Going Green: Hot summer has ruined UK conkers
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Why is the 2024 World Conker Championship at risk because of the UK’s hot summer?
Going green. On the Claire Burns Show. With Repack. Supporting members in compliance and smart packaging design. Contact us today on repack.ie.
The World Conquer Championship due to take place on the 11th of October in the UK. But there is a problem because the hot summer has ruined the conquerors there. And they might have to come to us here in Ireland to avail of our beautiful horse chestnut crop. Phil Smith is with me, physicist, engineer and broadcaster. And you can find Phil at Phil of Science Online. So, Phil, they're worried about their conquerors, are they, across the way?
Yeah, the Great British Conquer Famine has finally struck. And this is possibly the most important international trade development of the year, in my opinion, because Ireland has to bail them out. And that makes me feel good for some reason. Yeah, you were right. The World Conquer Championships, if listeners weren't aware, held in Northamptonshire.
How does the shortage of quality conkers affect the competition’s rules and selection process?
And they've been struggling to find enough decent conkers. And what they really do is they have a kind of a selection of trees that they produce conkers because you can't bring your own. You have to pick from a bag of the ones that the organizers supply themselves. And you're allowed to reject three, but they're struggling to get enough of them. So forget kind of data centers, pharma or anything else. This is the the export market that Ireland has been waiting for. But you're right that there is probably something behind this more, I suppose importantly, is that Britain has just had its hottest summer on record. So its average temperature over the mean of the year was a 16.5 degrees Celsius. So there is a little bit of seriousness behind it.
So the prolonged heat, long dry periods in particular. So there is a scientific asterisk that I will put, obviously, as well, because
you see,
you know, it's not too clear to say that, OK, climate change is causing this conquer shortage
or
summer 2026. It's just that there is
a... When they have the World Conquer Championships, are they putting them like we used to on a string and hitting them against each other? And then if someone's conquer breaks, the other person is the winner. Is that... Do you know the rules?
Well,
What are the official rules of the conker‑on‑a‑string contest and why are they strictly enforced?
This is a rabbit hole that I went down. Like, well, what happens if your string gets tangled? And
they
have a rule for that. They do. So yes, there are a set of rules. It's very kind of stringently policed. If matches go over longer than five minutes, then there's kind of sudden death things that happen as well. There was even controversy like back in the day that David Jenkins supposedly had a steel replica conker, but was cleared of cheating after the investigation found no evidence. But
he had a steel conker. That's not a steel
conker.
That's
a weapon. No, it's not. He had it in his pocket and he was like, it was only there for good luck. But Reuters reported on this in 2024. It's big news. But yes, they're very serious about this kind of thing.
Do historic cheating methods like steel conkers or vinegar‑soaked nuts actually work?
And it's all around literally what's just a seed from the horse chestnut seed crop, which was actually originally historically, which is kind of fascinating, they used to use snail shells instead and that's where the name conker comes from so conk which normally
we kind of
have with a massive nose which I am unfortunately blessed with myself but conch or conk and that's where the conker came from as the name so we used to use that to buy the children used to fight with these and then eventually they came to the horse chestnuts called horse chestnuts
for
random reasons
Not chestnuts that they roast on open fires in the United States at Christmas they're completely different are they?
Yes, this is one where the science would say conkers aren't food, essentially, is what this is. This is the horse chestnut tree, essentially growing inside a green spiky fruit that drops out in the autumn. Not the same as the edible sweet chestnuts, so you're right, no open fires should be roasted with these. They contain biologically active compounds like asin and saponins, And there's like lots of really interesting chemistry inside them.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Why is the 2024 World Conker Championship at risk because of the UK’s hot summer?
0:00–0:58
2
How does the shortage of quality conkers affect the competition’s rules and selection process?
0:58–2:08
3
What are the official rules of the conker‑on‑a‑string contest and why are they strictly enforced?
2:08–2:54
4
Do historic cheating methods like steel conkers or vinegar‑soaked nuts actually work?
2:54–4:39
5
What scientific facts explain why Irish horse‑chestnut crops stay healthy while UK crops fail?
4:39–5:35
6
Could climate change and pests like the chestnut‑leaf moth threaten future conker supplies?
5:35–6:38
7
Will the World Conker Championship move to Ireland, and what does that mean for the sport?
6:38–8:06