Siberian Pines - Part 2: Seed Stratification

Siberian Pines - Part 2: Seed Stratification

In Part 1 of the Siberian Pine series, I wrote about Pinus Sibirica and its value within the Northern permaculture ecosystem.

In this installment I will be writing about how I prepared the seeds for germination.

If you spend any time on the internet looking for information about growing pine nut trees, you will quickly discover that many of these species require some form of cold stratification to mature the seed kernels and trigger germination.

If you research stratification for Pinus Sibirica in particular, you are likely to find all sorts of weird, wonderful, and often conflicting information about how to do this.

So I decided to document the process I followed, in the hope that others may benefit from my success or failure.

I received 200 seeds in the middle of March.

I had contacted the supplier with some concerns that there would not be enough cold stratification time to be able to plant the seedlings in June. They informed me that from their experience only 1 month of cold stratification is needed, and they usually don't even bother with that. Without any seed treatment the supplier reported they get roughly a 50% germination rate.

The seeds came with instructions about how to cold stratify them, but they were a little vague, and of course conflicted with the other online info.

My conclusion from this research is that the cold stratification protocol is a reasonably flexible one, and it usually starts with soaking the seeds, which I did using filtered water. I also decided to ignore the warm stratification advocated by the likes of Rhora's because the majority of stratification protocols I found for Pinus Sibirica did not mention it.

During my research I read something about the seeds that sink during the soaking process being more viable than the seeds that float. I also immediately noticed that when I poured the seeds into the water, they all floated. Not a great start...

My research also suggested soaking times ranging from hours to days. I decided to soak them for 8 hours and see how things progressed.

8 hours later maybe 5 seeds had sunk to the bottom of the container, and the water was stained brown from the pine residue / resin. So I drained the water off, let the seeds sit for half an hour or so, and then put them back on to soak overnight in fresh water.

The next morning a few more had sunk, and so I repeated the process from the day before - letting them sit for half an hour, and then soaking them in fresh clean water for another 8 to 12 hours. 

My thinking around the seeds sinking is that as the seed coating absorbs water and it infiltrates the seed, the seed becomes heavier, and therefore sinks. Seeds that don't absorb water probably stay dormant which is why there is a lower germination rate. Anyway, time will tell and we shall see...

36 hours after putting the seeds into soak and roughly half of my seeds have sunk to the bottom of the container. It's beginning to appear that all the floating seeds at the beginning was a false alarm.

3 days soaking in water, and changing it every 8-12 hours and my seeds are ready for cold stratification. 156 seeds had sunk to the bottom, leaving 44 floaters which is roughly 25%.

I chose perlite to stratify the seeds in simply because I happen to have some handy.

I decided to perform two different cold stratification protocols to see which one is better. And I kept the floating seeds separate from the sunken seeds to see if they responded differently.

The first one will be my control, where half the seeds are placed in a plastic bag with vermiculite and simply placed in the refrigerator for 10 weeks.

The remaining seeds were placed in a different bag containing vermiculite, and will be subjected to the following:

• 2 weeks in the refrigerator 
• 2 weeks in the freezer
• 4 weeks alternating between the refrigerator and freezer every other day
• 2 weeks in the refrigerator 

What I am attempting to do is replicate the freeze / thaw cycle that these seeds would naturally experience as spring arrives. Anyone who has made maple syrup knows that this time of the year is when the first signs of life get kicked into gear as the phase transition cycle drives the sap out of the roots and into the upper branches of the trees.

This phase transition cycle of water inside the seed will also create a slow pulsing pressure upon the outer shell from the inside. As the moisture inside the seed freezes, it expands pushing out upon the seed casing. Then as it thaws it contracts, releasing the pressure, and drawing a little more moisture into the seed via capillary action. As this cycle repeats, I think that it will weaken the tough outer casing so that the seedling may successfully emerge.

This research study from 1925 on white pine seeds indicates that this protocol might indeed prove effective at increasing germination rates.

Siberian Pines

Siberian Pines

This year I decided it was time to grow some pine nut trees. But there is a challenge involved in growing these delicious nuts in the North. The pine nuts we know that are used in things like pesto, do not grow in our climate and is more suited to the Mediterranean and North Africa.

But there are alternatives, and they all happen to be very close relatives of White Pine. For example the Swiss Stone Pine, the Korean Pine, and the Siberian Pine.

I decided on the Siberian pine (Pinus Sibirica) or Russian Cedar for a number of reasons.

Firstly, their native habitat is the boreal forest (called the taiga) and so both the climate, soil, and ecosystem is very close to Northern Ontario.


Secondly, these trees produce thin shelled pine nuts which makes them easier to process.

And finally, Pinus Sibirica seeds are easier to germinate than the notoriously difficult Korean Pine.

But before I get into my experience raising these trees, let me explain why I think they are a great addition to a Northern permaculture landscape.

These trees are big. Like 100 ft tall at maturity big. Not a lot of trees around here do that, and so they will likely make great shelter barriers from the cold winter winds; creating small warm micro-climates in the landscape.

The Economics

These trees live for about 800 years although the typical forest age currently is around 400 years. 

Each tree produces on average 5 Kg of pine nuts every year (up to 10 Kg in a mast year). 
At the current price of $75 per Kg, a tree can produce an annual income of $350 per tree once you factor in squirrels, "processing slippage", and the odd bad year.

Now consider a shelter belt of 100 trees and let the math sink in. That is a $35,000 per year income for maybe 1 month worth of work harvesting and processing. Every year for 500 years (Allowing for old age retirement, tree losses due to disease, fire and natural attrition).

That is an income lasting half a dozen lifetimes, or a dozen generations. Such a shelter belt would have the potential to generate $17.5 million in pine nuts alone. Not to mention the other benefits these trees have in the ecosystem.

OK enough of the boring numbers. Needless to say, these trees pay the bills.

The tree is seriously hardy. It even grows in permafrost. And its resin doesn't crystallize quickly as common pines do. In its native land, this resin is a natural resource useful for many different applications that I won't go into here.

The Nuts n' Bolts

Pine nuts are generally ready for harvest about 10 days before the green cones begin to open. And in the case of Pinus Sibirica, the cones never actually open which makes determining ripeness difficult. 

In its native habitat there is a bird called a spotted nutcracker is responsible for extracting the nuts from the cone and dispersing them. The spotted nutcracker doesn't live in North America, but the Clarke's nutcracker does. It may be a good indicator species for nut ripeness but alas, they don't range into Northern Ontario.

This little guy is a Red Breasted Nuthatch, and they do migrate into Northern Ontario. They also happen to be great eaters of conifer seeds. Maybe, just maybe a flock of these descending upon your pine nut trees to feast could be subtle sign that it's time to harvest.




Another possible indicator bird is the Pine Grosbeak.

The cones are harvested with either long poles (often bamboo), long-handled pruners, or long-handled saws which knock the cones down.

The harvested cones are placed in a breathable bag and then exposed to heat / left in a sunny, sheltered position for 3 weeks. The drying process causes the cone to fully ripen, and at this point they can be broken apart to extract the seeds. This is generally done with a mechanical threshing machine to save time and labor.

Now I'm wondering if these little guys might be eager workers we can recruit to harvest the pine cones. They naturally chew through pine cone stems to detach them from the tree. They then collect the fallen pine cones and stash them away in a safe spot for future use.

It will be an interesting experiment to see if they will harvest and store pine cones if they are provided with a convenient storage space, and the cones they collect are replaced with another food source, like peanuts in the shell.

Efficiencies in the Barn

Efficiencies in the Barn

I was born and grew up in New Zealand, where animals eat grass / hay, and live outside year round as a matter of course.

Moving to Canada, it struck me as an incredible amount of work, albeit necessary work, having to move livestock indoors for the better part of 6 months and tend to their every whim.

I was also left with the lingering question over who exactly worked for who on the Canadian farm...

Surely, if we look at the whole animal housing landscape through permaculture lenses, we will discover innovative ways to care for livestock during the winter months. Ways that are energy conservative, lighten the burden on the farmer, and do so with respect to the welfare of the animals.

It turns out that livestock may not need to be housed quite as long as traditionally thought. Cows are capable of finding forage under snow, which means not only less heating costs, but also less feed storage, and the work required to make hay, muck out, etc.
Researchers at the University of Guelph conducted some research on this and came back with some interesting findings. Even though the cattle lost weight over the winter, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

The advantages of putting the cows outside during the day include access to clean air, sunlight, and exercise. These factors influence the efficiency of immune systems, lymphatic systems, and general cardiovascular performance.

Selecting breeds more suited to this kind of lifestyle may reduce the direct output of the herd (in terms of milk etc), however when the overall energy audit of the system is conducted, the reduced output is more than compensated for by the reduced energy inputs.

Another approach to increasing efficiency in the barn is to have the livestock perform work that the farmer would otherwise do with machinery or simple hard labor.

An example of this is what is termed pig aeration. In a typical barn, cow manure builds up during the winter and the compacted mass off manure and bedding must be removed in the spring time.

Pig aeration involves adding more carbon to the bedding than is traditional so that the correct Carbon:Nitrogen ratio (30:1) is achieved for making compost. Corn is intermittently dispersed over the bedding as it build up and it sits there slowly fermenting until spring.

When the cows are moved out, pigs are moved in, and they dig up the compacted bedding in search of the fermented corn which they seem to think is candy. As they turn the bedding, they introduce air, and the composting process accelerates.

By the time the pigs are done, they have put on a significant about of weight, the bedding is nicely composted, easy to extract, and ready to be used for fertiliser.

An Ontario farmer is reportedly using long stem barley for the same purpose. I doubt there is such a thing as a long stem barley, so I suspect that it is in fact a heritage wheat. Anyway, he simply cuts the cereal, bales it, stores it with the heads on, and uses it as required for the bedding. The pigs then go in after the grain and aerate the bedding.

It takes 10 weaners a month to aerate 200 sq feet of bedding that is 3ft thick, and during this time they get no other feed.

A final thought I will leave you with is the possibility of using chickens to turn bedding or compost. Chickens love to scratch, and when they work bedding over, they push it all downhill, rather than in a random fashion as one would assume. They do this even when the floor is only a little off level, which means that they might be a useful cleaning crew in the barn.

Lean Ag Start-Ups

Lean Ag Start-Ups

Is it possible to apply the business models that tech industry embraces in the Silicon Valley start-up community?

What are these models anyway?

Basically, lean start-ups apply a circular process to their venture. 

The process starts with ideas, followed by the act of building results in the form of a product (or service), the performance of which is measured, and the data used to learn various facets about how successful the product is in the market.

The business owner hopefully comes away with some new ideas for improvement, which are then applied and the cycle repeats.

Lean start-ups are also characterized by a "fail fast" ethos, which translated into more meaningful English, means to commit as little energy as possible to investigate the viability of a venture in such a way that it's success or failure can be quickly determined.

But agriculture businesses are typically capital intensive activities. The land is expensive, as is much of the machinery needed to effectively farm the large acreage needed to extract profitability from low margin / high volume commodity products. 

I have previously talked about the option of leasing land, which is a way to drastically reduce capitalization costs and subsequent debt loads.

But I have not yet discussed the issue of machinery and infrastructure costs and how they can be largely mitigated.

If a square meter of land can be utilized in such a way that the productivity is doubled, or even tripled, then the space required to generate a viable agricultural business reduces accordingly. With less land required, less machinery and infrastructure is also necessary.

So how small can you really shrink an operation and yet remain economically viable? You might be surprised to discover that it's smaller then you think...

Curtis Stone started Green City Acres in Kelowna with only $8,000 and turned a profit of $20,000 in his first year.

His business is now generating $100,000 per acre of land due to his lean approach to market gardening.

Curtis uses a system called SPIN (Small Plot INtensive) and applies it to an urban setting where people let him convert their backyards to productive vegetable gardens in return for some of his produce.

He doesn't own the land, and the land comes with infrastructure such as water supply and electricity.

You can follow Curtis on Youtube where he publishes tips, updates, and how-to videos.

Jean-Martin Fortier is another Canadian doing exceptional things with small areas of land.

He also uses an intensive growing system in his market garden and generates revenues similar to Curtis.

Jean-Martin is currently engaged in a very interesting project called La Ferme des Quatre-Temps. This is a project attempting to demonstrate how farms of the future might operate by blending modern technology with models developed from nature.

Jean-Martin is known for his ability to produce industrial quantities of produce without the industrial equipment (and associated price tag).