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The Web site for the organization PSA Rising -- news and support for prostrate cancer survivors -- may hold the first positive review I've read of the much maligned invasive species the autumn olive bush. According to PSA the autumn olive that turns innocent land into a stubborn tangled up mess produces berries rich in cancer-preventing antioxidants:
Ingrid Fordham, a horticulturalist at US Department of Agriculture Research service, says she learned that the brilliant-red berries were edible and turned them into jams. She noticed that the red pigment settled to the bottom of her juicer and wondered if it might be one of the carotenoids, especially lycopene, the pigment that colors tomatoes red.
Fordham's colleague, Beverly Clevidence, analyzed the berries. Her analysis showed that, ounce for ounce, the typical autumn olive berry is up to 17 times higher in lycopene than the typical raw tomato (80-90 percent of the US intake of this nutrient comes from tomatoes and tomato products).
"The red berries of autumn olive have a high carotenoid content," writes Fordham, "and particularly high levels of lycopene (30-70 mg/100g). Lycopene has powerful antioxidant properties, making it of interest for nutraceutical use."
The berries also contain high levels of vitamins A, C and E, and flavonoids and essential fatty acids. Lycopene is their main attraction, though. Lycopene, adds Clevidence, who heads ARS' Phytonutrients Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, has generated widespread interest as a possible deterrent to heart disease and cancers of the prostate, cervix and gastrointestinal tract.
If that is the case, great. Some of us out in the rural areas could be sitting on a cash cow. And all these year's we've been spraying herbicide, sawing them up, yanking them out of the ground and cursing the state's Department of Conservation for encouraging their planting decades ago.
My grandma used to make a tasty jam out of the autumn olives for breakfast biscuits. I need to get her recipe. But the berries in their raw form are not particularly good. They are tart and have a displeasing texture plus the seeds get hung in your teeth. I eat a handful every summer -- more for novelty than anything -- say, "Yep, that's an autumn olive berry, yuck" and then go back to complaining about the plant.
More interesting to me on the PSA Web site is something about farmers planting autumn olives as nurse trees for black walnuts. For a couple of years I've pondered planting walnut trees in the places where the autumn grow, not so much because I want walnuts, but because I understand the walnut has the unique ability to ward away other plant life. I've heard walnut trees become stressed when other plants converge on their territories and send out signals through their roots and the underground network of rhyzome fungus. I know just enough to be dangerous on these matters, but this underground network apparently does something that sort of poisons the ground so other trees don't grow well there.
I do know on our farm there is a row of walnut -- whether black walnut or English walnut, I can't remember -- and this row has been untended for years. Along that row only grass and maybe some blackberry seem to grow while several yards away from the row the autumn olives prosper. So I've been thinking of sawing down autumn olives, digging out the roots with a hoe and planting a few walnuts at the same site in hopes the walnuts take hold and prevent future autumn olive infestations.
Apparently, the autumn olives fix the nitrogen in the soil and that is advantageous to walnut trees, so it's a win-win.
This area definitely needs some more research.
The link to this fascinating essay on PSA Rising is here:
http://www.psa-rising.com/eatingwell/wild-foods/autumnolive.htm
Brian DeNeal grew up in the hills of southeastern Illinois and spends as much time as he can exploring the hollows, bluffs and creeks that draw tourists from throughout the Midwest. He is a staff writer for The Harrisburg Daily Register/The Eldorado Daily Journal and sits on the River to River Society board of directors. You may contact him via e-mail at the address bdeneal@ yourclearwave.com
