Part 7

The perishable nature of the nuts of the Chinese chestnut has probably been the greatest drawback to an earlier acceptance of this crop as an adjunct to the horticulture of the Southeast. It has been only in the past few years that enough has been learned about the harvesting and storage requirements to permit the storing of these chestnuts so that they can be marketed in an orderly manner either for eating or for seed purposes. Storage losses through periods up to six months have been held to less than 10% for a mixture of nuts from all the trees at Philema. Storage tests of nuts from individual trees have shown a range in keeping quality from no loss after six months' storage to nearly 100% loss. By culling out the trees producing nuts with a high rate of spoilage under the best storage conditions it should be possible to reduce storage losses to a minimum. Every grower of seedling trees should follow this same process of culling out or topworking trees producing nuts of poor keeping quality if the industry is to grow and prosper, since otherwise the offering of spoiled nuts for sale to the consumer will soon destroy the demand for the nuts.

There is no question but that the Chinese chestnut tree is very well adapted to the Southeast. It has proven to be healthy, vigorous, and productive. Yield records at Philema show actual yields of more than 1,000 pounds per acre and potential average annual yields of 1,500 or more pounds per acre are not out of reason. In 1947, in the Brown tract at Philema, if all the trees that bore nuts had been collected into a solid block the yield per acre would have been nearly 2,500 pounds. Crowding of the trees in the Brown tract is becoming serious at 11 years of age with a 25 x 25 foot spacing. Alternate-year bearing is becoming apparent and the stand of trees must be thinned immediately. Because of such potential yields and because rather extended storage of nuts of varied keeping quality is now economically possible the future of the chestnut industry in the Southeast is very promising.

The selection and propagation of selected seedlings is desirable as a means of advancing the industry at a more rapid rate. The propagation of selected seedlings offers a problem because of lack of compatibility between some stocks and scions. Since the chestnut is almost completely cross-pollinated it may be necessary to develop special plantings of two or three selections as a source of seed nuts for the production of stocks. Such plantings might possibly produce seedlings of quite uniform and desirable characteristics, but this prospect, is not very promising. Certainly, the evidence points to the conclusion that scion selections must be worked on stocks of the same strains if incompatibility is to be held at a minimum.

There is a further problem in the propagation of varieties on seedling rootstocks in the nursery. Only one propagator appears to be having much success in this art but others must learn it. Topworking of older trees by the inlay bark graft is generally successful and older seedling orchards can be worked over to improved selections without difficulty so long as the stocks are of compatible strains. Time will be required to work out the details of the solution for this problem but they will be worked out.

In the selection of improved seedlings for propagation the strictest attention should be paid to the important characteristics of tree vigor, precocity, productiveness, nut size, attractiveness, and keeping and eating quality, and type of bur opening. These characteristics have been previously discussed but it is well to emphasise their importance. The tree that comes into bearing at an early age seems likely to be more productive in later years. The nuts should be no smaller than 45 nuts to the pound and be attractive to the eye of the buyer. Most individuals prefer nuts with a bright and shining surface free of fuzz and with a fairly rich mahogany or chocolate color. Keeping quality is, of course, of great importance and should be carefully determined. Eating quality is generally good but distinctly superior selections may be found in the future. For the most part eating quality is dependent on the proper curing of the nuts. The type of bur opening is more important than usually considered, as it materially affects the satisfactory harvesting of the nuts. From the commercial standpoint it appears that the most desirable bur should drop from the tree with the nuts still in it but be well split so that the nuts can be readily removed. Such a bur type prevents exposure of the enclosed nuts to the hot sun while on the tree and reduces injurious drying to a minimum yet permits rapid gathering of the nuts in the burs for later mechanical separation. Nuts that drop free from the burs are more subject to injury by drying and require more hand work in gathering. Burs that do not split readily would be more difficult to separate mechanically; and mechanical aids will be necessary for the economical daily gathering of the nuts in commercial orchards.

If is encouraging to note that many of the present new plantings in the Southeast are being made by orchardists rather than hobbyists. Many home owners are planting a few trees but the acceptance of the Chinese chestnut for commercial production by men already growing other orchard crops portends the future success of the industry. The hobbyist has been of great service and should be given full credit for his far-sighted interest in a crop that now has commercial promise, especially in the Southeast. Much experimental work is still needed by both State and Federal agencies and by individuals. This work needs be concerned now more with details of refinement rather than with basic possibilities of the crop.

* * * * *

President Davidson: Mr. Carroll D. Bush, of whom I am sure you have often heard and whom very few of you, including myself, have met, of Grapeview, Washington, will now tell us something about the Marketing of Chestnuts on the Pacific Coast. Mr. Bush.

Marketing Chestnuts on the Pacific Coast

CARROLL D. BUSH, Grapeview, Washington

Mr. Bush: Friends of the Association: There are so many here that I have known through correspondence that I have welcomed this opportunity to say something to you today. I don't think that I will add very much to anything that has been said. I hope perhaps we will have some ideas from what we have been doing on the Coast.

We were in the nursery business near Portland, and during the war we went out of it, but we are working back in trees again[7], and all this time we have been preaching the gospel of nut trees, and we find that we can't preach a gospel unless there is some reward. There is no market for chestnuts in our section of the country, and yet we had quite a few of them around Portland. We could not talk about chestnut trees when there was no market. Buyers there had been offering as low as three cents a pound or not buying them at all, and we, ourselves, had quite a few nuts to sell. So I took a trip up to Seattle and found a commission man there that would take our nuts and arranged with him, and we have sent nuts to Seattle ever since that year and got a very good price. Then a neighbor had me send some of his, and we are still sending nuts.

+Introduced on Mid-West Markets+

The next year through Carl Weschcke of St. Paul I got in touch with a reliable Minneapolis firm. They evidently had been burned and they were somewhat skeptical. They said if we would send a sample there they would look them over. So I went out and picked up a mixed sample and shipped to Minneapolis, and they said if we could send nuts as good as the sample they could use some.

We began to send them. When we shipped them we made sure we sent nuts that were considerably better than the sample, and the rewards for shipping there were also very good. Then we went on to Chicago, and we have been shipping to Chicago over since. At this time I am out here to find a little more market for some of the nuts that we have in Oregon.

At first we put the nuts in cold storage at about 32 degrees, expecting to get a better price on the Thanksgiving market. We found out that we were making a mistake and that the earliest nuts on the market brought us our best price. So now we are shipping just as early as we can ship.

We first adopted the western cranberry box as being open enough to allow a little drying off and tight enough so that it wouldn't allow too much and yet we didn't get any mold. We were very much afraid of that, because a good many of the California chestnuts had molded on the way to market. Later we turned to the splint bushel basket, and lately we have been in favor of the half-bushel basket. There seem to be buyers who don't like to stock up more than a half bushel at a time, chestnuts being of a rather high price. They dry out too fast.

We found that cold storage above 32 degrees keeps chestnuts in good condition with little dry-out. One dealer in Oregon we know of wraps his cold storage nuts in waterproof paper, keeps them that way clear on into January. A very little mold will develop on chestnuts kept in storage from 32 to 35 degrees, but not enough so we take any precaution. We have had a few batches that people have stood in sacks on damp nights, and they started to mold, especially on the open end, and we find we can kill the mold with Clorox. We have just used a little Clorox in water. We think this would prevent mold from developing on all nuts if they were put through a chlorine bath. We haven't taken the trouble to do that. I might say our walnuts, and filberts have been put through a chlorine solution, and, of course, after a chlorine solution is used you have to put the nuts through water again and wash that off.

We have on our place a nice washer. We have graded the European varieties, which we handle mostly, into three grades: standard, fancy, and extra fancy, by size. All our grading has been done by hand, except we expect to have a simple grader this year.

[Footnote 7: Mr. Bush informed the secretary by letter, early in 1949, that he did not then have any nursery stock ready for sale at his Eagle Creek, Oregon, nursery. From that location about 10 years ago he introduced, under numbers, three selections of Chinese chestnuts grown from seed imported in the early 30's. Two of these, in 1941, were named Abundance and Honan. The Abundance is now considered one of the most desirable varieties from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania, while Honan is slightly less desirable.--Ed.]

+"Sweet" Nuts Sell Faster+

We have a few "sweets." All of those on our farms are Riehl varieties, hybrids, I think. All of our European chestnuts have an astringent pellicle, heavy with tannic acid. We classify as sweets any of those that have a pellicle that is sweet enough to be eaten. We label these the sweets and mark them as they go into the market. And while, I say, we don't seem to get a better price for the sweets than for the European, they do sell faster. There are some people in the eastern cities that are grabbing these in preference to the large ones. While the large nuts sell very well, I suppose they go to the Italians and Europeans who are used to cooking them, and out on the West Coast nothing but the large nut goes; the larger the better. In the Seattle market we try to send in large nuts.

We also grade out all "cracks" by hand. They mold easily, and we have a lot of cracked nuts in our climate there, but we have been able to dispose of all of these through the Seattle market where they move off very fast and are lower priced.

+California Supplies Distant Markets+

Last winter we went to California and looked into the chestnut market there. We found them in the Sierras and found them growing in the Coast Range without irrigation, but the largest growers were in the San Joaquin Valley near Stockton. The largest grove was 30 acres at Linden owned by Caesar De Martini. He gave us our best insight into California chestnut growing. He used to grade and package his own, and he still has his cylinder grader. It has three different size holes, one inch, one and a quarter and one and a half. Anything that goes through the one-inch hole is discarded as a cull. That leaves three sizes, the size that goes through the one and a quarter, the one and a half, and the size that goes out the end, which is, of course, a class of jumbos.

All the chestnuts in California, I think, now go to buyers to do the grading and packing much as De Martini worked out. All of the California nuts have to be soaked in water just as Mr. Jones does, as they come to the packer dried out. The largest buyer that we found in California shipped about seven carloads, and he shipped them all over the world, the Philippines, Honolulu, Alaska, and other places where the chestnut hasn't been growing.

+Early Autumn Best Marketing Season+

Now, I am going to sum up what our experience has been and what we recommend as general from our experience. Your experience may be different. We clean the nuts, wash them, if necessary, grade them; large and small nuts do not sell well together. We would pack in baskets, half bushel for sweets. We are trying to make that half bushel basket the mark of the sweet nut in the markets where we sell, so that when a buyer comes in there and sees a half bushel basket he knows that's sweets. Then we ship as wet as possible, and they dry out on the way. And just as fast as we can get those nuts off the ground we pack them and ship them. Our greatest trouble now is, of course, the imported chestnut. They are beginning to come in in great quantities, and they hit the market in Chicago last year at about the 20th of October, and we tried to beat that line if we possibly can with our nuts, because just the minute the carloads of chestnuts come in on the East Coast the market drops right down.

Without question we could use some of the preparations that we use on filberts to put a gloss on the chestnut, run them through, I think it is a paraffin mixture, put a gloss on the shell and give us a better chestnut in the market, make it look nicer and, of course, make it sell better.

+"Stick-tight" Burs Preferred for Pacific Coast+

I disagree, I think, with two of the former speakers in regard to the chestnut that falls free from the bur. I would prefer a chestnut that sticks tight to the bur. We have threshers out there that thresh them out. We can pick up those nuts in the bur with a shovel or fork, throw them into the wagon, take them in the wagon, thresh them out. You have a cleaner nut, you don't have to pick around on the ground with rubber gloves that we use, which is easy enough, but it certainly adds a great deal of work as compared to threshing them out easily after they are once picked up.

I thank you.

* * * * *

President Davidson: Thank you, Mr. Bush. We are glad to have that western angle. It is going to be very useful to us.

Next on the program is a paper on the Control of the Chestnut Weevil, the author of which is absent, but I believe Mr. Gravatt is going to read that.

Chestnut Weevils and Their Control with DDT

E. R. VAN LEEUWEN

United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Administration, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, Division of Fruit Insect Investigations.

Failure of the American chestnut to resist the chestnut blight has resulted in the planting of a few blight-resistant species obtained from foreign lands. These foreign chestnuts would now be planted more extensively in certain districts, were it not for the fact that the nuts are injured by two species of weevils, for which heretofore there has been no practical control.

The 1947 season marks the fourth year of the experimental use of DDT for control of the chestnut weevils. During these years our knowledge of the spray and how best to use it has been advanced by conducting laboratory and field tests. Unfortunately, few chestnut orchards now exist in the Eastern States, and the scattered plantings consist mostly of a large number of Asiatic seedlings, some of which had to be top-worked to other Asiatic species and varieties. Many of these trees are grown for ornamental, shade, or timber purposes rather than for nut production. Owing to these conditions and to a series of spring frosts since 1945, it has been impossible to conduct insecticide experiments on an adequate basis of replicated plats.

Although much is to be learned regarding time of application of the sprays and the proper dosage, the use of DDT can be recommended as a standard practice, because it has proved highly valuable in protecting chestnut trees from heavy losses due to the chestnut weevil. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss some of the experiments that have been made with DDT and the observations made on the time of egg deposition.

+Nature and Extent of Injury+

The worms attacking chestnuts are the larvae of two very similar species of weevils, one larger than the other. The adults are medium-sized beetles having extremely long, slender beaks. With these they drill through the husk of the nuts, making openings through which they insert their eggs into the nuts. From these eggs the familiar worms develop. Weevil injury varies greatly in different chestnut-growing localities. It is not unusual for 50 to 75 percent of the nuts to be wormy, and often infestation reaches 90 to 100 per cent. The small weevil does the most damage, but there are indications that this may not always be true. Because the mouth parts of the adult are situated at the end of an extremely long and slender beak, it can obtain most of its food from beneath the surface of the host plant. For this reason, stomach poisons applied to trees have not been eaten by these weevils, and hence have been of no practical value. As DDT kills by contact, it is necessary only for the body of the insect to come in contact with DDT.

+Life Histories of the Weevils+

In the vicinity of Beltsville, Md., the adults of the large chestnut weevil[8] leave the soil about August 15. The date will vary, of course, with season and locality. Both males and females soon begin to feed by piercing the burs with their long beaks. Mating begins soon after the weevils collect on the trees, and egg laying follows shortly. The eggs hatch within a few days and the worms develop within the nut. A few of the worms will complete their growth and leave before the nuts fall, but most of them emerge from the nuts after they have fallen. The worms then enter the soil, where they build cells and remain until they change to pupae the following summer. This weevil has a one-year cycle, or one generation a year.

The life history of the small chestnut weevil[9] is somewhat similar, except that in the vicinity of Beltsville the weevils leave the soil late in May or early in June, when the trees are in bloom. Several weeks later the females deposit eggs in the nuts. At Beltsville, egg laying begins late in August and continues for several weeks. After the nuts have fallen from the tree, the full-grown larvae leave them and enter the soil. Earthen cells are constructed at a depth of 4 to 12 inches, where some of the larvae remain for two winters.

The small chestnut weevil completes its life cycle in two years, and a small percentage requires three years, whereas the large chestnut weevil completes its transformation from egg to adult in one year. The large weevils pass the winter as larvae, whereas the small weevils pass one winter as larvae and the second winter as adults. With the few individuals of the small weevil which require three years for transformation, the first two winters are passed in the ground as larvae and the third in the same location as adults. This habit of the small weevil complicates control measures, as one season's spraying with DDT does not reduce the entire infestation of weevils.

[Footnote 8: +Curculio proboscideus+ Fab.]

+Proper Time for Spray Applications+

Application of DDT sprays at the proper time is very important. An examination in 1944 of many unopened chestnut burs disclosed the fact that eggs of the small chestnut weevil were being deposited many weeks before the burs would open. It was also noted that great numbers of the larvae were leaving the nuts soon after the burs cracked open. Evidently these full-grown larvae had hatched from eggs deposited several weeks before the burs split.

In 1945, 1946, and 1947, cloth bags were tied over developing burs at various intervals during the season to prevent further egg laying in the nuts. At harvest time, the bags were removed and the nuts examined. Occasionally adults were hidden among the spines of the burs and were inadvertently enclosed in the bags; therefore, all nuts in bags containing female adults that might have continued ovipositing were discarded. The data in Table 1 show the approximate time prior to which the nuts were infested.

Because of difficulty in obtaining sufficient burs for bagging, and other orchard conditions, the results of these studies were far from conclusive. They indicated, however, that many eggs had been deposited in the nuts before the burs had reached maturity. They also suggested that the seasonal histories of the two species are closely parallel. At Glenn Dale, Md., and Fairfax, Va., the small weevils predominated, constituting about 69 to 90 per cent of the total numbers taken. At Elkton, Md., only 42 per cent of the weevils were of the small species.

[Footnote 9: Curculio auriger Casey.]

Table 1. Results of studies to determine the time of oviposition of the chestnut weevils.

Nuts Infested with