Looking for bigger seeds and flimsier cones to develop alder as a grain crop

 I have a project to develop alder (Alnus glutinosa) as a grain crop.
My reasons for this are:-

Britain cannot feed itself because half its land is too high and cold
for grain production. This is not because this land is infertile, the
tree-line is much higher than the crop line. It is because the main
grain crops originated in the Mediterranean and they are at the limit
of their range in Britain. To make use of this land we need to take a
plant which grows well in British upland conditions and breed it into
a suitable grain crop. There are many possible plants, and some sedges
show potential, but it would be a huge task to even evaluate them all.

Instead I have seized on the idea of alder because:-

* It is a tree; it can be more productive than a herb crop.
* Birds and small animals eat alder seeds and I know from many reports
and personal test that they are not harmful to man. Like other seed
crops, wheat, rice, oats, the taste lies in the preparation.
* It fixes nitrogen. Nitrate fertilisers are expensive and a big
source of CO2 production.
* It is a tree, once established it is insensitive to weather
variations.
* It is a tree, it does not need weeding and chemical weedkilling.
* The harvesting waste, chiefly cones, but also twigs, may be a useful
fuel, it comes in handy-sized pieces. The fallen leaves may also be
used as a fuel, they are plentiful.
* It is a tree,  ground does not have to prepared for it every year
nor seed sown. This saves on the CO2 output of ploughing with heavy
machinery.
* Over its commercial life (50 years?) a tree will store a lot of
carbon.
* Alnus glutinosa grows in Tunisia and Algeria, the latitude of China
and Northern India. It could be useful there in holding back erosion
on steep slopes.

But alder needs to be improved to become a grain crop. In particular
it needs bigger seeds. I spent the whole of last autumn going round
alders on Tyneside (You can't do it in the rain, it is pleasant
work.), pulling cones off trees, breaking them open by rolling and
crushing them between two plates and sieving them. I found six trees
with SIGNIFICANTLY bigger seeds. They obviously weren't the top end of
a bell-curve, they were a STEP bigger. I germinated these bigger
seeds, germination was poor, partly because of my inexperience with
this species, but partly also because many bigger seeds are
deformities or are stuffed with "cork". Nevertheless, some germinated
and produced cotyledons which were noticeably bigger than standard,
showing that they contained more food.

I grafted these seedlings onto "adult" trees on places on the branches
which should produce catkins and cones this year for fruiting next
year, but my grafting technique was poor and none of them took. I have
taken advice and I now know how to do better next year.

     (To hold such small stems together I found it best to use
     Hellermann sleeves, put over the stock end with a Hellermann
     tool. These are normally used in electronic wiring. I came
     to the belief that the usual grafting sealers contain
     fungicides and alcohol which actually kill such small green
     pieces. Vaseline seems to be the right stuff, we put it on
     baby's bottoms!)

Grafting the products of hybridisation will shorten the breeding cycle
from 7 years to 2 years.

I went to the trees which had produced the bigger seeds, covered their
cones with plastic bags to stop their neighbours from fertilising
them, and fertilised them from the other big-seed producers. I will
collect the results in the next few weeks.

Bigger seeds are one thing I want, but also I look at the cones and
think "They are too big. The tree wastes too much on them. I want
flimsier cones, although rolling and crushing the cones is fairly
efficient, I would like harvesting to be even easier." And so I would
like flimsier cones, something which can be seen just walking past.

I would also like trees with different growth habits. This could make
a big difference to harvesting methods. In this I have been lucky, I
have already found :-

* Varieties with all-cone branches, producing very many more cones.
* Varieties with almost all cones and no or very few catkins.
* A dwarf variety. What might be the harvesting use of this?
* A variety which has grown to 2.7 metres in 3 years.

It would be asking too much to ask people to break open cones and
sieve the seeds to find the biggest, though I would be grateful and
provide equipment and help to anybody who does want to do this.

What I feel I can ask is for people who walk past trees to look at
them with my needs in mind;-

CONES - Do they look different to usual?

GROWTH HABIT - Does this tree have a different shape and branch
layout?

You could tell me by phone - 0191 266 6435
You could tell me by e-mail - michael@beaverbell.co.uk
You could write to me -
     20 Cambridge Avenue
     Forest Hall
     Newcastle upon Tyne
     NE12 8AR

We could meet at an agreed place and you could take me to the tree you

have found and go to a pub after.

You could send the Ordnance Grid reference.

Thank you for reading all this!

Michael Bell





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 On 09/26/2011 08:31 AM, Michael Bell wrote:

Just out of interest, what do you expect the yield per hectare to be in
alder seed?  (Average UK wheat yields are around 8 tonnes/hectare).

I'm sure you must have eaten the seed, what does it taste like?  The
grains you name (wheat, rice, oats) all have a basically pleasant taste,
to my palate anyway.

-E

 
That's not his objective.  Average yields in the less productive
parts of the UK would probably be under a tonne per hectare, quite
possibly well under.


A good question.  I have tried goosefoot seed, and it's tolerable,
but not much better - however, the original forms of wheat wouldn't
go down well with modern tastes.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

 On Sep 26, 12:09 pm, n...@cam.ac.uk wrote:

My thought is just how would it be picked?

 In message <d25a440d-8008-43ae-87e5-2d4c22d6ed60@dm9g2000vbb.googlegro
ups.com>


As a commercial crop, with a mechanical rake. A garden rake is quite
effective as a hand tool.

Michael Bell


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