Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting: New York City, September 3, 4 and 5, 1924
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting: New York City, September 3, 4 and 5, 1924
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
I have a back pasture full of vigorous pignuts, H. glabra, which for
eleven years I have been grafting with faith which now seems childlike,
that soon I would have fourteen acres of bearing hickory trees. Yet as a
result of all these years of grafting the only hickories that I have
found to thrive are the Brooks, which appears to be vigorous, the
Terpenny, which is vigorous and bearing nuts in its fourth year, and
possibly the Barnes. Not a single pecan survived more than a year,
though many started. The Beaver hybrid makes a long spindling growth and
then, in the first or second year, the leaves turn yellow and mosaic and
the growth dies. The Kirtland, Kentucky, Hales, Taylor and several
others, have all with me, proved failures on the pignut. Mr. Bixby's
experiments appear to be showing somewhat different results.
The question of the compatibility of species and varieties is really a
very important one because in some localities either the pignut or the
mockernut is the prevailing species, and we wish to know with what
species and varieties they may be successfully grafted. For instance, if
the Barnes, which is an excellent shagbark, will do well on both the
pignut and the mockernut, where so many other varieties fail, and the
Brooks is at home on the pignut, these are highly important facts to be
known by the man with fifteen acres of hilly woodland full of young
pignuts and mockernuts.
_Size of Stocks_
I prefer stocks of moderate size, up to three inches in diameter. One
gets greater results for the labor with these than with larger trees. Of
course a tree of any size may be topworked but the labor is
disproportionately greater, especially in the after care.
_Cutting Back Stocks for Topworking_
I doubt if it is important to cut back stocks during the dormant season,
except that then there is more time. With larger trees this counts for a
good deal, but in the smaller ones I like to cut them off just where I
want to graft at the time of doing so. However, they may be cut off when
dormant at the point of selection for grafting and later grafted without
further cutting back. This reduces, or does away with the risk of
bleeding. Except in very small stocks it is better to leave a number of
the lower branches to prevent bleeding. When bleeding does occur it may
be checked by making one or more cuts with the knife or saw into the
sapwood of the trunk below the graft. Better results come when the
cutting back is of the top branches and not the lower ones because of
the stronger flow of sap toward the top of the tree. In my opinion a
side branch should always be left at the point where the stock is cut
off to maintain a circulation of sap. Otherwise the stub will often die
back and the graft fail. Also, the cambium close to a side branch will
be observed to be thicker and I infer that the circulation of sap is
more active. I prefer to cut off the top half, or two-thirds of the tree
and graft into the top and the side branches near the top.
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