Smarties Bar & Grill #76

Google says acorn weavil.

 

I did notice a few others after that but this particular tree seemed to have every single acorn effected.
I'll ask Farmer Paul next time I see him.
I was quite surprised to see such a variety of shapes, sizes and colours. From almost spherical to long and cylindrical. Colours from cream to dark brown and sizes from pea to large grape.

 

Thanks.
My Mirabelle plum stones never germinated btw. Just didn't get cold enough last winter to crack the shells I think.
I didn't get the chance to collect any more this summer unfortunately.

 

1/8th of an inch is about right.
I assumed the hole was how the critter got in not how it got out.

 

It’s good you have so many types or varieties. Must be a lot of genetic diversity.

There are a few oaks in Eastern Nebraska where my in laws live. If I think to ask I’ll find out if there are weevils there. Sometimes pests have a hard time surviving at the edges of their host species habitat.

I wonder how many species of weevil there are?

 

Yep. That was my initial thought as well.

 

Just read the link.
I think I might put the lid on the jam jar I've got them in just to be sure.
Interesting that the squirrels know which ones to avoid.
All our squirrels are American greys. The native red squirrels disappeared some time ago around here.

 

Try putting them in the freezer for a few months before planting. I know that works for some seeds.

 

Post pics if the jar fills up with creepy crawlers.

Any idea on why the native squirrels disappeared? Do they greys spoil the red’s nests?

 

There's an interesting story about the oaks on the farm. Apologies if I've told you before.

Between the wars the guy who owned the farm before Paul's family bought it cut down all the mature oaks on the farm and sold them.
The revenue was enough to cover the £300 he'd paid for the farm.
So the oaks we have now are the one's that were to young or too old to be worth felling back then, I wonder if you could still do that now.
There must be a hundred mature oaks in the miles and miles of hedgerows and oak is so expensive these days you might well be able to. A hundred acres at around £10,000 an acre would mean you'd need 10k each from a hundred trees to cover the land costs. If you felled them and planked them up yourself you might just do it.
One of the oldest oaks is in the pasture my motorhome is in. It is almost hollow and split down the middle. Paul has used ratchet straps to hold it together but it still produces acorns every year. 200 years to grow, 200 years to live and 200 years to die they say about oaks and this one looks like it's in its last few decades now.

 

Interesting story I don’t recall hearing before. Do you use acorns for animal feed?

 

No but we don't keep pigs.
Not sure if they are good for cattle to eat.
Paul bought a roller last year so the cows get a bit of rolled oats to go with their haylage. They went into the cowshed at the beginning of the month.

 

I think they just outcompete them. They are larger and they can eat more different types of food. The reds eat mostly pine nuts but the greys eat just about any nut.
They have disappeared in my lifetime.
I saw one in Cumbria about 4 years ago but that's the first one I've seen in years. Scotland and the islands are their last redoubt.
The greys haven't made it to France yet though and I've seen plenty of reds there recently.

 

If you ever collect some more plum stones try cracking the shells to help them along. Might work then again it might not .

 

Lexington and Concord April 19, 1775.

 

If they had been home in England there might not have been a first shot fired.

 

I have seen photos of apple seeds with the husks carefully removed and germinated in nutrient agar. They grow faster started that way. Maybe the hulls could be carefully removed on plum stones and terminated.

 

@politicalcenter how are your new additions getting along?

 

Great, they like to play together. Been thinking about making something for them to climb on. King of the Hill is a goat game.

 

Yes there is that….

 

Maybe you need a few pigs around if you have that much mast. Make free bacon! Not that bacon would do you any more good than it would me. LOL

We have a few Kune Kune pigs around now and they would love acorns I bet.

 

I did think about putting them in a freezer overnight.

 

Yeah but you were British at the time. Cricket was more popular than baseball until the civil war.

 

Paul did raise a couple of pigs a few years ago when he got two for nothing but when you have to buy feed and pay the slaughter and butchering costs it makes it too expensive to be worth the trouble.
I think he only has sheep and cattle because he isn't allowed to plough up land registered as pasture and doesn't want to change the usage after centuries of being grassland. He cares about the wildflowers etc.

 

The farm is 80% arable and 20% pasture.
Paul tells me that was always the way it was done in the past.
The 20% wasn't for raising livestock though. It was for grazing and producing hay for the farm's plough and cart horses.
Coincidentally it is estimated that if farms want to go electric in the future then 20% is the amount of land that will be needed to use for solar panels to power the electric farm machinery.