Part 6

"In order of desirability for planting I would make a list about as follows: Niblack, Major, Greenriver, Busseron, Indiana. I list the Niblack as first choice because it seems to be about as productive as any of the other varieties, and because of its excellence as a cracking nut and the quality of the kernel. The Niblack is really a very desirable nut for cracking, when it is cracked by such devices as the Squirrel cracker which applies pressure to both ends. The kernel comes free from the shell. In a good many varieties, such as the Indiana and Busseron the kernel and shell do not drop free, but the kernel frequently is wedged in furrows in the shell so that the two must be pulled apart. This is not true of the Niblack. When they are cracked by end to end crackers, the shell and kernel drop free. I list Major as second choice because of its good production. It is a little bit late in maturing for a variety of the northern group, and will sometimes get caught by frosts in many northern localities. The nut is not a desirable one for cracking because of its shape. A good cracking nut must be oval. The Major is comparatively round and many of the kernels will be crushed when they are cracked. The Greenriver is a good producer but it is a little bit late. The Indiana and Busseron are both proved to be good producers.

"Comparing the general production of the northern varieties and the southern varieties, as groups, the northern varieties seem never to be so productive in Oklahoma as are the southern varieties. Much more dependable production may be obtained from the southern varieties.

"Some data on cracking percentage of nuts and size of nuts might be desirable. This list is not complete, but contains several different varieties.

Variety No. Nuts per Pound Kernel Percentage Busseron 62 47 Greenriver 80 49 Major 57 45 Posey 53 54 Warrick 63 48

"Of the nuts mentioned, the Posey is definitely larger than any of the others. It is a very fine type of nut, having a high kernel percentage. It is rather flat in shape, but is attractive in appearance. Were it not for the fact that the trees are consistently light producers, it would be a very desirable nut."

MR. BEST: They bear all right up here.

MEMBER: Where would it rank in the ability to bear?

MR. GERARDI: I would say third or fourth. Gildig, Major, Greenriver and Posey.

MR. BEST: I'd want to put Indiana and Busseron pretty close to the top. Major as one, probably Busseron and Indiana as second. Then I'd come along with probably Posey as third or fourth because, while Posey may not be the best bearer in our section, it does make a wonderful quality of nut which always matures. This matter of maturity in pecans is important.

MEMBER: How about Niblack?

MR. BEST: We haven't had too many trees that produce too many nuts. It is a high quality nut. It would be somewhere near the top. You wouldn't call it a relatively heavy producer. It hasn't fruited as early as the rest. We have had trees as old as 15 years. There is another good pecan. That is the Stevens.

MR. MAGILL: You and I will have to have Ford Wilkinson do our climbing. You find that to be a good producer. It's early. Getting back to our first consideration, we are pretty close to the north line. We have these Cass County pecans. We are just getting our first nuts. Close to Cass County--Champaign-Urbana still is the United States--not all Republicans.

MEMBER: How does that compare in Missouri?

MR. GUENGERICH: What little observation I have had about west central Missouri, it has been satisfactory. I would pick out Major from my observations. Then probably the Indiana, Greenriver. Beyond that there is some question.

MR. MAGILL: I have an idea about that Major I have been a crank of pollination on apples. We had many orchards planted in Kentucky. The Major for pollination is what Jonathans are to apples.

A week ago we had a couple hundred people at a field day down in Kentucky. We were going around over the ground and we got five pecan trees and a lot of the records were lost. I don't know how old these pecans are. I think they were planted in '17 I don't know what variety they are. We think there is one Greenriver. We really don't know what they are. There is many a pecan planting in Kentucky that was a failure because there wasn't anything to pollinate. If you were to judge the value of the tree, two and a half feet in diameter, big enough to make a world of pecans, you would have to remember that just because we didn't have something to pollinate we didn't have any pecans. I got a few to graft in Greenriver and they do fine bearing. So things like that lead me to believe there is something in pollination. We plant them out there on the bank of the west fork of the Kentucky River. We got the Major, Greenriver, the Busseron, and one other, and the Major had more crop every year. The Greenriver is about two years later. I don't know which are the best pollinaters.

MR. SNYDER: I better tell you where the Iowa trees are. They are approximately 300 miles from here. We are 150 miles north. We are also 180 miles west. We have temperatures up there too that we have to figure on. The temperature in most years gets to minus 20 and the coldest we ever had was minus 42, but that was only for an hour, but temperature is only one factor. An old professor of the University of Iowa, regarded wind as more important than temperature. The more I see of wind killing, the more I believe he is right. Wind is more important than temperature. If you have your trees surrounded, you don't get wind injury. The trees I am reporting on were planted from 1920 to 1930. Some of them now are 16 to 18 inches in diameter and 30 feet high and the varieties are such as we got from Mr. Wilkinson. Indiana, Busseron, and one other which Mr. White--he is a wholesale druggist interested in horticulture--selected and he knows the nut trees probably better than any other one man. He kept in contact with these river rats and they would always bring anything to him they thought was of interest. We have a bunch of seedling trees about the same age and size which never bloom at all and of course they are ready for cutting out. I don't know why there would be a number of seedling trees that would never bloom.

DR. CRANE: In extensive breeding work, Mr. Clarence A. Reed started in at Albany, Georgia, with 4,000 seedlings and out of 4,000 about half that many came into production and bore fruit enough so we could tell what the fruit was like in about 15 years. The other half just never did bear. Those trees had grown and made large trees and in a lot of cases they carried large leaves but there was no way we could predict anything about fruiting. It was discouraging for that reason. We quit, in our breeding work, growing the seedlings beyond one year. We make our crosses now and grow them one year in the nursery. We plant nuts at harvest and grow them until they form leaf buds and graft from the seedlings on old trees cut back. We can save anywhere from one to three, four, or five years. There are a great per cent that will not bear.

MR. MAGILL: In Iowa, out there, what varieties are making good?

MR. SNYDER: There aren't any. As nut producers they aren't worth anything. Why not plant the hicans? They ripen better but don't bear. The hicans make one of the prettiest trees but they don't bear.

We make no plans for pecans unless we have a season with no freezing until the middle of November. So that is where the pecans are that far north, except as shade trees.

MR. H. W. GUENGERICH: I feel that I am out of my territory in talking about nut growing to this Association, but I have had a few things forced on my attention that may be of interest.

When I first joined Stark Brothers Nursery, Paul Stark asked me to look into the possibilities of locating a pecan variety that would be satisfactory north of the southern pecan belt. I talked to our Missouri extension horticulturist, Bill Martin, and he informed me that a lot of pecans are being grown around Brunswick, Missouri, on the Missouri River. The Missouri flows northeast from Kansas City for about 75 miles and then swings toward the south again. Brunswick is located at the northernmost point on the river, between Kansas City and St. Louis. It is about 150 miles west of Louisiana, and in general the weather becomes more severe as you travel West. So pecans that thrive and mature at Brunswick are pretty rugged.

I went over to Brunswick to see a friend who introduced me to some pecan growers. One of these men has an interesting story and I wish he were here. I tried to bring him along but he could not get away from his farming operations. He operates several hundred acres of farm land in the Missouri River bottoms and his house stands in a grove of native pecans. When he went into his house he pointed to a hook on the door post where he tied his boat the previous spring when he moved his family out because of high water. That year, 1947, all his grain crops were destroyed by the flood but that fall he harvested 50,000 lbs. of pecans. They sold for 25¢ a pound and the total expense was for picking them, off the ground. In a year like that, $12,000.00 would come in handy. It rained again in Kansas this year and I called him and asked about the flood. He said he had a couple of inches of land that wasn't covered with water, but he expects to gather 40,000 lbs. of pecans this fall. That is interesting because there are thousands of acres in the middle west where crops have been destroyed by floods. Yet here is a crop that grows on native trees with very little care, that will pay off despite high water.

I asked my friend what effect the high water would have on the pecan foliage and he replied that the leaves would fall, but that the trees will produce new leaves and the nuts will mature. He has been through this before and knows what he is talking about.

Reference was made a short while ago to the pecan as a shade tree. I think this is one of the big opportunities in pecan growing. Recently I drove from Louisiana, Missouri, to central Ohio and saw a string of dead elms along the entire route. Now the oaks are threatened in the same way. We don't know what to do about shade trees. Some scientists from Holland visited us several weeks ago and they weren't very enthusiastic about their disease resistant elm selections. We had hoped that these selections might provide the answer to the elm tree problem.

Now pecans make very attractive shade trees. I used to live near Kansas City on a place where someone had planted 18 or 20 pecans right along the side of a golf course. When the trees were about 20 years old a fairway was laid out through this pecan grove and now blue grass grows right up to the tree trunks. A lot of other shade trees are shallow rooted and lawns do not grow well under them. I think there is a tremendous opportunity to plant pecans as shade trees.

There is just one other point I want to make. Undoubtedly we need better varieties. The nurseryman realizes this better than anyone else. But when my friend from Brunswick sold his native pecans he got just about as much for them per pound as the southern growers got for their much larger southern seedlings. Several commercial pecan crackers that I asked about this stated that the northern nuts have a better flavor and they produce more kernels per pound. So the size of the kernel doesn't make too much difference, although we all prefer the larger nuts.

Pecans in Northern Virginia

J. RUSSELL SMITH, _Swarthmore, Pennsylvania_

(Extracts from a letter to the NNGA secretary, November 26, 1951)

Having sold my Virginia cabin and the nursery business [Sunny Ridge] I have been down to the nursery for the last month getting rid of trees. A job of digging is one thing and that of packing and shipping is another. The man I had could do one but not both, and competent persons to pick up for either job are not available, so I have been standing in the gap, getting calluses on my hands and getting rid of $16,000 worth of trees.

Now as to facts on northern pecans:

I find the Busseron bears with regularity at Round Hill, Virginia, in a tight bluegrass sod. This pasture is not of high fertility and has had a small amount of commercial fertilizer. It is on a hillside that has probably lost all of its topsoil once or twice in the last hundred years, though not for the last twenty because it has been in grass.

My neighbor, Henry B. Taylor, Hamilton, Virginia, has Busseron, Butterick, Greenriver, Indiana, and Major, all bearing well to heavily.

Unfortunately this year the Greenriver hulls did not open, although the nuts were well filled. Ordinarily I believe they have been dropping their nuts, but not all at once.

Twenty-five years ago I planted some Butterick and Busseron along a stream on a dairy farm on which I was born. There was no regular record of their performance, but I have observed that the Buttericks have had a good crop in 1950 and also in 1951.[6]

I had previously concluded that the Butterick was almost a non-fruiter, and quit propagating it years ago. These especially productive Buttericks are on alluvium near the barn in a permanent pasture where the cattle congregate while waiting for the gate to open to let them into the barn. It is therefore fertilized over and over again with cow drippings.

Mr. Taylor's excellent yields are also produced on trees that are on unusually fertile soil.

My conclusion is that the pecan is a very active feeder, and what it needs is about three times as much fertilizer as is required for any ordinary crop.

It is time somebody better placed than I am made a systematic experiment as follows:

1. Feed pecan trees at least five times as much plant food as the nuts and leaves use.

2. Injure the trees by hacking the bark to make them bear, and see how much they can be made to produce by this means.

A Busseron tree in the town of Round Hill stands in a backyard of a friend of mine and they use it, I think, to tie clotheslines to and maybe the boys have had a little fun driving nails into it and it bears every year.[7]

The real find of my observations is a pecan known as All State, which has been wonderfully advertised by one of your fellows.[8] On a catalog it produces a nut two inches long--wonderful. On Mr. Henry Taylor's tree in Hamilton, Virginia, it produces a tiny, symmetrical, pointed nut too small to be contemptible, except for squirrel feed. They might have time to handle the crop.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: In the NNGA Report for 1935, Mr. C. A. Reed told of studies of blossoming habits of pecan varieties at Rockport, Indiana, conducted for four seasons in co-operation with Mr. J. F. Wilkinson. There the Busseron was found to be a protandrous variety, shedding most of its pollen, and in some years all of it, before the period of receptivity of its pistillate flowers. "With Butterick ... the order was reversed, as the period of receptivity began first," and it was classified, therefore, as regularly protogynous. "... Furthermore, upon close observation it has been found," he said, that trees of the Butterick variety "develop very few pistillate flowers, and that many of these wither up and drop off, apparently because of inherent weakness. From this, it would appear that light bearing is not necessarily due to lack of suitable or adequate pollen." The Butterick had a record of practically non-bearing performances during the four years (1931, 1932, 1934 and 1935) at Rockport, which is duplicated by its performance records at other locations and other years, so it is generally on the discard list. But when it does bear and mature its nuts it is a good pecan. Mr. P. W. Wang rated it his first choice of northern pecans fruited in China.

Mr. Reed listed as protandrous Busseron, Kentucky, Major, and Niblack varieties, whereas Butterick, Indiana, and Posey were protogynous. He did not specify in which class the Greenriver fell. Major during each of the four years, had an interval of 1 to 3 days between the last shedding of pollen and the first pistil receptivity; Warrick, an obsolete variety, had some overlap each year as did Indiana and Posey. The Kentucky, a discarded variety, had overlaps the three years it was observed. In two years it was observed, Niblack had staminate and pistillate flowering together one season, and staminate overlapping four days into the period of pistillate receptivity the next. Busseron, Butterick, and Greenriver sometimes had overlaps and sometimes intervals. Reed's conclusion, that "northern varieties of pecan ... appear to be partly or completely dependent upon other varieties for pollen," still holds good, as does his second observation, that "all varieties tend to vary, from year to year with respect to periods of pollen shedding and pistil receptivity." But more records are needed, and any members who have two or more varieties flowering in 1952 can make valuable contributions by taking accurate notes on their habits. There are now newer varieties for which such data are completely lacking, and until more is known, no reliable basis can be had for matching them with the best combinations for adequate cross-pollination.--J. C. McD.]

[Footnote 7: I think the first phase of the suggested experiment has more to recommend it than the second. Perhaps the Round Hill tree gets needed zinc from clotheslines and roofing nails. A more scientific way to apply zinc is to use zinc sulfate in sprays or ground applications, and these are to be used on some trees at Urbana which Dr. Crane diagnosed as zinc-deficient.--J. C. McD.]

[Footnote 8: The Bradley Brothers, who do not court anonymity, are no fellows of the Association or of the University of Illinois. They have been known to sell some kind of grafted pecan trees in recent years, possibly the Stuart or some other variety available from southern wholesale propagators. Mr. Taylor was lucky enough to have his order filled with a southern Illinois seedling which at least is good for the squirrels. We haven't yet seen any All State nuts from Maine or Montana. The Bradley variety is an obsolete southern pecan.--J. C. McD.]

Pecans in the Vicinity of St. Paul, Minnesota

CARL WESCHCKE

About 25 years ago pecan seeds from the most northern natural habitat in Iowa were planted in garden soil here in St. Paul. Most of them were later transplanted in nursery rows at my farm seven miles east of River Falls, Wisconsin. Out of approximately 300 trees, about 40 are still living, of which 25 have grown well. The remainder probably have not found soil conditions to accommodate their natural vigorous growth. Where the trees are in deep soil with sufficient plant food, they have done well, the largest tree being about 10 inches in diameter, and several of these have been bearing nuts for five years. The nuts were immature, however, but in the fall of 1949 about 70 of the best ones were planted in a seed bed and today about 15 living trees of pure pecan parentage represent the second generation.

This evidence is very important, for although the pecan has been almost as hardy as any native tree (such as the bitternut hickory, the butternut and the black walnut), yet the length of season required for the maturing of nuts is a primary factor which would have to be considered in recommending pecans for planting this far north. However, it has been my observation that these pecans have slowly cycled their way into our season, and it is gratifying to notice that this spring many leafed out at nearly the same time that the black walnut vegetated, which of course is much slower than the local butternut. This shows the tremendous adaptability of the pecan, and it is hoped that this ability to adapt itself to soil and climatic conditions will eventually cause it to produce small but edible pecans here in the north.

It is my hope, also, that I can use our locally raised pecan seedlings on which to graft our many successful varieties of hickories, which heretofore have been limited to some extent in their usefulness because we had only the local bitternut stocks on which to graft. Whereas the bitternut is an excellent stock for some varieties of shagbark hickory and even for shellbark, as well as pecans and hicans, there would no doubt be an increase in the scope of hickory planting if we had hardy pecan seedlings as understocks. At first, when comparing the growth of the native bitternut seedlings with that of pecans, locally raised in the same soil, it appeared that the pecan was a much more vigorous grower; but experiments with different types of soil and fertilizers indicate that we can get seedlings of certain bitternut hickories to produce from two to three feet of growth in the first year. I have even found several of these same hickory seedlings of two seasons' growth which, when transplanted last fall, are large enough to graft this spring. However, experiments have not proceeded far enough to verify the practical side of this new idea of hickory propagation.

Only one variety of pecan which was among the original seedlings, and which existed as a lawn tree for more than twenty years in St. Paul, was compatible with the bitternut hickory root systems; but enough of this variety of pecan has been grafted on local hickories to demonstrate that this is perfectly feasible as far as the union is concerned. In fact, several of these larger grafted trees have been bearing staminate bloom for two or more years. No nuts have been produced of this Hope variety as yet, and although it has been distributed on the market, it has always been classed as an ornamental rather than a fruiting variety. Of course, the pecan part over-grows the stock. In other words, there is a larger diameter above the union than in the stock below the union. So far, this has not interfered with good growth and hardiness, whereas the black walnut grafted on butternut (which is a similar combination as far as results go) more than thirty years ago in experimental work, indicates that this is a wrong procedure. Very few nuts were ever gathered from grafts of black walnut on butternut, although in most instances they continue to live and thrive.