A new threat to woody crops.

In the news today in the New York Times; 2-4-D resistant corn has moved closer to regulatory approval- as a fruit and vegetable growers group has withdrawn their opposition.

Yes, 2-4-D will hurt your hazels, or chestnuts, or almost any other tree crop.  A modest amount will kill them- but more insidiously, tiny amounts will "hurt" your trees, resulting in lower crop production, or decreased crop quality.  Besides the effect on those aiming for organic-certified status.

Dow has "promised" to change the formulation of the 2-4-D, so it's not so volatile; and change the label on the corn, so farmers are "required" to use only the "new" formula- and apparently the Save Our Crops Coalition has decided that's good enough.

It isn't good enough- not if it's YOUR field that gets wiped out, when a local farmer decides he can't afford the new and improved formula; and just uses the old stuff sitting in the barn that his father bought in 1975.  Will that happen?  Yes it will.  The other catastrophe waiting- the "new formula"

If Dow is serious about responsible chemical use- they should be required to set up a fund to pay damages for any instances of abuse; regardless of "whose fault" it was.  Its the tree crop growers who will be ruined.  Loss of livelihood and investment is a real possibility; all that's required is some one farmer who is momentarily careless.

This is a brand new development; not sure what will happen next; my guess would be that a substantial faction of Save Our Crops will split off- and declare loudly they are NOT satisfied with label changes and untested new pesticide formulas.  You may want to keep informed.

Combined perils of climate change and increased biodiversity...

So; walking back home from the greenhouse 2 days ago- after a technically "severe" thunderstorm - quite late in the season, with 3/4" torrential rain and 1" hailstones- I very nearly walked my bare toes right into this:

This isn't the biggest snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) we've seen wandering through our woody agriculture plantings, by a good deal; but this fellow was certainly big enough to remove bare toes, if they went by within range.

We see them rarely; more often in the pond than out.  This one was apparently heading towards the pond, which is at an all time low.  Looking for water, in the drought, maybe.  I'm puzzled a bit by the smoothness of the shell; our other, bigger, snappers have usually had the typical very rough upper scutes- this one looks like it's been tumbled in a rock polisher.  Old?  Perhaps.  We didn't try to count rings on the scales (possible sometimes).

Not agressive.  But with excellent eyesight, and a strike as fast as a snake, if motivated.

We're glad to see them.  Also glad not to trip on them, barefoot.

No More Tubelings for 2012; Latest Planting Dates Updated

Hello folks, here's a final fall plant availability update. We are now (still) taking orders for the 2013 planting season. We've stopped shipping plants for 2012 delivery, a bit earlier than in the previous couple of years, because:

1) We are sold out of tubelings in a good state for late planting; what we have on hand is either too actively growing to reliably go dormant in time, or too close to dormancy to put in enough roots.

2) In the recent few years, fall planting has been overall less successful than before, and some of our growers have had very serious mortality. Most of this appears to be a result of unusual weather extremes: early freezes, excessive winter moisture and freezing farther south have contributed to direct mortality. Extended growing seasons or early warmth has also been confusing the plants and adding to transplant and seasonal-clock-reset stress.

Given these developments, we can no longer provide our survival guarantee this late in the season. Our updated latest planting dates are:

July 30 for zone 5 and colder.

August 30 for zone 6 and warmer.

In the past it has been useful to plant later in the season, both for us and our growers, so we are working on making later planting more reliable again. But for the time being, it isn't, so we want to take steps to reduce dead plants and unhappy customers!

Coming soon, some new plant categories available for the 2012 season...

Nut Predator Warning

An urgent note to all hazel growers- we're seeing increased nut theft this year, and it's accelerating.

We're talking about rodents and birds, primarily.  In all years, there will be "theft"; but this year it seems to be exceptional to us.  The nuts are disappearing.

In our experience, less experienced hazel growers tend to see hazel bushes with few nuts, and assume the bush simply never had many.  Often this is not the case- predators remove them; and very stealthily, so the gradual loss is not noticed.

As a reminder; one of the papers I submitted for my Masters was an original piece of Ethology; a summer long field study of Black Tern social behavior- I basically minored in Animal Behavior, and am a trained observer.

Which has turned out critically important on several occasions; in one, it took us weeks to discover that bluejays had deciphered our plant marking process- and were using it to harvest the best nuts, and best plants, before we actually got to them.  Sounds hard to believe; but we proved it.  Amateur observers would not have noticed the jays' behavior- it was silent, (very unlike jays) concentrated (25 jays in a flock) and limited to very early morning hours only- when humans were not in the field, because of heavy dew.

A couple of years later, our local crows started behaving similarly; though they did not need pre-marked plants; and their restriction on time in the field was even more acute- they started specifically at sunrise, and left the fields before any humans were (normally) out of bed.  I discovered this by following the rules of animal behavior research- get out and watch, until you find out- all night if necessary.

We teach numerous ways to intercept nut thieves in our Short Course; but the #1 tool is "Be Aware!" - and take action of some kind; most effectively quick harvest.  The nuts can disappear rapidly once the thieves get focused.

We think this year is exceptional because of the drought.  Corn usually abundantly available to crows is far less available, and often of poor quality- the animals are hungry, and the hazels may represent the only easy food source available for miles.

This photo was taken by Brandon, one morning a few days ago.  If Blogger is working right, you should be able to click on it and get access to the full file size.  If you zoom in- the crows become visible.

This photo is a "blow up" of the previous one, doctored with editing software to bump up contrast and sharpness; so the crows can be seen.  If you do the same to the rest of the photo- there are about 30 in this one snippet, about 100 crows in the entire picture when you count; Brandon estimated only 60...

They only flew and revealed themselves when Brandon responded to 2 watch crows, and "chased them".  Two calling crows turned into a flock of 100 hiding birds.  .

REALIZE- YOUR CROWS KNOW YOU.  They watch you.  Do you hear a crow cawing a minute or so after you step outside?  That's the "watchman", telling the others you're moving.  No, I'm not making this up, or delusional- crows are extraordinarily intelligent, as researchers have finally been documenting in the past few years.

That's one of the few good points to crows- ours know for a fact that we will shoot them if we have the least chance.  They also know we go to great lengths to sneak up on them (not easy).  When sufficiently harassed, the flock will usually decide other food is less dangerous, and quit (for a while).  They'll be back, though

We have not succeeded in training bluejays to stay away- and they become very quiet and fly furtively when stealing nuts- if you're not looking for them, you will not see them.  We have slowed them down with various techniques, and we no longer mark bushes- for them.

BE AWARE.  This is a tough year; the theft can be extensive.

Biodiversity in woody agriculture crops...

It's a basic part of the concept of woody agriculture that the biodiversity possible in a permanent hazel, or chestnut, etc., field is going to be far higher than in any row crop monoculture.  We just now had a truly spectacular demonstration of that.

While serving as the "bagger" on the hazel picking machine in the Illinois field; I suddenly saw something odd come down the chute with the hazel clusters.  "MOUSE!" my brain yelled- I'd never seen one come through with the nuts, but in fact the deer mice (Peromyscus sp.) not only climb up in the hazel bushes to eat nuts, but sometime build nests there, renovating old bird nests.

I automatically grabbed it and threw it behind the harvester- and only then did my brain register- "wings."  That was a bat - not a mouse.  A bat?  In a hazel bush- at noon?  Oh, yes.

We stopped the machine, got off and searched- I thought it likely the bat would be stunned; probably desperately hurt, going through a harvest machine is not what those tiny bones were designed for.  Brandon found it- on the ground, looking exactly like a dead leaf.

I worked with mammals in grad school- this is a male Eastern Red Bat; they're solitary, and "tree" bats, not cave bats.  They belong in the hazels; but this is the first one we've ever seen.  I've had practice handling bats, and held this one correctly; bare hands on feet, glove to keep teeth occupied.

He was stunned- but in fact I couldn't find anything broken.  He gradually got over the stun as I held him and we hurriedly took photos- who'd ever believe it, otherwise?  As he started to squirm, the hazard that those sharp needle teeth would reach my bare fingers grew, and I had no desire to discuss rabies shots with anyone- so I released him...

And he flew off.  Perfectly.  Completely unhurt.

So now in addition to the frogs doing our insect control for us- we can add resident bats.  No spray; permanent habitat.  It works.

Come and see in Minnesota this Saturday!  The hazels are ripe; we'll be running the harvester, and showing the hazels thriving- even now growing fast-  in this drought that has killed so much of the local corn.