A diary of news, happenings, plants and people in the Living Field year.

Latest ...

The community garden remains open to visitors all year. Note that Weekly observatory nights at the Living Field garden (every Tuesday at 7 pm) have been suspended due to storm damage to the observatory. Check the Dundee Astronomical Society web site dundeeastro.com/ late afternoon on the Tuesday for updates.

Trees in stained glass

The croplands remain warm in early January. Despite the cold this time last year, the met records will show 2011 will join six other recent years in the top-ten warmest of the last 100 years. The great trees of the lowlands continue to be displayed in the turbulent yellows and greys of the late afternoon light. But on 8 January, something happened - by four in the afternoon, the high sky was crossed with huge bands of deep pink and blue converging towards the north west, then ten to fifteen minutes later, as the sun sank quickly, the  skeletons of the trees framed the light in a blaze of gold, red and deep blue. A free show for anyone outdoors.

Photographs around 16.14 on 8 January 2012 of the setting sun though trees in east Perthshire, arranged in a three-part panel (Squire/Living Field collection).

Mediterranean

..... the man exclaimed, as he climbed the path from a stony Angus beach in the 10-degree heat of late December.  Well, you know what he meant by 'mediterranean' - that the  temperature was unseasonally warm, reaching double figures during the middle of the day, and especially warm compared to the minus-ten or lower of the same time last year. The evening skies are yellow and grey this December, turbulent, changing by the minute - not the predictable red and blue layering of last winter. The evening in winter, whether cool or colder, back-lights the great trees of the croplands - the oak, beech, elm, ash and sycamore. Their massive and delicate architecture is exposed, designed to hold a huge surface for capturing the sun's energy in summer. Almost everywhere, the fine tracery of this surface contrasts with the vertical frameworks and cylinders made to carry and store fossil power.

The images above, taken from a moving car on 25 December 2011, a little before sunset, show aspects of trees in the coastal landscape (Living Field collection).

End of day, end of year

The days leading up to the winter solstice were cold this year, the young crops and old stubble frozen in a thin layer of soily concrete. Temperatures hovered around zero. Thin patchy ice settled on the ponds. The image below was taken 18 December 2011, three days before the solstice, looking south east just after sunset. This disused, choked millpond was re-sculpted by the farm and stocked with local plants by the Living Field. Duck and snipe live here. The green shoots rising through the ice, bottom right and top left, are Veronica beccabunga, water purpit or brooklime. The reflected trees are growing behind the top of the far bank.

Windfall

The storm on 8 December 2011 brought down trees throughout the region. The force was strong enough to fracture some of them near the base, wrenching and splintering huge trunks before they fell - leaving the base and roots intact, but bringing a sudden end to 150 years or more of unbroken growth. Fallen trees are an opportunity, for other plants and for timber merchants. You can also read some of the tree's history in the cross-cut trunk.

The section through the fallen tree in the top left image above (Living Field collection) is just less than one metre across. The inner, darker heartwood is well differentiated from the outer, younger layers of sapwood. The sapwood is fractured across the top of the image and has been removed completely from the top right corner. Simple image processing (top right and lower) shows a healthy centre to the tree and, on the darker heart wood, the cuts of the chain saw across the annual rings. The 'star' formation at the centre is a remnant of young branches when the tree was a sapling. After ten years out from the centre, the branches start to disappear as they either died or grew upwards out of the plane of this cross-section.

Golden fibre

After food and drink, the plant products that have been most useful to people and most important in trade are the natural fibres. Flax, nettle and hemp are plants that have yielded useful materials in the north-east Atlantic croplands for millenia, but imported fibre, notably jute from India, rather than home-grown fibre, has been the main raw material for major industries here. Jute products are still common in the shops today, as are things made from other imported natural plant fibres including cotton, linen, sisal, coir and manila.

The exhibition From Carriers to Coffins - Jute in the 21st Century at the Verdant Works, Dundee, which ended on 2 December 2011, displayed the many innovative products now  made locally from imported jute fibre. The photographs above show, bottom right anticlockwise, 'raw' jute fibre, woven cloth, a sample of chair-covering made from jute and dress and coat with trimmings all made from jute (taken at the exhibition and museum). For more information on natural fibres, check the soon-to-go-live 'fibres' page on the 5000 years project.

Waters - new Living Field project

High rainfall brings problems for cropland - waterlogged soil, erosion, transfer of pollutants to waters - but most of our crops in most years will still not reach their highest yield because of shortage of water in summer. Good management of soil is crucial if enough rain-water is to be stored in soil, and the excess released slowly to avoid erosion and pollution. Good management is also needed to make the waterways fed by the croplands clear and unclogged, as was the burn shown below, on 26 November 2011, reflecting from its surface the shapes of trees on the bank.

So the Living Field is pleased to record that it has been awarded funds for a project on water with emphasis on the storage and movement of water in soil, crops and food. The money will come from the Centre of Expertise in Waters CREW, funded by the Scottish Government. The work will produce guides for education and the public on the water-cycle in agriculture and the water moved around the world in traded commodities. All material will be freely available through web pages and as downloads (or hard copies on request). We are also planning a display on the water-cycle based in the Living Field garden during 2012.

Late autumn leaf

Late autumn in the croplands. Leaves have gone from most of the broadleaf trees and shrubs, but elm and hazel, both common in field hedges and as small trees, keep leaf for a time, specially on longer shoots that haven't been cut, as do a few less common species. Hedged beech is the only broadleaf  to hold its leaf until spring. The weather this autumn created background shades of mostly golden yellow and brown rather than red. Fungi and insects continue to draw intricate and infinitely variable patterns, no two leaves alike.

The leaves in the photographs above, taken 20 November 2011, are from (left to right) elm  Ulmus species, wild service tree Sorbus torminalis and hornbeam Carpinus betulus. Despite the loss of most mature elm, various species and hybrids are common in hedges. The service tree and hornbeam are also both native to Britain, but this far north, any specimens are most likely planted.

Food web fibres

The fabulous Verdant Works in Dundee has a free exhibition From Carriers to Coffins - Jute in the 21st Century which ends on 2 December 2011, so there's just over three weeks left in which to experience it. Much more than musty old sacking, jute, a plant fibre, is having a renaissance as designer ware, conscience pleasing carrier bags and a biodegradable last resting place for a person or pet, cosy when the time comes. Lots of ideas, innovation, small manufactures and surprising colours. The versatile jute is a plant that gets converted directly into useful fibrous material, but the botanical sources of some other familiar fibres have to get eaten by something before they are any use. Mulberry leaves - silkworms - silk / seaweeds - sheep - wool: simple food webs, quality fabrics, specially if craft-woven. 

The photographs show from top left, clockwise: silkworm cocoon made by a larva fed on mulberry, from a craft weaver in Laos; fragment of matted fleece shed by a North Ronaldsay sheep that ate red and brown seaweed; part of a rug, woven on Orkney from North Ronaldsay wool with a linen (flax) warp; and silk dress fabric, handloom woven in Laos. All photographs Living Field/Squire. More info on these food web fabrics, a well as jute, hemp, cotton, linen and manila, will be available later in November on the fibres pages of 5000 years.

Orange fruits of the sea-buckthorn

A few decades ago, researchers planted a small grove of  sea-buckthorn on the Institute's farm at Invergowrie. The plants have continued to flower and fruit, showing large variation between individuals in relative vegetative growth and fruit bearing. In the photograph above, of a high fruit-bearer, taken 27 October 2011, each orange berry is 10-15 mm across. Extracts from plants of the sea-buckthorn genus are used commercially in herbal products. The berries also give a unique, delicious flavouring to ice cream and cheesecake. Photographs - Living Field collection.

Fine braw thistle