permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@bellsouth.net>]

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