3. Nelson, Julius. Fermentation and Germ Life. N. J. Ag. Exp. Sta. Bul. 134, 1899.
4. Witt, A. W. and Howard Spence. Vegetative Propagation of Walnuts. Ann. Rep. East Malling Res. Station 1926-27.
A Method of Budding Walnuts
H. LYNN TUTTLE, Clarkston, Wash.
It took man some thirty thousand years to learn to build a fire—conveniently. I thought it was going to take me that long to learn how to bud walnuts, but fortunately the period has been somewhat shortened.
When I first began to propagate, or try to propagate, walnuts, I naturally looked to the approved and accepted methods. For me, they did not work. Before I was through I think I tried them all. I patch-budded with variations and improvisations. I shield-budded and bark-grafted. I coated the wounds with grafting-wax, latex, cellophane, asphalt and paraffine. I trimmed off the bud shoulders to make a smoother tie and trimmed around the edges to make more contact. I wrapped with raffia, strings, rags and rubber strips and tacked with small nails. Whatever I did or however I did it results were all about the same—the sap soured. In fact over a period of years I tried every way I could think up or read about to bring the bud and the cambium layer together and make them stick. Results were surprisingly uniform—the sap soured.
But we must not dwell too long on the shots that missed. As with a refractory engine that will suddenly sputter, there came some elements of success. The point to learn was, why? Concentrating on the shield bud entirely we determined to find these whys. So we tried taking big slabs of bark along with the bud, peeling out the wood, breaking off the leaf stem entirely and waxing the scar and making an unnecessarily long cut for the bud. The bark stuck fairly well but the buds died. This was some encouragement and I knew that with enough time, reason and a little luck we would eventually hit the mark.
Now Dame Fortune had decreed that I be raised on a grain and stock ranch where the only trees we could see were in the distant mountains, or, if we rode in the canyons, cottonwoods and choke-cherries. My experience and training was with animals, and animals, especially horses, seem quite susceptible to accident. The first principle of treating almost any wound is to give it drainage, otherwise, both literally and figuratively, the "sap" soured. Thus it dawned on me that a tree-wound, even if only skin deep should have the same treatment as a flesh wound. And drainage, being desirable, should be ample.
It was quite late in the season but I went out and set a dozen Schafer walnut buds on eastern black stocks. These buds HAD DRAINAGE. The vertical cut of the T extended at least two inches below the bud. Success ensued, they grew. The following spring we budded as soon as the bark would slip and continued at intervals all summer. Results were good. Some of the steps we now use are probably not essential and perhaps not even the best, but there are two points that cannot be over-emphasized, namely, drainage and contact. The complete method is as follows: 1. Trim bud sticks to leave an inch of petiole on the bud. 2. Make the T cut with a long vertical slash that will extend at least an inch below the bottom of the bud. 3. Cut the bud long and deep and peel it from the wood by pinching the sides. Be carefull not to injure the bark just below the bud. 4. Insert the bud either flush with or below the cross-cut. 5. Wrap with large sized rubber budding strips just firmly enough to make good contact. Too tight wrappings curtail circulation. Do not cover the cut below the bud. The wound must have drainage. 6. Be sure that the center of the bud-cut is firm against the cambium layer. If it humps of bows and won't stay down insert a tooth-pick or bit of leaf stem or something along the center line to hold it down. We usually do this during the wrapping process.