Woody Agriculture Weblog
The Future of The World Is Nuts!(TM)
|
Something for you to keep in mind, as more and more people are selling "hybrid hazels"; many of them based entirely on Badgersett genetics- is that NO ONE ELSE actually controls the genetics of what they sell. We do, and below is PART of how. In fact; seedlings from hybrid hazel populations allowed to cross randomly are going to be nearly worthless.
One of the activities we undertake here, that is not obvious, and not explained elsewhere, is "de-tasseling" the hazels, to breed them for increased EFB resistance. This is the time of year, and this is how and why-
Everywhere you see a yellow flag on a bush, there is EFB present. "EFB" is THE major disease of hazelnuts; "Eastern Filbert Blight". It is a specialized parasitic fungus, which kills European hazels rather quickly, while the North American hazel species are generally resistant to it. The hybrids, of course, may resemble either parent. Obviously, we'd rather have resistant plants than dying ones. What we do here, and have done every spring for 20 years, is remove ALL the male flowers, or "catkins" from ALL hazelnut plants that show any sign of the disease. That means all the pollen in the air comes from plants that do not show any disease- and in general, that means they are resistant to it, though inevitably some of them have just not caught it yet. However, we keep the disease levels HIGH in the plantings, and over 25 years of research, we usually find our susceptible plants infected by the age of 4 years- which is usually before they start to shed pollen.
"De-tasseling" is a word stolen from corn breeding, where to make hybrid corn, they cut off the tassels, or male flowers, of one seed line. What we do is close enough that we use the same word, which is a little less shocking than "castrating", which would be the other choice.
It means pulling tens of thousands of catkins off thousands of bushes now; many days of work, that must be done before the pollen starts to shed. And it must be done several times, since no one person can ever see all the catkins, on one particular day; lighting conditions drastically affect how easy it is to see them. Mostly the work is done in late February or early March; but it continues now- we still go out and pull missed catkins now, even though pollen shed is about half over.
It works. Our newer selection lines are quite reliably resistant or "tolerant" of the disease, as decades of careful data collection show. So reliable we guarantee they will not ever die of EFB- something NO other hazel research/grower business does, or can do. But we can; so far, no one has ever asked for replacement plants due to EFB.
Note that we do NOT guarantee they will never GET the disease; on the contrary, we expect some to show signs of EFB in every planting- but most of these should be "tolerant"; which means it's more like the plant catching a cold, instead of bubonic plague- a minor case of the sniffles, with no real effect on the plant's health or nut bearing.
We are now detasseling for 3 factors; EFB susceptibility; Big Bud Mite susceptibility, and "wildlife" quality plants. It has only been in the past 3 years that we've seen Big Bud Mites become a serious problem here; only now are we ABLE to breed for resistance. Part of what this means is that all BRC hybrid hazels we have released BEFORE 2004 have NOT been selected for Big Bud Mite resistance; therefore, many of them will indeed prove very seriously susceptible. Unfortunate, to be sure; but unavoidable in the development of a new perennial crop. Something to be aware of; this will certainly not be the last such pest problem to appear, and as the crop moves into new regions, other new pests will show up; and quite likely spread. All part of the process, and requiring careful attention to genetics, in every generation.
Last update: Sunday, March 6, 2005 at 9:22:51 AM.
