A recent YouTube video from Kew came to my attention this week. All about our mistletoe, Viscum album, detailing its biology and growth and propagation, plus its biodiversity and some stuff on traditions and legends. All very very (almost suspiciously!) similar (even the title) to the words and phrasing I’ve used in talks and articles over the years. But generally a great video (did I mention it was familiar?). Even covering Viscum minimum on fleshy […]
Biodiversity , Blogroll , Current Affairs , insects , Mistletoe , Orchard , Science
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More mistletoe = more biodiversity (especially bunny rabbits)
Can mere mistletoe presence increase biodiversity on the ground below? That seems an odd concept but, actually, studies over several years on mistletoes in warmer countries, and particularly on Australian mistletoes, have shown this to be the case. The impacts are mainly to do with nutrient-enriched leaf litter under the infected host tree, which alter local vegetation on the ground and increase faunal diversity within that litter. It can be so significant that such mistletoes […]
auctions , berries , Biodiversity , Blogroll , Current Affairs , Food and Drink , insects , Mistletoe , Orchard , Science
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Invasive fruit-flies overwinter in mistletoe, with implications for fruit…
The dependent insect fauna of our mistletoe, Viscum album, gradually changes with time. The mistletoe-dependent weevil Ixapion variegatum was unknown in Britain until 2000, and the mistletoe sap-sucker Hypseloecus visci unknown here until 2003. And there many other insects that use mistletoe, as well as those specialists. These broader species also change with time and one, an invasive species of fruitfly, has come in for special attention recently. Studies have shown how widespread it now […]
auctions , Biodiversity , Blogroll , Current Affairs , druids , Food and Drink , Gardening , Mistletoe , Mistletoe Day , Orchard , Religion , social history , Tenbury Wells
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Mistletoe in Parliament
A recent query (in connection with this) about how we got Parliament’s approval for National Mistletoe Day in 2005, and a subsequent search for the relevant references, got me looking at mistletoe in parliament in general. Does it get mentioned often? And in what sort of context? The answer to ‘how often’ is ‘not very’. But the answer to type of context is ‘very variable’ as a search through Hansard, Parliament’s formal record (and allied […]
berries , Biodiversity , birds , Blogroll , Current Affairs , Mistle Thrush , MistleGO , Mistletoe , Orchard , Science , social history , surveying mistletoe
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MistleGO! A new mistletoe survey launched!
A brand new mistletoe survey has just been launched by the Tree Council and Oxford University, as an app-based citizen science project to assess the state of mistletoe in Britain. Not just where is it, but what quantities exist. This is new, and exciting, as it will help determine what is happening with mistletoe here -it seems to be spreading more and faster, but we need a new study to assess this, and to create […]
Blogroll , Current Affairs , Mistletoe , Orchard
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Return to Pentwyn, to see mistletoe plantings
A visit to the small orchard at Gwent Wildlife Trust’s Pentwyn Farm Nature Reserve, in Gwent, almost but not quite in the Wye valley (and not to be confused with Radnorshire Wildlife Trust’s Pentwyn Farm Nature Reserve in Radnorshire). Way back in February 2011 I led a mistletoe workshop here, during which we planted mistletoe seeds, from ripe berries, on some of the trees – that’s nearly 13 years ago now, so I wanted to […]
berries , Biodiversity , Food and Drink , Media , Mistletoe , Orchard
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Mistletoe Management on BBC Countryfile
We got a good 6 minutes on mistletoe management in neglected orchards on BBC Countryfile’s Christmas programme this year. The location at Moreton Valence, very close to me in Gloucestershire, was a rather neglected apple orchard which has far too much mistletoe in it, the normal balance from regular management having been lost some years, possibly decades, ago. Countryfile’s Adam Henson, a Gloucestershire farmer himself, joined me and my Gloucestershire Orchard Trust colleague Tim Andrews […]
auctions , berries , Biodiversity , Blogroll , Current Affairs , Mistle Thrush , Mistletoe , Orchard , Science , social history , Tenbury Wells
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The ‘return’ of the kissing tradition (says the BBC)
A fairly thorough mistletoe feature on prime time TV this week – 4 minutes of it on The One Show on BBC One on 8th December. Richie Anderson, the voice of travel news on BBC R2, but more notorious this year as a flamboyant Strictly Come Dancing contestant, spent a day in north Worcestershire visiting the mistletoe-laden apple orchards at Commonwood Farm and the wholesale mistletoe auctions in Tenbury Wells. The final edit must have […]
Blogroll , Mistletoe , Orchard
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Wotta Lotta Mistletoe
Car included to give scale. That really is a lot of mistletoe! Some as big as the car. On poplars in Church Lane, Bentham, between Brockworth and Shurdingon on the A46 in Gloucestershire. It’s a location I’ve been to many times before, but this year those mistletoe growths really do look massive. And unsustainable – at least some will probably break off in winter storms. I was in the area today to look at the […]
berries , Biodiversity , birds , Blogroll , Current Affairs , Mistletoe , Orchard , social history
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Mistletoe at Longney, plus a wannabe Road Runner pheasant
A quick wander round the orchards at Longney, south of Gloucester, today. These are the orchards managed by the Gloucestershire Orchard Trust – two old surviving orchards, called Long Tyning and Bollow and two newly planted orchards called, less excitingly, Middle and Lower. All adjoining the upper reaches of the tidal Severn. Today was primarily to see how the mistletoe there is faring – and what management might be needed this winter. Beautiful weather, unseasonably […]