Once the trees exceed six feet in height, you want to start trimming the side branches. It’s important to rid the area around your seedlings of weeds and grass, especially in their early years. The tighter spacing for timber production encourages the trees to grow straight upward. For nut production, they should be twenty-five feet apart, so the tree can spread out and get plenty of sunlight. The recommended spacing of your trees for timber production is twelve feet apart. There are also patents for improved rootstocks which cultivars can be grated onto. Some of these are for varieties which produce better nuts as well as better timber. Some of his patents are listed Some of his (and many others) are listed on the Justia Patents website. During his career he obtained twenty-five tree patents: One for black cherry, one for white oak and twenty-three for black walnut. Walter Beineke is now retired after teaching for thirty-five years. They sell grafted trees, which are genetically identical to the Purdue 1 and Tippecanoe 1 cultivars, as well as seedlings which came from the seeds produced by those cultivars. These genetically improved trees are available from Advanced Tree Technology, located in New Haven, Indiana. The best all-around cultivar was Purdue 1, which had both fast growth and abundant nut production. The fastest grower was Tippecanoe 1, while Fayette 2 was the most prolific nut producer. They are documented in Characteristics of Purdue University’s Patented Black Walnut Trees. Trees were evaluated for growth rate, nut production, straightness, resistance to anthracnose and leafing date. In 1968 Purdue University began a program to identify and clone black walnut trees that grew fast and / or produced good nut crops. Purdue University Black Walnut Improvement Program For information on planting, please go to the Planting Your Acreage section of our Black Locust Firewood page. There are also cultivars, which are clones of black walnut trees with desirable traits. Since they are only a few dollars more for a hundred saplings, it’s probably best to purchase these. The also have what they call their select line seedlings, which come from their best trees. They can be purchased inexpensively from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Planting bare root seedlings is probably the easiest route. The seeds should be planted one to two inches deep. Drop the nuts into a bucket of water to see if they float. At that point you can remove the husks with a hammer or driving your car over them. The easiest way is to lay them on the ground and let the husks turn brown. Once you have collected them, you’ll need to remove the green husks. Collect more than you intend to plant, since some may not be good. It is best to collect black walnut seeds soon after they drop from the tree in the fall. You can probably find them in the wild somewhere growing along a road. If you are on a tight budget, it’s probably best to plant seeds. After a few years they will both be about the same size. Walnuts have a deep taproot which will be damaged during transplanting. It won’t make much difference whether you plant a one year-old seedling or a seed. Once they get some growth on them, deer won’t eat them, but they damage the young trees by rubbing their antlers against them. If there are deer in your area, you will want to put guards around the seedlings until they grow larger. You will want to keep livestock away from your trees, and deer may eat seedlings when they are small. They do best with full sun, and should have a minimum of six hours sunshine each day. Therefore you will want to avoid planting too close to your garden or orchard. These roots produce a chemical called juglone, which is toxic to some other plants, such as tomatoes or apple trees. They have a taproot that goes deep (Up to ten feet), and their lateral roots spread out wide (Up to eighty feet from the trunk). Locating Your Black Walnut Groveīlack walnut trees require good, deep, well-drained soil. It will also require good forest management. It will also take a lot of time – A minimum of twenty-five years before harvesting. Timber of harvesters will not be interested in anything smaller. For starters, you will need at least ten acres of land. Keep in mind that it takes considerable resources to grow black walnut timber. Black walnut is a valuable hardwood, and it grows faster than many other hardwoods. Each year about eighteen million board feet (A board foot is twelve inches by twelve inches by one inch) of black walnut lumber are harvested in Indiana. Black walnut is one of the best trees to grow for timber.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |