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Trees From Seed
Seed Collecting Report From Devon From September to November seed collecting was a priority. We were very short of volunteers, which meant that we had to concentrate on the most urgent species such as hedging plants and Sweet Chestnut. Despite this, good progress was made and 10Kg of Hawthorne was collected and approximately 600 Sweet Chestnuts (Landmatters plans to plant a North-facing field with Sweet Chestnut coppice). Many other species were also collected including: Oak, Hazel, Hornbeam, Ash, Beech, Blackthorn and Crab Apple. In late November after the first frosts (see picture below), the Holly ripened and we collected 5Kg of berries. These take rather longer to germinate than most - usually two years. Many of the trees we collected from were heavy with brilliant red berries, (see picture above). The nut-type seeds, such as acorns, chestnuts, hazelnuts etc, are planted immediately in the rodent-proof seed trays in the nursery. Where as the seeds that are contained in berries are stratified - the soft flesh is removed and they are buried in compost or sand 'till the following March (sometimes two years as in the case of Holly and Hawthorn) to breakdown the seed coat and break their dormancy.
Too often commercial nurseries and large contractors import seed from abroad - more often than not from Eastern Europe where the labour intensive job of seed collecting is poorly paid, therefore giving higher profits to the companies involved. This wide spread practice is very damaging to the intricate and complex patterns of local diversity. The conservation policy of Green Dragon's nurseries ensures that all tree seed that we collect is of local provenance (collected only from local trees).
Preparing Berries The picture above shows basic stuff required to prepare, in this case, holly berries. A flat ended log is used in a container to (gently) break the flesh away from the inner seed, pestle-and-mortar-style. The skin and flesh is then washed away with water (like panning for gold!). A sieve is very handy too. This job takes some time especially if you have any quantity of berries and requires long periods of sitting still working with cold water - recommend that you do this on a mild day! click here to view previous news or here to view the list of other news
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Green
Dragon's "Trees From Seed" scheme is about helping communities,
schools, and conservationists etc, start up their own tree planting
projects using locally collected seed. Our first large scale project
has been for the Devon based Landmatters Permaculture Co-op. Below
are some brief reports on collecting.
Local
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