MR. KINTZEL: I have followed the orchards in California, and I have noticed they follow the practice of leaving the lower branches on the trees, and I have noticed that the lower branches have a lot of nuts on them, also. The branches are hanging down on the ground.
MR. KERR: In France and Germany, they are crazy to get wood, and so they cut off all the low limbs. I have a Persian walnut that is beside the walk, and they cut off the low limbs because they hit the sidewalk. This year I got a tremendous crop.
MR. SILVIS: I think this man has a tree that he wants to walk under.
Under these circumstances he can cut off the low limbs. I agree with Mr.
Bernath, however, that it will reduce the crop for two or three years.
MR. BERNATH: Yes, but he should start pruning when the tree is young. A tree is just like a child: you have to start to train them while they are young.
MR. STOKE: You must consider the tree at all ages. In the young tree Mr. Bernath is right, it will produce sooner if you leave all the leaves on. But we must consider the mature tree. The branches that are low to the ground have to have the sunlight and if they do not get it they become practically barren during later years. If the lower branches are cut back when they are young and the tree headed higher, the Persian walnut will have a trunk, say, 10 feet to 14 feet to the first limb, but these will produce walnuts ultimately. I think the gentleman is right in having the tree pruned high enough to walk under, and he will get more nuts in the long run than if he lets the lower limbs develop and then eventually cut them down.
DR. MACDANIEL: We had an example of that with that huge black walnut tree with black walnuts starting out 30 feet in the air arching down and touching the ground. But you wouldn't want to do that immediately with a young tree, take all the branches up so high.
A MEMBER: Do you have any control for the stink bug on filberts?
DR. MCKAY: We haven't worked with the control of stink bug, because it is what might be classed as one of our minor problems. The damage is not so great but what we can overlook it at the present time.
DR. CRANE: In pecan and almond growing in California the effective control measure for stink bug is the elimination of the host plants on which the stink bug breeds. Peach growers have the same problem. Stink bug will, if allowed to multiply in a peach orchard, ruin the peaches, making injuries very similar to that caused by the plum curculio. The only satisfactory method of control of stink bug injury is to eliminate the host plants on which they live, such as most legume plants, blackberry briars and other brambles. In an orchard, in a grass sod, stink bug is no problem, but where we have soy beans or cow peas or something like that growing in the orchard, or we have blackberry briars or wild raspberries nearby, stink bug is a bad problem.
DR. GRAVATT: I have filbert trees, and the stink bug gets practically all the nuts. The entomologists looked into the situation, and the condition that Dr. Crane mentioned was borne out. If there are blackberries around, it will be quite a problem to control the stink bugs.