OAKS FOR DRINKERS

The Old Woman of Beare, in Brendan Kennelly's translation asked

The Old Woman of Beare, in Brendan Kennelly's translation asked

Does not every season prove

That the acorn hits the ground?

But it wasn't forestry that occupied her mind, as you know. For some reason it comes to mind on reading of a bold scheme by the French National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA). Already they have sown the seeds of 250,000 acorns and plan to track the life cycle of oak trees and their genetic diversity in four plantations - over the next 250 years.

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Oaks, says an article in the New Scientist, are economically and biologically very important in France. In 1996, sales of oak timber in France alone, reached almost £100 million. Alexis Ducousso, a genetecist at the Institute says that in spite of the importance of the tree, they still have much to learn. Starting in 1986, they collected acorns of the two main oaks, the sessile (our national tree, it was decided), officially quercus petraea and the pedunculate oak or quercus robur.

And, mark this, they collected the seeds from 130 forests throughout Europe as far east as Armenia. After germination, the seedlings were transplanted to four locations in France. They are divided into 115 stands of sessile oak and seven stands of pedunculate. They cover 140 hectares and will mature, says the article in about fifteen years. There is an eastwest split arising from the time when glaciers covering Europe melted. Only southern regions of Spain, Italy and the Balkans escaped. After the ice, claims this article, both species expanded north at an average rate of 500 metres per year. Jays, each ing acorns several kilometres from the original tree. (Some claim!) And, no doubt humans doing the same.

So most of our oaks may be originally from Spain? And the oaks of the east come from the Balkans. Is there not a nice point in the fact that one of the studies researchers are already working on is concerned with wine and brandy. For the researchers are looking for genes that control the production of a certain form of tannic acid found only in sessile oaks. It gives wine and cognac an "oaky" flavour, which is apparently much prized. Up to now foresters, when harvesting wood for barrels, do not distinguish between the two oak species. Now they know.

Arthur Reynolds sent on this article from New Scientist. The Old Woman of Beare is from The Penguin Book of Irish Verse, edited by Kennelly himself.