8. Things to Know Before Falling in Love with
Nuts
⢠Your site characteristics
⢠Soil-test it!
⢠Water
⢠Climate
⢠Micro-climate
⢠Your own characteristics i.e. your context
⢠Financial
⢠Existing and needed skills/knowledge
⢠Do all of your decision makers agree?
⢠Does the nut species excite you? Including the non romantic aspects?
⢠Regrarian Platform-Darren Doherty
12. General Tips for All Species
⢠Visit people already growing nuts
⢠Yes, that includes conventional nut growers
⢠Get info from as many sources and perspectives as possible
⢠Learn to like reading academic papers
⢠Observe and interact with nut trees as much as you can
⢠Donât under estimate grass and deer
⢠Join Northern Nut Growers Association
⢠Eat nuts!
13. Cultivars VS Seedlings
⢠Destroy Dichotomy!
⢠Cultivars:
⢠Predictable characteristics
⢠Yield
⢠Quality
⢠Disease resistance
⢠Uniform ripening time
⢠Grafted or clonal plants more expensive
⢠Often in short or no supply depending on species and variety
14. Cultivar VS Seedling
⢠Seedlings:
⢠Opportunity for selecting better varieties
⢠Cheaper to buy and/or propagate
⢠Can be used as rootstock if it sucks
⢠Not applicable to every species
⢠Often more vigorous growers
⢠Ripening time spread out
⢠Diversity also includes negative characteristics!
15. Cultivars VS Seedlings
⢠Choosing Seedlings
⢠Use seedlings of proven cultivars*Especially important for chestnut if you
want to graft*
⢠If you know it was pollinated by other good cultivars, even better
⢠Seedlings of good, non-cultivar plants
⢠Look at what the other trees in the planting are like
⢠Is this a commercial planting? Does the owner actually depend on nut production?
⢠Avoid buying run-of-the-mill seedlings, especially from large nurseries
⢠Applies to rootstock too
16. Chestnuts
⢠Castanea
⢠C. mollissima and hybrids
⢠C. crenata X C. sativa
⢠Wouldnât recommend pure C. dentata due to blight.
⢠Soil characteristics are important for chestnut!
⢠Acidic soil 4-6.5
⢠Well drained
⢠Best to use seedlings of desired plant as rootstock
17.
18.
19. Varieties
⢠C. mollissima
⢠Mossbarger
⢠Luvallâs Monster
⢠Sleeping Giant
⢠Lockwood
⢠Qing
⢠Gideon
⢠Gellatly hybrids with isolation from Chinese
⢠Complex hybrids
20. Varieties
⢠C. crenata X C. sativa-for trial only zone 4 and 5!
⢠Szego-Actually mollissima X sativa
⢠Maraval
⢠Marsol
⢠Marigoule
⢠Bouche de Betizac
21. Farm or Homestead?
⢠Both! As long as your site fits its needs
⢠Commercial production will require transportation or proximity to
population centers
⢠Immigrants from chestnut cultures like chestnuts
⢠Main advantage is that it doesnât need shelling
22. Walnuts
⢠Juglans regia- Eurasian walnut, âEnglishâ, âPersianâ, âCarpathianâ
⢠Juglans nigra-Black walnut
⢠Juglans cinerea-Butternut
⢠Juglans ailantifolia-Heartnut
⢠Hybrids of above, especially butternut and heartnut AKA Buartnut
23. Juglans regia
⢠What nut growers dreams are made of
⢠Then what their nightmares are made of
⢠Compared to other walnut species it lacks hardiness and disease/pest
resistance
⢠Walnut blight
⢠Butternut Curculio
⢠Usually grafted on black walnut with few incompatibility issues
⢠Thousand Canker disease could change this
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25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31. Juglans regia
⢠Varieties
⢠Papple
⢠Combe
⢠Lake
⢠ISU 73H32
⢠Harrison
⢠Broadview-from Gellatly via Ukraine. Produces pendulous fruit like heartnut
⢠Sejnovo
⢠Dooley 69-E-(nigraXregia) X regia
⢠Idaho-regia X nigra
32. Juglans regia
⢠Characteristics to look for
⢠Lateral bearing
⢠Short, stocky shoots that harden quickly
⢠Not just hardy wood but hardy flower buds, especially male
⢠Donât confuse blight or curculio damage for lack of hardiness
⢠Healthy foliage
33.
34. Juglans nigra
⢠Native walnut species
⢠Thick, hard shell
⢠Strong tasting nut meats disliked by some
⢠High value timber
⢠Thousand Canker disease
⢠Grafted on same species
36. Juglans nigra
⢠Things to look for in a good tree
⢠Adapted to your climate
⢠Leafs out late
⢠Matures nuts before frost
⢠Hardens off early
⢠% kernel and shell structure more important than nut size
⢠25-30% kernel
⢠Disease resistance
⢠Anthracnose
⢠Thousand canker disease?
37. Juglans nigra
⢠Farm or homestead?
⢠If close enough to a processing facility it can make a good farm crop
38. Juglans cinerea
⢠Native walnut species with elongated nuts, now found primarily in
early succession ecosystems
⢠Population devastated by butternut canker
⢠Often grafted on black walnut or butternut. Buartnut would make a
lot of sense
39. Juglans cinerea
⢠Varieties-
⢠Any local tree thatâs alive!
⢠Buartnuts selected for butternut characteristics- âButter-buartsâ
40. Juglans cinerea
⢠Farm or homestead
⢠Little prospect as a commercial crop due to butternut canker and poor
cracking characteristics.
41. Juglans ailantifolia
⢠East Asian species with some trees having butternut type nuts and
some having the heart shaped nuts
⢠Seems well adapted to Upper-Midwest conditions zone 5 and up
⢠Bunch disease only potential issue
⢠Often grafted on black walnut but can out grow stock
⢠Suggest grafting on buartnut seedlings for hardiness, disease resistance, and
vigor
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43.
44.
45. Juglans ailantifolia
⢠Varieties:
⢠Etter
⢠Campbell CW3-seedling of Etter. Late bloom and cold hardy. Said to be side bearing
⢠CW1
⢠CWW
⢠Campbellâs West
⢠Imshu
⢠Pyke
⢠Blunt-cold hardy from Manchurian walnut genes
⢠Locket
⢠Stealth
⢠Szukis
46. Juglans ailantifolia
⢠Buartnut varieties with heart like nuts
⢠Mitchell-Thought to be most hardy
⢠Dooley
⢠Filzinger
⢠Miekalâs buartnuts
47. Juglans ailantifolia
⢠Farm or homestead
⢠Farm?
⢠Needs cracking, easier to do small scale but still time consuming
51. Carya ovata
⢠Good nut should give at least 50% whole halves
⢠At least 85 nuts per pound
⢠Size is less important than internal shell structure
52. Carya ovata
⢠Farm or homestead?
⢠Homestead
⢠Farm possibilities with a shelling facility
53. Carya cordiformis
⢠Native hickory, faster growth than shagbark and more precocious
⢠Very similar to pecan
⢠Bitternut with high tannin
⢠High oil content
⢠Useful for breeding purposes
54.
55. Carya cordiformis
⢠Varieties
⢠Halesite-sweet bitternut
⢠Hatch-sweet bitternut
⢠Abbott-cross with pecan
⢠Galloway-cross with pecan
⢠Mall-cross with pecan
⢠Nelson-cross with pecan
⢠Pooshee-cross with pecan
⢠Westbrook-cross with pecan
56. Carya cordiformis
⢠Farm or homestead?
⢠Potential for income from pure bitternut for oil. More viable wild collected
⢠Potential for bitternut X pecan but more breeding work needed
57. Carya illinoinensis
⢠Closest native range is the border of Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota
⢠Hardiness not as much of a problem as length of season
⢠Need to drop nuts before hard frost
⢠âNorthernâ pecan works in southern Illinois, northern Missouri,
Kentucky. Need âUltra-northernâ for upper-midwest
⢠Issues with scab in susceptible varieties
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59.
60. Carya illinoinensis
⢠Ultra-Northern Varieties-
⢠Snaps
⢠PK Jumbo
⢠Deerstand
⢠Oaks
⢠Diken
⢠Lucus
⢠All are small nuts, 1-1.5 inches long
61. Carya illinoinensis
⢠Northern varieties for breeding purposes or warm years
⢠Posey-fair resistance to scab
⢠Starking
⢠Witte
⢠Major-Scab resistance
⢠Hark-scab resistance
⢠Shepard-Scab resistance
⢠Warren 346-scab resistance
⢠Kansas state varieties
⢠Kanza-scab resistant
⢠Lakota
⢠Osage
⢠Oswego
62. Carya illinoinensis
⢠Farm or homestead?
⢠Ultra northern pecans are too small to compete with southern production.
Potential as an oil crop?
⢠Northern pecan could be grown as pollen source for breeding with ultra
northern or other hickory species
63. Carya laciniosa
⢠Shellbark hickory native to southern part of Midwest and up the
Mississippi to around Iowa City
⢠Large nut, biggest of hickory
⢠Tends to be more of a mesic species than either shagbark or pecan
⢠Takes a lot of heat to ripen nuts
⢠Lots of âpacking materialâ and convoluted shell structure
65. Carya laciniosa
⢠Farm or homestead?
⢠Neither except for homestead trial. Gary Fernald says he thinks that there
could be varieties that ripen in Zone 5 Wisconsin
67. Corylus spp.
⢠Long history of breeding and attempted industry in Wisconsin
⢠Euro hazelnut has cold hardiness and disease issues
⢠American hazelnut tends to have small nuts
⢠Hybrids are seen as the solution
⢠Selection for Euro characteristics can lead to disease problems
⢠Selection for disease resistance can lead to more American characteristics
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71. Corylus spp.
⢠Varieties-
⢠Tom Molnar breeding pure C. avellana for disease resistance and cold
hardiness
⢠Midwest hazels-hybrids of american and European
⢠Clonal selections being made and trialed. Few available but starting
⢠Controlled crosses available and being trialed
⢠John Gordon varieties collected by Molnar
⢠Gordon 1-4
⢠Contact Tom Molnar for scionwood
⢠Could be used as reference cultivars
72. Corylus spp.
⢠Farm or Homestead?
⢠Farm? Genetic improvements are happening but processing industry is in its
infancy
⢠Homestead use for sure
73. Suggested Reading
⢠NNGA Newsletters
⢠A Guide to Nut Tree Culture-Editor Dennis Fulbright
⢠Nut Tree Culture in North America-Editor Richard Jaynes
⢠Nut Tree Ontario- Ernie Grimo
⢠Nut Growing Ontario Style-John Gordon available online
http://johnsankey.ca/songnews/nutgrowing.html
⢠Growing Nuts in the North-Carl Weschcke also available online
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18189
⢠Growing Hybrid Hazelnuts-Philip Rutter et. all
74. Suggested Reading
⢠NAFEX
⢠Upper-Midwest Hazelnut Development Initiative (UMHDI)
⢠Chestnut Growers of America
⢠University of Missouri School of Agroforestry
⢠Nut Competitions