Tj Jefferson

Ryan, super interested in your results. I have heard you can make it from freshwater fish as well, which we have in abundance.

I'm basing it on this recipe at 3:1 fish to salt. I am using Sea-90 for the salt.

My setup is a five gallon food grade bucket with a spigot installed on the bottom. I haven't gotten any fish yet this year, so I am thinking about the lid situation. I'm thinking Omega lid with a hardwood circle for the weights underneath. I'm going to use river rocks as weights. Unfortunately you don't get a result for a year, but it is worth trying at least once. Hopefully my wife doesn't see the bucket back there, some other "experiments" turned out a little pungent!

I give this supplier 2 out of 10 acorns.

Website is slick, it is a big production.
Prices are generally high for small landscape plants. Sometimes they will have a deal on a package that might look worth it.
Delivery is whenever they are shipping to your USDA zone, which is much later than I usually plant.

The big problem is the stock.
Quality is poor. I ordered some hawthorn and crabapple, and both were visibly diseased. The plant inspection must be cursory. The hawthorn was not a hawthorn. It appears to be a pear. The crabapple suffered 50% mortality immediately because the roots were moldy.
My big beef is the "thornless honeylocust" had visible large thorns on delivery. How they screwed that up is beyond me. I had only a few that had small or absent thorns out of 10. Some plants in the family will make thorns under browsing pressure, but these came installed.

I will not order from them again.

 
Summary
 
This is a review for Arbor Day Foundation. This is a nursery in Nebraska City, Nebraska. They supply a variety of bareroot trees.
 
Where to get it?
 
https://www.arbordayfarm.org/index.cfm
 

Related Threads
 
https://permies.com/wiki/seed-reviews - Seed review Wiki
 

I give this supplier 8 out of 10 acorns.

I ordered several bulk seeds, germination was good. They were shipped promptly. The instructions included were much better than some suppliers, this was a strong point. Website is slow for my, but that is most websites. This was definitely organized in a way that I thought was helpful.

The trees and shrubs had average mortality for me. I reserve higher ratings for suppliers that really have above average survival. I have nothing actually negative about my interactions. I have ordered multiple times, so obviously I find them valuable.

Constantinos Avgeris wrote:

Has anyone ordered from the Arbor Day Foundation?

My lowest possible recommendation. I ordered thornless honey locust and they had massive tire poppers. Other species were incorrect. Poor rooting. Cannot say enough to not recommend them.

Are they on the wiki? They should be... I'll try to do something if they aren't.

I agree with what Mike said. Organic certification is not nearly as stringent as people think, now that it is a federal program.

There are some really great small nurseries that have great products. I order from the big boys if there is something I just can't seem to find, but there are some gems. I've had much better success with them than Jungs or Starks. Plants clearly grown in vibrant soil.

Check out the supplier Wiki.

I have some favorites, and others have given input as well.

Nate, I have a whole bunch planted. The nuts are too small to be commercial.

Lets shift gears. Harvesting the nuts is almost certainly a barrier. Essentially to do it commercially you need to monocrop as near as I can tell. You can intercrop in the alleys but the harvesting machines cant pick every fourth tree.

If you are not monocropping, then getting the nutrition from the nuts into you becomes the issue. I have one current strategy, which is eating squirrels and turkeys. They convert the fat and protein maybe 30%. Same with pigs. I would rather have 30% of an intercrop than 100% of a monocrop with much larger inputs. And the squirrels are always available, so no need to store them in a fridge. I have thought about installing buckets and seeing if they will harvest them for me. The benefit is that you don't need Rocher-approved varieties, just any native hazels will do. So go find some and plant the nuts. You may be able to get them from the state forestry, I pay around 50 cents per.

Pigs can convert a wide range of nuts, I have chinese chestnuts, chinqapin, oaks, and honeylocust. They can really eat a lot in the fall. Then they are delicious and marketable. On 30 acres you could raise a lot of animals, and pastured pork is a premium product. I looked at raising the nuts and found out it was not going to be successful, and I am operating on 10 (maybe 30 soon) acres. In a part of the country much better for hazels.

Michael,

This is a maybe answer, but I would say the visible manure should be gone and worked in, then the clock starts. For heavy manuring, you probably need a year. I can still see visible manure if the mulch is thick before than frame, but it depends on the rate of decompostition and incorporation. Super vibrant composting will shrink that, and would probably be like humanure rules.

It could be mold or fungal reaction, in which case this is a byproduct of decomposition regardless of chickens, or it could be ammonia, in which case dilution in chips should be the answer and quickly resolve.

I think he was working with Badgersett, but from one of the posters on here, they are not ready for primetime. They may have excellent genetics, but their business practice needs a complete overhaul. I think Todd Parr had a nightmare with them. Where did he go, he used to be a very good resource.

https://permies.com/wiki/74747/Badgersett-Research-Farm-USA

I would think sand badge level tasks might also include repurposing or improving something. So instead of having a bunch of new stuff you might for instance end up with a repair/resharpening of shovels, picks, or other tools for a cold project. Just thinking hammer<grinder<lathe/press in terms of advanced skill. Hot project might include making angled pipe from straight pipe for a tunnel or other frame. Less advanced hot project would be welding a broadfork out of a pitchfork. More advanced might be replacing the pinions or attachment points on your excavation gear for hot.

These are tasks I am having to learn, and once you have the skill developed a little on a small project,you are more comfortable using the tool in an integrated project.  And you learn when you really "need" another piece of kit versus just MacGuyvering something with your existing setup.