Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting Part 13

Table of Crosses:

Female Male

Italian Red Medium Long " " Red Lambert Medium Long " "

Cosford " "

" Vollkugel Comet Cosford " Vollkugel Craig Red Lambert Gellatly Vollkugel Carey Red Lambert Fertile de Coutard " "

Barcelona Vollkugel Seedling (W) Red Lambert " (E) Vollkugel

I would like to make a few remarks on our heartnut and Carpathian walnut trees. Most of the heartnut varieties came from B. C. and we think that Mr. Gellatly has some of the best obtainable anywhere in North America.

The Bates heartnut from J. F. Jones Nursery seems to be very hardy here, and quality of nut is very good. We have found--comparing a heartnut rootstock which grows two weeks later in the fall than some of our black walnuts--that the same variety of heartnut will live one hundred percent on black walnut stock and winter-kill severely on the heartnut rootstock. We believe that the root system for the north, either heartnut or black, should be carefully selected for its growth habits before considering its use as material for rootstock in grafting or budding. I might add here that we also found that if the variety of heartnut was not hardy, it did not help any in regard to hardiness to use black walnut at the rootstock. There is a good crop of heartnuts on the trees here this year.

In grafting Carpathian walnuts on black, we found that some varieties graft or take more readily than others. Also some would give a better union. The Broadview winter-kills with us, but it is not hard to graft it almost one hundred percent. We have quite a number of the Carpathians bearing and they seem to be quite hardy, of good size and quality, and bear every year. As the catkins were killed on all but one variety, due to the unseasonable weather experienced last winter, there will be only a light crop. The hardy variety has late blooming male catkins which might account for its catkin hardiness. It is of good size and excellent flavor. Possibilities for commercial planting of these Carpathian varieties in the north appear promising in favored localities.

Our Chinese chestnut trees seem to be hardy and this year have produced a few burs for the first time. We have planted out about sixty young trees this year and they are all growing nicely. The weather has been wet and just the thing to get them started.

Our hickory trees, which we grafted, are growing well and we set some more out last year. When we started grafting hickories, we had one hundred percent failure, but kept at it until we got almost a perfect take. The hickory seems very slow in forming a union. A lot can happen to the graft before it gets started. Filberts graft as easily as apple.

Our findings in grafting nut trees are that any amateur can graft apple trees, but nut trees are something different. We have a number of odds and ends besides what has been mentioned.

Being a member of the N.N.G.A. has helped us in growing nut trees, and the information in the Annual Reports should help anyone who has just become interested in growing nut trees. The information is up-to-date and fairly accurate. All one has to do is apply his findings to his own planting.

MR. CORSAN: Doctor, in that same neighborhood is a man who called on me who has a nut aboretum of 40 acres on Grand Island in the Niagara River.

That's above Niagara Falls, of course. I thought he'd call again, but I didn't get his name, or at least I have lost it, and what do you think he is growing in the way of nuts? Can anybody guess:

A MEMBER: Coconuts!

A MEMBER: Peanuts!

MR. CORSAN: I am growing coconuts in Florida--but on that one 40-acre tract on Grand Island, New York--he lives in Buffalo--he is growing evergreen nuts from Swiss stone pine (_Pinus cembra_), Korean pine, Philippine pine, _Pinus Lambertiana_, _Pinus Monophylla_, _Pinus edulis_ and Digger pine (_Jeffreyi_). He is growing these evergreen pine nuts, and he says he is making very good success of it.

MR. STERLING SMITH: Chas. F. Flanigen is his name. He's a member.

MR. WEBER: I'd like to ask the members, or those present, whether they have failed to sign the registry of attendance.

DR. MacDANIELS: That ends the formal program this afternoon. It's always been a criticism that things are too crowded. We have an opportunity now for about half an hour to visit, look over exhibits and then later on we will meet at six o'clock at The Stone Chimney.

(Whereupon, at 4:35 p.m., the Monday afternoon session was closed.)

MONDAY EVENING SESSION

DR. MacDANIELS: Without any question at all, I think, the most important single consideration in determining the planting of nuts is the matter of varieties, and I know that Dr. Crane has some ideas along that line which he wishes to develop, and without any further talk on my part, I will introduce Dr. Harley Crane, United States Department of Agriculture.

(Applause.)

Nut Varieties: A Round Table Discussion

H. L. CRANE, Chairman

DR. CRANE: Mr. President, members of the Northern Nut Growers'

a.s.sociation: I think it is, without a question of doubt, of the greatest importance that we consider this question of varieties. After all, a variety of any plant, in my opinion--which I think can be well supported--is the most important thing that anyone can consider when it comes to planting or developing a nut tree or a fruit tree or anything in the fruit line. We can cultivate and fertilize and spray and do everything that is needed to be done today in a modern fruit or nut orchard farm, but if the variety is not suited to the climate, if it is not a good variety, all our efforts that we make towards developing a good tree and bringing it into fruiting are wasted.

I know that every one of you appreciates old varieties of corn and just what has been done in our new varieties of hybrid corn, how hybrid corn has changed the variety situation. Now it's hybrid this and hybrid that, because hybrid varieties are generally superb.

Now, at this time in our nut work we are a long way yet from growing good hybrid varieties, and I feel that there has been an effort on the part of a lot of people to capitalize on the word "hybrid," because hybrid corn has been such a success; and we figured that by carrying it over into other plants, particularly the nut trees, we would get the same remarkable performance from hybrid nuts that we do from hybrid corn. But that is not the case.

We will come to that some day in the future, maybe--not in our lifetime, but we will have hybrid varieties, because, after all, our great improvements that have come in most of our plants, in corn and in wheat, and in other plants, have come through the mixing of the genes, or the characters that we have differing between species.

In our nuts, now, with the exception of hicans, we are still dealing with pure species, and most, if not quite all, of our hicans are worthless at the present time, largely because of sterility.

A good variety is the most outstanding thing that a horticulturist can get or can have, because of the fact that it does have the character in it which will make good growth. It will set a lot of nuts, it will carry them through to maturity and it fills them, and if a variety doesn't do that, it's not a good variety. Then after we get the nuts filled, cracking quality, eating quality or oil content, and all these things come next.

Now, this brings us next to the very important consideration of how are we going to get a new good variety? Well, we can do that by selecting from seedling nuts, or we can make controlled pollinations, crossing different varieties, or varieties of different species, planting the nuts or growing new trees and then selecting out of them those that have the desirable characters.

But the first thing that we have got to do after we have either selected the nut or made the hybrid and selected the nut is to evaluate the nut as to whether it does have the first character, or proper characters, that we ought to have in the nut. Does the crop ripen evenly? Whether it hulls readily or comes free of the husk is a minor consideration, provided that the nut itself has the desired characteristics. By that I mean, does it have a good, large kernel which is well filled and bright in color, or good flavor free from any objectionable characters? How about its sh.e.l.l, percentage of sh.e.l.l in relation to kernel? Those are some of the things that we have first got to consider.

That's what we can do in holding our contests to find good varieties.

Those are the ones submitted by growers and others. They are in compet.i.tion with nuts from other sources, and then the committee, or someone, goes over and rates them, and places them, just as has been done by Mr. Chase and others in their Carpathian walnut contest for members of the Northern Nut Growers' a.s.sociation.

Now, at the present time we have no standard method for evaluating the nut. It's the opinion of the judges that do the scoring or rating which determines the placing that the nuts get. Well, now, that's one of the things that we members of the Northern Nut Growers' a.s.sociation have been working on for a long while, but we still haven't arrived at any definite place.

Well, then, what's the next step that we take up? The next thing we do, some growers find out that a Persian walnut from Mr. Shessler, for example, placed second in the contest this year. They will get some scions from Mr. Shessler, or somebody else, and they will make a few grafts and grow some trees, and then they will make a study of these nuts and find out how well they do and what they are like under their conditions, and that's about as far as it goes.

Well, now, we cannot continue to do that kind of a job, as I see it. If we go back over the reports of the Northern Nut Growers' a.s.sociation we will find that this matter of varieties is discussed in a very large majority of the papers that have been presented. But those that have taken part in investigations and in advising the public, like those in the Extension Services of the colleges, those teaching in the universities, those doing research, like myself, anybody who has to answer correspondence from would-be nut growers, almost always get the question, "What variety should I plant?" Then they put it up to me or Dr. McKay, or Dr. Colby, and think that you could just name right and left, and they ask, "What varieties shall we plant?" They put you right down on the spot. Here you are, you are supposed to be a real expert, know all things, and they are asking you for advice, and they will take that advice and carry it out.

Now, today it puts a fellow in an awfully hot spot, because as you read the reports of the Northern Nut Growers' a.s.sociation you find that there is absolutely no unanimity of opinion. Every grower is absolutely certain in his ideas, and they are different from every other grower's.

Well, you can't recommend them all. It's really impossible. Now, this is one of the things that the Northern Nut Growers have been dealing with all of these years. This is the forty-first annual meeting. You'd have thought in 41 years we'd have come up with something, but we haven't yet. Now, I feel that it's about time that we stop and take stock of our situation.

I am not going to do the talking tonight, I am just making a few suggestions and trying to direct the thought a little bit. But one of the nuts that we have done so much with and have said so much about in our reports is the black walnut. It's very interesting to read the reports on varieties of black walnuts and how those who have grown black walnuts differ in their opinion, regardless. Well, I don't know. When I get a letter coming in from most anywhere in the country wanting to know what variety of black walnut to plant, do you know what I tell them?

MR. CALDWELL: Let them find out for themselves.

DR. CRANE: No, sir, they will never find out, not in their lifetime. I tell them to plant Thomas. Thomas, Thomas Thomas! Why?

MR. KINTZEL: Because we know more about that than any other.

DR. CRANE: That is right. I expect there are four or five times as many Thomas walnuts propagated and sold by nurserymen in the United States as all other varieties.

MR. CORSAN: It always has a bigger crop, too.

DR. CRANE: It bears, that's one thing. It may not always fill, but Thomas is a good variety. But we in the Nut Growers' a.s.sociation haven't the nerve to come out and say the Thomas is a good variety. It has its faults. I know I am going to be wrong in a lot of cases by planting Thomas.