Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting: Guelph, Ontario, September 3, 4, 5, 1947 — John Shaqi
Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting: Guelph, Ontario, September 3, 4, 5, 1947
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting: Guelph, Ontario, September 3, 4, 5, 1947
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
There has been a marked increase in interest in the planting of nut
trees in Ontario since the first plantings were made at the Station.
These Station plantings serve to demonstrate in a small way that nut
trees can be grown in the Niagara fruit belt of Ontario. The
feasibilty, however, of growing nut crops in a commercial way, even in
this district, is still open to question, although it is felt that
farmers and others should be encouraged to plant a few nut trees on
their property both for the sake of the nuts and because of the
ornamental nature of the trees.
Soil Management for Nut Plantations in Ontario
J. R. van HAARLEM, Horticultural Experiment Station, Vineland Station,
Ontario
Fruitgrowers with high priced land, such as we have in the Niagara
Peninsula, are not much interested in using such land for a crop not yet
proven commercially sound. Plantings, whether large or small, are likely
to be made on low-priced marginal land needing good care. It is doubtful
if these locations are best suited to proper nut culture since most nut
trees are deep rooted with extensive root systems requiring the best
soils.
At the Vineland Station we have three plantations made up of 110
walnuts, 240 filberts, 14 chestnuts and 6 pecans. These comprise named
varieties and seedlings of black, Carpathian, and other Persian walnuts,
filberts, chestnuts and pecans.
During the first years of the life of these plantations we maintained a
clean cultivation program during the spring and early summer followed by
the planting of a green-manure crop about July 1st each year. Such crops
as buckwheat, millet, rye, and weeds, have been used on occasion. We
soon found that the treatment was not good enough for the trees and we
then changed to a grass sod with mulch around each tree within the
spread of the branches. Since this sod-mulch treatment was applied the
trees have done very much better, making fine growth and maintaining a
large leaf area of good color. This treatment is fairly representative
of the many trees planted in dooryards under sod conditions, where the
grass is cut and left on top.
Most of our Ontario soils are deficient in organic matter and, depending
on location, deficient in phosphate or potash, or both together. The
mineral deficiency should first be corrected by liberal applications of
the required fertilizer before placing the plantations in sod, in fact
it would pay to do this several years before setting out the trees,
growing alfalfa on this land and returning all the hay back into the
soil. For plantations already set out these minerals could be placed in
a furrow cut just under the outer spread of the branches. Our soils have
a high fixation factor for phosphate and potash and we have found that
the best practice is to place the fertilizer under the surface either
with a deep-placement machine or as outlined above.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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