Two weeks ago we were harvesting acorns. Due to the lack of rain we could not collect them from Sierra Lujar, as there were none. So we have collected acorns from three giant holm oaks on private properties in La Taha, which have irrigation ditches or receive water because they are close to irrigated fruit trees. This has helped the production of acorns in these holm oaks. We have harvested a total of 83 kg of clean seed. That is 25,500 acorns.
Each holm oak had an acorn size: there are small acorns of 2.6 grs, medium acorns of 3.6 grs and larger acorns of 6.5 grs. What we have noticed is that this year the acorns are smaller than last year.
These represent 70% of the holm oak acorns we need for this year.
To these we are going to add those of kermes oak and quercus faginea, which as it has not rained and there are none, we cannot harvest, and which we will buy from the companies Cantueso and Semillas Silvestres from Córdoba.
Even with all this, we still need to harvest 10,000 or 15,000 acorns, which we will do in the next few days.
After harvesting, we have taken them to the SeedLab to clean them: we have removed the leaves, the dome, discarded those that float, those with worms….
Once selected, they have been dried in our seed dryer.
And after drying, they have been bagged and stored in refrigerators with specific programmes and temperatures for their preservation. Now, we are waiting for the time to sow them!