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permaculture - [permaculture] Forest gardening with Eleagnus umbellata, Autumn Olive and benefits to trees interplanted with it from extra nitrogen fixation. From a nafes list discussion thread.

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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Forest gardening with Eleagnus umbellata, Autumn Olive and benefits to trees interplanted with it from extra nitrogen fixation. From a nafes list discussion thread.
  • Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:47:29 -0500


This thoroughly bears out Mark's statements about the value of wild stands of autumn olive and the need to avoid unnecessary eradication
of it in areas where it is deemed an invasive plant.
LL
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [nafex ibiblio list] Eleagnus umbellata, Autumn Olive -
interested in sources for seedlings of this plant
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:36:39 -0600
From: Hector Black <hblack1925@fastmail.fm>
To: nafex ibiblio mailing list <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>

Hello Nafexers,
Autumn olive is a subject of great interest to me so I would like to
add a couple of comments to this very interesting thread. I agree with all of you! With the qualification that I find truth in what each of have written about autumn olive.
It was back 34 or so years ago that autumn olive caught my eye because of its nitrogen fixing ability. A USDA study showed 25% additional growth in black walnuts interplanted with autumn olive against growth in a control group. I ordered fromm USDA, Michigan dept. ag, Ark. dept ag, and one other loocation, planting a couple of hundred bushes. I planted them with Chinese chestnut, black walnut, English walnut, fruit trees, pecans. After discovering that some were thorny we removed them, also those with small fruit. They didn't work well with fruit trees because of their low branching which interfered with harvesting, but were excellent with nut trees. The finest results (in terms of effect of N-fixation) was the result of planting with Chinese chestnut. These trees are normally rather shrubby, but with the autumn olive on either side in the row they grew clear 8 ft and longer clear trunks. Quite a sight now in their 30th or so year. Becoming interested in the whole family as N-fixers, I tried Shepherdia, Goumi, Sea Buckthorn, Russian olive. The degree of N-fixation seemed to vary although we had no way to test that beyond observation. It seemed autumn olive outdid all the others in N production, but in the course of investigation, I read that production of N can also vary from plant to plant in autumn olives.
We started using the fruit early on and eventually made selections
based on size, productivity, flavor and ease of picking. We had already
removed all thorny bushes and gradually removed the small and less tasty
berries. A friend boiled the berries with just enough water to get them
cooking, cooked the whole things, seeds and all to a wonderful jam with no sugar added. There is a good amount of sugar and pectin present in the berries. USDA in Beltsville asked us to ship samples of our best berries of nutritient analysis. They were so impressed by the nutrient value and amount of antho-cyanins, anti-oxidants etc. that they planted a small field with the idea of pruning them for mechanical harvest and juice making. Aside from juice, jelly and jam, we had made a wonderful fruit leather by adding applesauce to autumn olive pulp.
So yes we were pumped on autumn olive as they say and could not
understand the invasive exotic designation.. We mowed our fields at least twice a year so invasiveness was not a problem. BUT we made a planting perhaps 14 years ago on adjoining land that was not mowed or cared for and the result was a jungle. We had not noticed autumn olives invading the forest. They only appeared where trees had been blown down and sunlight reached the forest floor, and then only lasted until the forest took over again by shading them out. The jungle we tackled with back hoe which was expensive learning. Regular mowing once or twice a year is necessary in our area to prevent their taking over an open field. On the plus side, we noticed that black walnuts in particular that sprouted out of a hedge of autumn olives grew magnificently. Rapid, fast, straight with few lower branches. The soil improvement done by autumn olives is impressive.
The various letter you have sent show how important it is not to take
the experience of one region and assume it is true everywhere. Observation is key in all agricultural endeavours - well, probably in all endeavours. This is rather long, but I thoroughly enjoyed hearing all sides of this discussion.
Hector Black zone 6 middle tn
Forgot to mention it's a great bee plant, and the fragrance is
heavenly in April.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Moyer" <ramoyer@gmail.com>
To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 2:24 PM
Subject: Re: [nafex ibiblio list] Eleagnus umbellata, Autumn Olive -
interested in sources for seedlings of this plant

Lawrence, Rivka and others, Thanks for this discussion about autumn
olive. One of my earliest childhood memories is climbing a tree in
my backyard to see balled-in-burlap Bradford pears blooming, by the
hundreds, at the once venerable Fruitland Nursery. Growing up
playing in that nursery informed my imagination about what could be
grown in the SE US. In the decades since, I have seen impenetrable,
thorny, pear thickets develop on contiguous, open public land.
Eleagnus umbellata and Eleagnus pungens were planted in neat nursery
rows, the only place they occurred on thousands of nursery acres.
With my children last week, I visited other contiguous land, along
the Savannah River and Augusta Canal. What was once semi-open land
along the river has morphed into numerous, impenetrable thickets of
both of these Eleagnus, crowding out a rich diversity of native
species. Multiple other non-natives are there, but none as invasive
as these Eleagnus.

A douglas fir forest I biked in during grad school had a small
thicket of himalayan blackberry around 1985. When I returned for a
sabbatical in 2000, the forest understory was entirely taken over by
this very vigorous and thorny blackberry. Was alarmed to see this
summer a similar looking, non-native blackberry thicket, taking over
a pasture hillside. The farmer says he's mowing and spraying to
eradicate it.

For the record, I have defended on this list the planting of
wineberry, a naturalized asian raspberry that is much better behaved
than the Eleagnus above. And I have defended the planting of goumi,
another Eleagnus that Steven mentioned. And when I've promoted
edible selections of Poncirus trifoliata, someone on this list warned
about the thickets of this plant on their land in central NC;
something I'd never seen when I lived in Durham and wandered widely.
And I've posted the last couple of years about the autumn olive fruit
we pick and sell in quantity at market; the best of our selections.

I live in SW Virginia now. Though some of the conclusions are
exaggerated, see this article about the serious threat of autumn
olive to open land in this region.
http://www2.tricities.com/news/2011/sep/26/autumn-olive-strangles-agriculture-ar-1336608/

> Reasons for widespread planting of autumn olives are given here, a
practice done in the 60 and 70s. While looking for 18 months for a
farm to purchase, we passed on those overtaken with invasive plants
such as autumn olive. We did buy a farm 3.5 years ago, half open
and half wooded. Autumn olive and multiflora rose are the primary
woody plants we battle on our 30+ acres that are not easily mowed.
Regardless of slope, aspect, shale vs. limestone soils, full sun to
shade, pH or mineral differences from soil tests, autumn olive and
multiflora rose inhibit walking through significant portions of our
farmland. Sizeable plants are tough to pull or dig out, and root
pieces resprout. Where slope allows, we then mow and graze heavily.
Neighbors recommend powerful herbicides that have worked for them,
something we've not done yet. We're at 1800 ft. Since 1992 we've
watched a state-owned homestead at over 3000 ft that has been overrun
with autumn olive, from a small planting near the cemetery. The
invasion was set once the state no longer committed the funds to dig,
mow or spray the seedlings on so many acres multiple times a year.

I trust the above does not appear 'hysterical'; what I am trying to
document is the variety of locales where autumn olive, once
established, has invaded contiguous land. Though I don't recall
thickets of Eleagnus when I lived and wandered near Durham NC in the
late 80s, a Google search just found multiple pics of autumn olive
and the related E. pungens, growing on wooded edges and open areas
in Durham and Orange counties, NC. Including a thicket under a
powerline, reportedly started by birds dropping seed.

Spent most of my life as a grower in suburbia enjoying a
wide-variety of non-native fruits. Now as a farmer, and one who
teaches selective foraging on my own and adjacent lands, I give more
weight to precautions about certain exotic plants and their
unforeseen spread to lands not intensively managed by hand labor.

It could be worse, I had a student from PA who wrote about plum pox,
resulting in many homeowners having to destroy plums and related
fruits in their yards. And have read about citrus disease measures
in FL, with similar search and destroy missions carried out in
suburban yards.

Thanks for the discussion; fun to debate appropriate spread of
fruiting plants.

Grace and peace, Richard Moyer SW VA



  • [permaculture] Forest gardening with Eleagnus umbellata, Autumn Olive and benefits to trees interplanted with it from extra nitrogen fixation. From a nafes list discussion thread., Lawrence F. London, Jr., 01/12/2012

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