the YouTube video; this is the long version, for Method 1. We had to split the video into two pieces for You Tube, so Method 2 is separate. For those in a hurry; there's The Short Version, which has both methods and much less commentary. (Plus, I don't sing, in The Short Version, so you can escape that hazard if you wish...)

Another thing we're proud of, is that a few years ago our chestnuts were featured in a substantial article by Corby Kummer, Senior Food Editor of The Atlantic Monthly.

He liked them. Quite a lot. Corby cooked most of his in the microwave; cutting them in half (at our suggestion). If you use a microwave; be sure to use Method 1, not Method 2- the microwave heats them so fast that sometimes #2 is just not enough area to let steam out, and you may have an explosion even though they're pierced.