Yield Yield Percent- Percent-
per Se- per Se- age Cat- age of
No. of lection lection kins Catkins
Selec- in in Winter- Winter-
Cross tions Ounces Ounces killed killed
per Se-
lection
Rush x Cosford 26 129 229 42 0
Rush x Kentish Cob (Du Chilly) 25 68 185 70 13
Rush x Nottingham 7 96 180 31 14
Rush x Italian Red 3 114 181 45 30
Rush x Purple Aveline 3 114 240 42 25
Rush x Red Lambert 2 90 127 21 8
Rush x Brixnut 2 49 51 62 58
Barcelona x Cosford 27 90 138 62 32
Barcelona x Kentish Cob
(Du Chilly) 21 69 126 69 25
Barcelona x Medium Long 16 93 257 83 71
Barcelona x Red Lambert 12 83 147 52 13
Barcelona x Purple Aveline 8 50 73 78 55
Barcelona x Italian Red 6 84 133 90 81
Barcelona x Halle 6 52 79 52 23
Barcelona x Daviana 5 53 75 67 59
Barcelona x Bollwiller 2 66 94 62 58
Barcelona x Red Aveline 1 91 91 56 56
Barcelona x White Lambert 1 103 103 5 5
Kentish Cob (Du Chilly) x
Cosford 22 62 151 64 33
TABLE 5. Filbert selections. Orchard 8. Yields 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1944.
Catkin injury records 1940, 1941 and 1942.
Mean Highest Mean Lowest
Yield Yield Percent- Percent-
per Se- per Se- age Cat- age of
No. of lection lection kins Catkins
Selec- in in Winter- Winter-
Cross tions Ounces Ounces killed killed
per Se-
lection
Rush x Cosford 26 25 47 30 2
Rush x Italian Red 11 25 39 27 0
* * * * *
Discussion after Mr. Slate's paper--
_MacDaniels: "Of the 1999 seedlings tested at Geneva, 52 are being
carried on for further observations. Prof. Slate is doing a fine work."_
_J. R. Smith: "I want to express my appreciation of the work Prof. Slate
is doing. To care for 1999 seedlings and keep the performance records is
a big job and just the kind of thing on which progress depends."_
Nut News from Wisconsin
CARL WESCHCKE
This year at River Falls, Wisconsin, which is only 35 miles southeast of
St. Paul, Minnesota, the season started off with much rain and a delayed
cold spring. All the grafting had to be postponed from two to four weeks
later than normal. The stored scion wood suffered some because of this
long storage period, and some of it was quite dry when taken out. This
was particularly true of the Weschcke butternut and these scions looked
so dry that I was tempted to throw them all away, but instead I gave
them to two young horticulture students to practice with. None of them
grew, however, so we had a 100% failure on butternut grafting. About a
dozen years ago I had much success grafting butternut on black walnuts
and was unimpressed, therefore I did not make any notes as to the
process I used. This was a mistake for apparently I have lost the art.
The last five years has probably produced only about five or six plants
successfully grafted on black walnut. Hickories respond much better and
I usually get about 50% successful grafts on my native butternut stocks.
Although the insect pests, such as the butternut curculio, were delayed
in their attacks, they eventually caught up and destroyed most of the
big butternut crop and did their usual damage to heartnut and Persian
walnut growth. I noticed in the American Fruit Grower that plum curculio
was controlled in the peach orchards through the use of hexaethyl
tetraphosphate. If this chemical poison controls plum curculio, it ought
to control any of the curculio family, such as the hazel curculio,
chestnut curculio and butternut curculio. The butternut and hazel
curculio appear to me to be the same insect. I am not troubled with the
chestnut curculio yet, but if this chemical gives control over the
curculio insect family we will certainly be able to raise large crops of
all of the nuts mentioned.
Quite a few of my grafted test trees, both in the forest and in the
orchard, which in some cases were grafted on bitternut hickory stocks
fifteen years ago, are beginning to bear. These varieties are the Woods,
Fox, Taylor, Platman and Davis. Others which have borne a few times
previously also have good crops set. These are Bridgewater, Glover,
Beaver, Kirtland, Deveaux and Fairbanks. The trees setting the largest
crops of hickory nuts are the Weschcke, and they are the only ones that
I can really count on maturing early enough to escape our usual early
fall frosts.
I derive great pleasure in observing new seedling plants of filberts,
hazels and their hybrids coming into bearing for the first time this
year. There are about two hundred of these new varieties. Of course most
of them will be worthless commercially. The ideal hybrid hazilbert has
not yet appeared, but when it does we will propagate it for sale as
rapidly as possible.
At this date, August 20, we have suffered from an extremely dry August
and will apparently lose many trees that we cannot reach by irrigation
or some other means of watering.
We have been busy at the farm and nursery erecting a small pilot plant
for grinding filbert butter which we expect to be able to put on the
market between October 15 and November 1.
There is about a one-fourth crop of black walnuts in my orchard trees,
with the Thomas leading. Many of the Ohio trees are barren. Usually the
Ohio bears freely.
It is my observation here that the wild hazels and some of their hybrids
will drop their crop of nuts when it becomes too dry. This probably is
an excellent feature from the standpoint of the plant as it no doubt
saves the plant from being killed by drouth.
There is no doubt in my mind but that the hazel-filbert hybrids
(hazilberts) will make a large agricultural crop in the corn belt. When
these crops are shelled in local plants and ground into butter the
industry will fall into much the same category as country creameries.
However, we have not reached the point where we have the right
commercial plants for this purpose and for the time being will have to
use the Pacific Coast filberts until such large crops of the ideal
hybrids appear.
Home Preparation of Filbert Butter and Other Products
MRS. JEANNE M. ALTMAN, Bellingham, Washington
Filberts may be prepared in different ways at home to make a delicious
food. To make filbert butter first shell a roasting pan two-thirds full
of kernels and put it in a 325 deg. oven. Stir the kernels thoroughly and
often to get an even tan. Cut a few in half to determine when they are
brown enough. Cook about thirty minutes. Do not leave in oven any longer
than necessary because the kernels begin to brown rapidly upon further
cooking. Cool and stir when not too hot. Most of the brown pellicle can
be removed by rubbing kernels between one's hands. Run the kernels
through a food chopper or meat grinder to make a Crunchy butter. To make
a more delicious product, however, first run the kernels through a
coarse knife, salt them and then run through a fine knife. This results
in a butter with enough oil of its own to make a delicious dish. It
takes lots of nuts to make much filbert butter.
In preparing salted filberts in quantity I cook them in a strainer in a
kettle of deep fat. Check the temperature with a thermometer and do not
let them get too hot. Cool them quickly by putting them into a cold dish
and stirring. When salting the whole kernels put only enough fat with
them to coat the pellicle. After they are sufficiently brown take them
out and salt them as they are cooling. Stir just enough to coat the
kernels with salt. Eat pellicle and all; it holds the salt. Stirring too
much tends to remove the salt.
You can treat a pound of nuts at a time in a heavy iron skillet on top
of the stove stirring constantly. When we follow that practice we eat
them salted just as they were instead of grinding them. I think they are
better than salted peanuts.
I sent a recipe to one of our west coast papers and they added a note to
drain them on a paper towel. That is wasteful and unnecessary. A
Bellingham dentist put whole nuts into his false-teeth baking oven in
the evening. I do not know what temperature was maintained but it must
have been low because he left the nuts there all night and the next
morning he found them all roasted and ready to eat.
Filberts, even the green ones just as they come from the tree, may be
boiled and then salted and buttered. They may be used to advantage in
many cooking and baking recipes.
Notes from Central New York
S. H. GRAHAM, Ithaca, N. Y.
This summer has been a difficult one for black walnuts. A late spring
delayed starting and three freezes during the week beginning Sept. 22
prematurely checked development so that poor filling seems to be the
rule. The Persian walnuts again demonstrated their ability to ripen
their nuts in a short season.
Some of our Persian walnut trees are growing in the partial shade of
larger black walnut trees. We prefer to keep these larger trees as they
may be valuable stocks to be grafted to the superior varieties that one
is always hoping will appear later on. This condition gives a good
opportunity to observe the effect of shade. There seems to be no doubt
that even light shade is detrimental in our latitude to the Persian
walnut and results not only in more spindling and unsymmetrical growth
but also interferes with proper ripening of the wood making it more
subject to winter injury.
One difficulty with the Persian walnuts in the East is premature falling
of the nuts. The female flowers on the young Persian trees that we have
seen are usually more numerous than with black walnuts of the same size
and age, but even hand pollinating often fails to give a good set of
nuts. Last spring we took pollen from eight of our Persian trees to the
pomology department of our State College of Agriculture for germinating.
The best sample showed 45% viable pollen; the next best 15% and the rest
from O to 5%. This had been collected and stored for several weeks
according to the methods given by Dr. Cox in the annual report for 1943,
page 58. It is possible that this lack of viability may be due to some
soil deficiency such as insufficient lime or boron. Prof. Schuster of
the Oregon station writes that they find that Persian walnuts readily
accept good Persian pollen but not black walnut or butternut pollen. If
the viability of the pollen falls below 50% they consider it
unsatisfactory. On some of the Oregon soils an application of boron in
the form of ordinary borax under the trees in the spring has greatly
helped in getting a crop of nuts. This should be well worth trying in
the eastern states.
The filbert crop this year is better than usual. Out of over a thousand
crosses between Rush and Winkler with European and Pacific Coast
varieties, in our estimation, only one has proven worthy of propagation
considering size, flavor, abundance of bearing and resistance to filbert
blight. Some growers think lightly of blight but our experience in
fighting it through the years in cutting out cankered wood has convinced
us of the futility of this means of control in infested areas. Control
measures may apparently succeed for a time but when conditions of
moisture, heat and air movement are just right it can spread like
wildfire. Therefore, to us, resistance to this disease (Cryptosporella
anomala) seems of paramount importance. The prevalence of blight has
been almost universal in the scattered plantings which we have visited
in central New York, usually without the owner knowing why his trees
were dying. All our European and Coast varieties, as well as most of the
hybrids, take blight readily but there is an occasional hybrid that is
clearly resistant. Bixby is one of these.
We have always used a knapsack sprayer equipped with a mist nozzle for
our trees but this is inadequate as the trees grow taller. This summer a
much more satisfactory nozzle was found that may be quickly adjusted to
throw a mist for low trees or a far reaching one for the taller trees.
This is made by the D. B. Smith Co. of Utica, N. Y.
From time to time articles appear on insects injurious to nut trees.
Frequently mentioned are the web worms and the walnut caterpillars. With
us, the damage they do is as nothing compared to that caused by the
curculios, the strawberry root worm beetles and the leaf hoppers. We are
getting the upper hand of the curculios by the use of cryolite spray but
the root-worm beetle problem is still unsolved. Until Rev. Crath wrote
of leaf hopper damage (Annual Report 1938 p. 111) we had not regarded
them as at all serious. Subsequent observation has convinced us that he
was right and that they are often the cause of the blackening and dying
of the tender young leaves of Persian walnuts and the curling up of
older leaves. We were especially impressed during the Wooster, Ohio,
field trip last year and, later on, in seeing how Mr. Sherman had
overcome this trouble on the Mahoning Co. farm simply by adding DDT to
his spray mixture.
In closing, we would like to call the attention of new members to the
wealth of information that is to be found in the old Association annual
reports.
Experience with the Crath Carpathian Walnuts
GILBERT L. SMITH, Wassaic, New York
In the spring of 1935 we purchased from the Wisconsin Horticultural
Society two pounds of the nuts which Rev. Paul Crath had imported from
Poland. We planted these nuts in the nursery row. Sixty-two seedlings
resulted. We assigned a number of each of these seedlings and
transplanted them when they were two years old. Here we made our first
mistake. We selected what proved to be a very poor site for them,
adjacent to and nearly surrounded by woodland, in which were a goodly
supply of butternut curculios which we have found to be by far the worst
insect enemy of the Persian walnut. It attacks the terminal growth doing
some damage by feeding but principally by laying eggs in the terminals
and the fleshy base of the leaf stems. From these eggs grub-like larvae
hatch which bore into the terminal and the leaf bases, greatly dwarfing
the terminal growth. We have found as many as six larvae in a single
terminal. Of course they also like to lay their eggs in the young nuts
which then drop from the tree in mid-summer.
In the spring of 1937 we started to graft from these seedlings on black
walnut stocks, giving each the same number as that of the seedling from
which the wood was taken. It is too bad that we did not start this work
sooner as we lost a few of the seedlings, largely through the ravages of
the curculio, but possibly some of them were just not rugged enough to
stand our climate. We still have 49 of these varieties living, either as
grafts or the original trees. To this collection we have added a few
varieties, securing wood from seedlings being grown by others. We have
had living grafts of some of the named Crath varieties which we suppose
developed from some of the wood imported from Poland by Rev. Crath. All
of these have failed with us except one, Carpathian D. Apparently they
were not hardy enough for our climate.
So far we have had only one severe test of our Crath seedlings, as to
hardiness. This was on February 16th, 1943, when the temperature at Mr.
Benton's farm was thirty-four degrees below zero. This was not official
but was registered by two thermometers which Mr. Benton knew to be very
accurate. Many of our Crath seedlings showed no injury at all on this
occasion while others showed varying degrees of injury. Our grafts of
Broadview were damaged quite severely, Carpathian D to just about the
same extent. One other named Crath variety, Crath No. 1, was killed
outright. Only one of our seedling varieties showed as severe injury as
did Broadview. This was S 12. This tree has now fully recovered but we
will not grow any trees from it except for more southern latitudes and
then only if it shows exceptional merit when it begins to bear.
Therefore, according to our experience so far, there is quite definite
evidence that these Crath seedlings are hardier than Broadview. McDermid
was killed outright.
We have found that practically all Persian walnut trees, when young,
will bear pistillate blossoms for several years before they bear
staminate blossoms (catkins). This fact has delayed us in securing nuts
from these seedling varieties and has compelled us to resort to hand
pollination. However, they are now beginning to produce both kinds of
blossoms.
The first one to bear was in 1944, when one tree bore twelve nuts which
had resulted from hand pollination with pollen sent us by Mr. Reed. This
variety appears to be the most promising one that has borne so far. We
have named it Littlepage and have had a booklet printed which describes
it fully. We will be glad to mail a copy to anyone who wishes. We have
now found a good pollinizer for Littlepage, our No. S22 seedling. This
variety produces pollen at just the right time, some of which I used
this spring to hand pollenize the Littlepage tree. A fine crop of nuts
is now on this tree as the result of this pollination.
Last year (1946) we had a few nuts from each of five other seedling
varieties. While we did not consider any of them equal to Littlepage,
they were all worth growing and compare quite favorably with English
walnuts as found in our markets. This year we have nuts on each of
eleven varieties, five of them and the same ones that bore last year and
six new ones. Now that these seedlings are beginning to bear we are able
to cull out any that prove to be very inferior. As our facilities are
far too limited to thoroughly test the promising varieties, we have
started to propagate them and offer them in many parts of the country
and subject them to many different conditions. Thus it should be only a
matter of time until the truly worthy varieties will prove themselves.
If we were wealthy we could propagate them and distribute them free of
charge but I doubt if it would prove as satisfactory as it is to charge
for them, as it seems to be a trait of human nature to take better care
of that which costs us something. We will not name these new varieties
at present but will put them out under their test numbers. Later the
ones that prove best can be named.
To facilitate the distribution of these new varieties we are getting out
a folder showing natural size pictures of the nuts of the six varieties
which were produced last year, with a brief description of each. I am
very sorry that I was unable to get these folders from the printer
before coming to this convention. However we will have them very soon
and will be glad to mail a copy to anyone who requests it.
As stated before we have found that the butternut curculio is a very bad
pest with the Persian walnuts, also heartnuts and butternuts. It does
not injure the black walnut at all. There are also several other insects
which feed on the Persian walnut, most of these chewing insects that
simply injure the foliage more or less severely. Last winter I was
advised by Dr. Dean of our experiment station staff, to try benzene
hexachloride (hexachlorocyclohexane) for control of the curculio. He
stated that in California they have found out that the Persian walnut is
quite susceptible to arsenical injury when a spray containing arsenate
of lead is used on it. Also tests so far indicate that D.D.T. is not
very effective against the apple and plum curculio, therefore not likely
to be effective against the butternut curculio. So last spring we
secured a supply of benzene hexachloride. Just as we were about to spray
the trees I discovered a swarm of orange colored insects with black wing
covers, feeding on them. So I checked the compatibility chart in the
February issue of the American Fruit Grower and found that benzene
hexachloride and D.D.T. were compatible when used together in the spray
mixture. I thought it would be well to use a double barreled dose. So we
made up a spray of four pounds of benzene hexachloride, four pounds of
D.D.T., 50% wettable powder, and 6 pounds of wettable sulfur to 100
gallons of water. This first spray showed a slight burning of the
leaves, which I suspected was due to the sulfur. We omitted sulfur from
the later sprays and did not note any more burning. We put on three
sprays at about two week intervals and a fourth spray about the middle
of July. The result of these sprays appears to be excellent. I have
found only one nut showing any insect injury and this one was only
slightly injured, whereas last summer we lost a considerable percentage
of the nuts from curculio injury. A day or two after applying the first
spray, I wanted to secure a specimen of the orange-colored insects with
black wing covers, but I could not find a single specimen.
We did not apply our first spray quite soon enough and curculio larvae
had already invaded a few of the terminals. The first spray should be
applied about as soon as the leaf buds separate and quite likely should
be followed by the second spray in about a week, as new growth is very
rapid at this time and the scant foliage at the time of the first spray
would hardly hold enough of the chemicals to give control for more than
a few days.
Observations on Hardiness of the Carpathian Walnuts at Poughkeepsie, New
York
STEPHEN BERNATH
In our section we have very good Persian walnut varieties of Carpathian
and other European sources. I have planted some of all strains and
varieties. My place faces northwest on a good elevation. My experience
with trees there is that we have no winter injury. We can grow trees
there that cannot be grown on some place which is situated low, and
therefore does not have enough air circulation. Damage is done after
heavy frosts when the sun comes out suddenly. That is what damages the
trees--not the cold.
If you take trees and put them in a temperature of 35 to 40 degrees
below zero and bring them out to thaw gradually no harm is done. Most
people buy trees and plant them in low places; that is the error. We
have planted trees where the wind is very heavy throughout the winter
and in the spring I found that these trees stood up wonderfully well;
whereas, we have European walnut trees with a trunk diameter of about 12
to 14 inches that in one year froze two to six feet--about three to four
years growth. If you plant your trees on a fairly good elevation you can
be assured of a good nut crop. In planting nut trees I do not know what
kind of fertilizer you use, but I always use well decayed cow manure and
put a little right around the root system. I never use fresh manure and
never use poultry, sheep, or horse manure. They are bad for trees as
they are very high in ammonia and this does damage to the trees.
Discussion after Graham, Smith, and Bernath Persian walnut papers.
Corsan: "Is using lime a good idea? I always use a lot of wood ashes."
Stoke: "Use ground agricultural limestone. Burned lime may cause
injury."
J. R. Smith: "Barnyard manure is the best."
Stoke: "With the Carpathian walnuts there is no uniformity in winter
injury. I have had the Crath variety kill back to two inch wood. Most
others have never shown winter injury."
Corsan: "When is it practical to take mulch away?"
MacDaniels: "If you take mulch away too late you will get more injury
than if you don't take it away at all."
Member: "Why does my young walnut tree not bear?"
Bernath: "English walnut trees may produce pistillate blooms for a
number of years before they produce pollen so that if you have only one
tree it may be due to lack of pollination."
Member: "With English walnut is more than one tree necessary for
pollination? The male blossom appears a week or 10 days before the
female."
Crane: "Persian walnuts should be used to pollinate Persian walnuts--do
not depend on black walnuts. In growing Persian walnuts it is best to
have trees of two or more varieties in a planting so as to provide cross
pollination."
Stoke: "Persian walnuts may not pollinate black walnut, but black walnut
has pollinated the Persian walnut in known instances."
MacDaniels: "Control or uncontrol of pollination is very complex."
Crane: "We find that we can not readily produce Persian x Eastern black
hybrids under conditions of controlled pollination. We have found a
number of natural hybrid trees but they bear very few nuts."
Nuts About Trees
R. E. HODGSON, Superintendent, Southeast Experiment Station, University
of Minnesota.
When hiking with a Boy Scout troop, they often asked me, "What tree is
that?" In summer I could usually tell an oak from a box elder but had
never had much reason to go further into the subject until the boys
exposed my ignorance. In self defense I began to hunt up the names and
found it a most interesting hobby.