Rogue pollen keep-out bags

 

I am trying to breed alder as a grain crop. One of my ideas is to
cross A. incana (the native alder) with A. cordata ("Italian" alder,
widely planted in municipal settings for its handsome dark green
leaves) which has much bigger cones.

To do a cross you have to keep out rogue pollen. A friend gave me
Glassine Bags, H86065, they are widely available from all sorts of
suppliers, but I bought more from r s components, who are mainly an
electronics supplier, because I already had an account with them.

I cut the catkins off and put these bags over the cones and sealed
them (the bags I have may have deteriorated in storage, the flaps
weren't very sticky, so I used Sellotape) and left them. But after
only a few days the cones poked through. The "paper" of the bags had
not turned to pulp or to mush in the rain. What seems to have happened
is that bags flapped in the wind and where the cones touched the bags,
they rubbed through.

Does anybody have any recommendations or good ideas for how to get
round this? There is still time before A cordata becomes fertile in
Northumberland.

Michael Bell

--

 



   I've grown A cordata .  Agreed the cones are larger but the seeds
they contain  are about the size and weight of dandruff.

   How is such tiny seed  ever going to be a useful or practical  "grain
crop" ?

   Janet

 




Yes, a lot of work is needed. We have plenty of tree FRUIT crops,
apples, coconuts, etc, but we have no tree GRAIN crops, by which I
mean a hard dry thing with good keeping qualities. Tree fix many times
more carbon than herbs; they put more green between the sun and the
ground than herbs, the ground beneath wheat can be quite brightly lit
whereas the ground under trees can be deep shade, and trees can put
out their leaves as soon as it's warm enough to be worthwhile, which
herbs, especially annuals, cannot do. (Some people are trying to
develop a perennial wheat) So, a possible worthwhile objective.

Have you any good ideas for my problem of how to protect the cones
from rogues pollen in wind and rain?

Michael Bell

--

 


Michael Bell;878779 Wrote:

tree FRUIT crops,

My understanding is that the most productive biomass crops in temperate
latitudes are grasses not trees.  So I don't think your argument about
the sun
collecting efficiency of a taller crop stacks up.  It can't
collect more
sunlight than there is, and a low-growing crop can do that
just as well.

We do have tree "grain" crops.  They are usually called nuts in English,
though
this is not a valid taxonomic description and many languages do
not have this
word.  Examples include pine-"nuts", chest-"nuts",
wal-"nuts", almonds. Ground
almonds are key part of mediterranean pastry
cooking, often replacing much or
all of the flour. In Corsica, or at
least in the NE part of it, chestnut flour
was the staple cooking flour
at one time.  In southern Chile, a sub-tribe of the
Mapuche people
called Pehuenche (ie, people of the pehuen - observe that "che",
same as
in che Guevara) used the "nuts" of the monkey-puzzle tree (pehuen in
Mapudungun language) as their staple, huge nuts they are too.  Acorn
flour and
beechmast has been eaten at times, too.  Coffee, cocoa and
carob are all "tree
grains" too.

I suspect that yields of tree "grains" cannot compete with grass
"grains" in
terms of yield per area, nor for convenience of harvesting.
Pinenuts, chestnuts,
almonds, cocoa, coffee, etc, are extremely
expensive in comparison to cereals.
But possibly as a side-product of
the wood, they might just be worth collecting.




--
echinosum

 



<snip>
Must agree - consider the percentage of a modern grain plant that is yield
and it is pretty high.
The straw is useful as well as the grain so very little of the plant is
wasted.
Quick to grow, high yielding, relatively low maintenance and also conducive
to crop rotation.
Allegedly in East Anglia some places can produce as many as four crops a
year (although I haven't seen this myself).

Trees take a relatively long time to come into production and the percentage
of the plant that is suitable for harvest is relatively small.

With regard to "trees can put out their leaves as soon as it's warm enough
to be worthwhile, which  herbs, especially annuals, cannot do" the OP has
obviously not noticed winter wheat, which often requires grazing back over
winter to prevent it developing too soon in the spring.
The fields are green here in Suffolk but the trees have yet to put on any
leaf.

On mature consideration, apart from the concept of condoms for trees there
is appears to be little of interest in the proposal.

Oh, I've just noticed that coconuts don't class as hard dry things with good
keeping qualities.
Whatever.

Dave R