Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report: at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report: at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
I'd like to give you just something briefly on what the Dairy Department
of Alabama Polytechnic found out about the general value of these pods.
They found that honeylocust pods could be substituted in a dairy ration
for oats, pound for pound. Now, that means that if you can get a high
yield of honeylocust pods and substitute it in a dairy ration for oats
that you just about have half of the grain problem solved.
I'd like then to follow that up to give you the average yields. Before I
give you these average yields I'd also like to bring out this fact about
the Calhoun and the Millwood honeylocust. Those trees are very peculiar
in their habits of bearing. One year they will bear a heavy crop. The
next year they will bear scarcely anything. They are definitely
alternate bearing, and I think that alternate bearing has a
physiological background behind it. How We can eliminate that
physiological reaction is something else. But the years that the trees
are heavily loaded with the fruit the amount of carbohydrates that it
draws from the tree is so great that the tree doesn't have enough
carbohydrates left to produce fruit the next year. I think it is the
carbon-nitrogen ratio from the physiological standpoint, and, of course,
if that is the case, then there is a possibility that you could
eliminate or correct that carbon-nitrogen ratio by thinning during the
blooming period. But when you see these results I think that you will
agree that honeylocust has a place, even if they do bear only every
other year.
In our planting we have some trees that will bear this year. Next year
they won't bear, but their sister trees will bear. So we have pods every
year from some of the trees. Over a period of five years, during which
these trees were planted (the oldest trees that we have in 1938, and in
1942) the average production of the Millwood was 58.3 pounds per tree.
In 1943 there were no pods produced on the Millwood variety. We had a
cold spell in the spring that completely eradicated all of the fruit in
that year. In 1944 the average yield--and that is taking the average
yield of 10 trees of the oldest ones that were put in--the average yield
was 146 pounds of pods per tree.
Mr. McDaniel: That's for both varieties?
Mr. Moore: That's just for Millwood. I will give you the Calhoun in a
minute.
Then in 1945 the average yield was 39.5 pounds per tree. In 1946 we had
an average of 180 pounds per tree. In 1947 we had an average of 12
pounds. Now, note the break there in averages from year to year: 58,
none, 146, 39, 180, 12. You get from that that we have almost definitely
alternate bearing in those trees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account