NOTES FROM AN EXPERIMENTAL NUT ORCHARD
Willard G. Bixby, Baldwin, N. Y.
For several years the association has been advocating the planting of experimental nut orchards, and ever since I heard of this suggestion I have been desirous of having one and being able to contribute information to our knowledge of nut growing. Therefore since 1917 I have been assembling at Baldwin material which I hoped would aid in this. At the Rochester meeting some of the results were noted, and this year, I trust, something presented will prove of interest.
CHESTNUTS—Last year I expressed the belief that by carefully watching chestnut trees and cutting out the blight as soon as it appeared it should be possible to grow and fruit almost any variety in the blight area. This I have done with every variety that I have, but that is about all, apparently, that it is possible to do, for nearly all of my trees have been badly attacked by the blight at the crown; that is at the junction of the root and trunk, and to cut out the blight means to cut down the tree. The most resistant variety noticed so far is the Boone, which has some Japanese chestnut parentage, but probably the Boone trees will not last over a year longer.
Apparently it is going to be necessary to get some resistant stock and do the grafting high enough to prevent fatal attack of the blight at the crown. Mr. P. W. Wang sent some Chinese chestnuts in the fall of 1921, and I have now several hundred seedlings of what I suppose are Castanea mollissima, of which I plan to grow a number to rather large size, set them out where the next planting of chestnut trees is to stand, and graft the branches to fine varieties. It will take at least two or three years, however, before this can be done.
HAZELS—For some four years I have been assembling, for hybridizing purposes, selected American hazels from various sections of the United States as well as the various European cultivated varieties that gave promise of being hardy. This year both blossomed rather freely, but the only variety of which I had enough pollen to work with was the Italian Red. The staminate flowers were picked from some six or eight American hazels which were blooming well and the pistillate flowers were pollinated with Italian Red pollen, in the hope that some hybrid nuts would result. Although the pollination was repeated twice I was much disappointed to find only an occasional nut as a result.
It is to be said in this connection, however, that there were practically no nuts on these American hazels which had not been pollinated with strange pollen; so the lack of nuts could not be laid to the artificial treatment given the flowers of those plants where it had been planned to make hybrids. Apparently it was due to climatic conditions that nuts were almost lacking on all hazels here this year; but I do not recall any severe cold spells when the hazels were in flower. Still, on one or two branches which I had tagged, as being particularly full of pistillate flowers, there were noticed an almost equal number of dead pistillate flowers a little later. It is seemingly going to be well to carefully study the development of the hazel flowers into nuts. They grow differently from the walnuts and the hickories. The hazel flowers apparently, after being fertilized, develop into stems on which the existence of nuts escapes the attention, at least of the casual observer, until about August, while the nuts on the walnuts and the hickories even though small at first, are plainly visible from the time they are formed by fertilized flowers until they are matured.
HICKORIES—The bearing age of the transplanted hickory so far has been almost an unknown quantity, and what we did know has been such that the association has hesitated to say much about planting hickories, its recommendations on the hickory being confined to that of topworking existing hickories. These are known to begin bearing soon after topworking, records of bearing in two or three years not being unusual.
On transplanted hickories, however, about all the information of which I know is as follows: The late Mr. J. W. Kerr, of Denton, Md., many years ago bought a number of shagbark hickories from a nursery, set them out and noted that the time that elapsed before they bore was about 25 years. Mr. Rush's Weiker tree, which bore in 11 years after being set out, cut down this time materially.
A Kentucky hickory on my place set out in the fall of 1917, flowered this year, but I had no pollen with which to fertilize the blossoms, and the nutlets dropped off. A young shagbark seedling set in its present location in the fall of 1919 and grafted to Barnes this spring, also set a nut, but this dropped off like those on the Kentucky and apparently for the same reason. It would certainly seem as if under favorable conditions, the transplanted hickory is not going to be anywhere near as slow as feared in coming into bearing.
WALNUTS—A Royal and a Paradox walnut each supposed to be grafted trees with scions from Burbank's original trees, bloomed this year, and the Royal has a number of nuts on it. The Paradox has been here a very much shorter time, not over two or three years; so perhaps it is too soon to be expecting nuts. The Paradox is said to be a very shy bearer, setting nuts only occasionally, and then but few; still, one of my Paradox trees which is not over three feet high, blossomed full. It would seem as if it might pay to study this tree and see if the sterility or fancied sterility of this tree could not be overcome by seeing that proper pollen is at hand at the right time. A Cording walnut, a hybrid between the English walnut and the Japan walnut not quite 3 feet high, is bearing a nut this year.
Grafting—Perhaps the most interesting thing to be related is the result of attempts to determine the species of hickories best suited as stock for the fine varieties of hickories that we have. In preparation for this and through the kindness of Mr. Henry Hicks of Westbury, L. I., over 100 each of hickory trees of several species were obtained and set out in the fall of 1919. They were in fine condition for grafting this spring. There are some fifteen species of hickories native in the United States. The fine varieties of hickories that we have which are generally supposed to be largely shagbarks may prove to be much better adapted for grafting on some stocks than on others. A knowledge of this will prove to be of great value in top working. The grafting was done by Dr. Deming, on May 29, 30,31 and June 1 of this year, 31 grafts being set on shagbark stock, 52 on mockernut, 53 on pignut, 47 on pecan and 91 on bitternut, a total of 274. There were also 343 walnut grafts set on walnuts of four species. The results of this work are summarized in the tables following:
HICKORIES, SCIONS FROM YOUNG TREES
Stocks, Number of Grafts and Per Cent of Catches
Bitternut Mockernut[1] Pecan Pignut Shagbark Total
Variety No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. %
Barnes, scions
Dr. Deming's trees 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 3 100.0 6 100.0 18 100.0
Gobble, scions
Dr. Deming's trees 1 100.0 1 100.0 1 100.0 1 100.0 1 0.0 5 80.0
Griffin, scions
Dr. Deming's trees 1 100.0 1 0.0 1 0.0 1 100.0 1 100.0 5 60.0
Hales, scions
W. G. Bixby's trees 5 100.0 5 60.0 5 80.0 4 25.0 19 68.4
Kirtland, scions
Dr. Deming's trees 3 66.7 3 33.3 3 66.7 3 66.7 12 58.3
Laney, scions
Dr. Deming's trees 6 66.7 6 66.7
Long Beach, scions
Parent Tree 3 33.3 3 66.7 4 50.0 4 25.0 3 100.0 17 53.0
Siers, scions
Dr. Deming's trees 5 100.0 5 100.0
Stanley, scions
Dr. Deming's trees 3 66.7 3 66.7 3 66.7 9 66.7
Taylor, scions
Dr. Deming's trees 4 75.0 5 60.0 5 80.0 3 100.0 17 86.5
Total 34 80.8 24 60.8 22 68.1 22 72.9 11 75.0 113 74.0
[Footnote 1: The mockernuts were larger than any other hickories grafted excepting some bitternuts referred to in the next footnote. They were grafted mostly on branches.]
HICKORIES, SCIONS FROM OLD TREES
Stocks, Number of Grafts and Per Cent of Catches
Bitternut Mockernut[2] Pecan Pignut Shagbark Total
Variety No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. %
Brooks, scions from parent tree,
poor condition 5 40.0 5 0.0 5 20.0 5 40.0 20 20.0
Clark, scions from parent tree,
poor condition 5 40.0 5 0.0 5 20.0 5 40.0 5 20.0 25 20.0
[3]Fairbanks, scions from
parent tree (?), dry but
otherwise good 27 57.8 27 57.8
Kentucky, from parent tree,
poor condition 5 20.0 3 33.3 5 80.0 5 80.0 5 80.0 23 60.8
Manahan, scions from parent
tree, poor condition 5 20.0 5 0.0 5 20.0 6 33.3 5 20.0 26 24.6
Vest, scions from parent tree,
poor condition 5 20.0 5 0.0 5 40.0 5 60.0 5 20.0 25 20.8
Weiker, scions from parent
tree 5 20.0 5 0.0 5 60.0 15 26.8
— —— — —- — —— — —— — —— —- ——
Total 57 45.0 28 5.5 25 36.0 31 45.6 20 35.0 161 32.9
[Footnote 2: The mockernuts were larger than any other hickories grafted excepting some bitternuts referred to in the next footnote. They were grafted mostly on branches.]
[Footnote 3: Of these scions 5 were set in branches on two trees 1-1/4 or so in diameter and showed 100% catches; balance were set in the top on small trees 1/2 diameter or less, and showed 54.5% catches.]
BLACK WALNUTS, JAPAN WALNUTS, PERSIAN WALNUTS BUTTERNUTS
Stocks, Number of Grafts and Per Cent of Catches
Black Walnut Butternut Japan Walnut Persian Walnut
Variety No. % No. % No. % No. %
Adams Black Walnut, scions
parent tree 13 15.4
Alley Black Walnut, scions
parent tree 9 0.0
O'Connor Hybrid Walnut, Persian
Walnut and Black Walnut (?)
scions parent tree 9 22.2
—- ——
31 12.9
Ohio Black Walnut, scions W. G.
Bixby's trees 17 64.7
McCoy Black Walnut, scions W. G.
Bixby's trees 9 77.0
Stabler Black Walnut, scions some
W. G. Bixby's trees, and some Dr.
Deming's trees 85 51.2
[4]Ten Eyck Black Walnut, scions
W. G. Bixby's trees 32 97.0
Thomas Black Walnut, scions W.
G. Bixby's trees 23 100.0
Wasson Black Walnut, scions W.
G. Bixby's trees 8 75.0
—- ——
174 69.5
Persian Walnuts 4 varieties, scions
about 2-3 from parent trees, all
of which were quite vigorous
growers 46 0.0
Aiken Butternut, scions W. G.
Bixby's trees 39 38.5
Lancaster Heartnut, scions W. G.
Bixby's trees 53 3.8
[Footnote 4: One scion was overlooked in tying and waxing, otherwise apparently we would have had 100% catches.]
* * * * *
In the above two groups of hickories the one where scions were cut from young, rapidly growing trees, contrasts unmistakably with those where scions were cut from old bearing trees. The same is shown in the table of black walnut grafts, where the Alley, Adams, and O'Connor scions were cut from old bearing trees, and the others from young, rapidly growing trees.
The poor success with the heartnuts is quite in line with previous attempts at propagating this species by grafting. Results shown here with the butternut are deemed reasonably satisfactory, in view of the well known difficulty of grafting this species. It should be noted here that, in the case of every graft that took and grew, it was the small buds that were successful, not the large ones. The total lack of success with the Persian walnut is inexplicable to the writer, but he knows of no previous attempts to graft Persian walnut on Persian walnut root.
Black walnuts show a very high percentage of catches, in the case of the Thomas and Ten Eyck varieties 100%, but in the case of the Stabler this is reduced to 51.2%. I would say in this connection that neither of my two Stabler trees are vigorous growers, and so the trees grafted with scions from these are really cases where we have not been using scions from vigorous growing trees, and we know that this does not give a high percentage of catches.
The proper species to be used as a stock for the various varieties of hickories has not been shown conclusively for the number of grafts of each kind set was too few to be conclusive, and these experiments should be repeated. In the case of most of these varieties where results are poor, it was particularly noted when the grafts were set that the scions were in poor condition, a number of scions being thrown away because the cambium layer was dead. It is to be hoped that a species will be found to which will be well adapted the Vest hickory, which the writer regards, everything considered, as the best hickory that we have. Seemingly the pecan is the stock that gets the greatest number of catches; but the difficulty the writer has had in making Vest hickories on pecan root live, leads him to question as to whether another stock might not prove better. Another thing disappointing so far is in the seeming poorness of the mockernut as a stock. Over quite a large section of the United States the mockernut is the prevailing hickory, and in that section the mockernut will be most generally available for top working; moreover it will grow well in sandy soils where the shagbark is not found. In Petersburg, Va., the writer has seen it seemingly outgrow the black walnut.
The adaptability of the Barnes hickory on all stocks is notable, for it is the only one of the 10 fine hickories tested in the 1919 contest, of which this is true. If these grafts continue to flourish, and especially if future experiments check the results this year, the Barnes will have a peculiar value for top working. It is one of our best hickories, and, apparently is our surest variety for top working.
MR. CLOSE: I would suggest that we extend our thanks to the Smithsonian
Institute for the use of this room for the meeting.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you vote for that? (Motion voted upon favorably). I believe then, that brings to a close the Fourteenth Annual Convention, to meet in New York for the Fifteenth Convention in 1924, on September 3,4 and 5.
This meeting is now adjourned.
Time—2:30 p. m.
* * * * *
Notes of this convention by Mrs. B. W. Gahn, U. S. Dept. of Agr.,
Washington, D. C.