Nut trees for wisconsin farms and homesteads

Presentation given at the 2016 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence.

1. Nut Trees for Wisconsin Farms and Homesteads

2. Patterns & Details

3. Things to Know Before Falling in Love with Nuts Your site characteristics Soil-test it! Water Climate Micro-climate Your own characteristics i.e. your context Financial Existing and needed skills/knowledge Do all of your decision makers agree? Does the nut species excite you? Including the non romantic aspects? Regrarian Platform-Darren Doherty

4. Fail on Paper

5. Farm or Homestead Crop? It Depends

6. Nuts! Castanea -Chestnuts Carya -Pecan and Hickory Corylus -Hazel Juglans -Walnut

7. General Tips for All Species Visit people already growing nuts Yes, that includes conventional nut growers Get info from as many sources and perspectives as possible Learn to like reading academic papers Observe and interact with nut trees as much as you can Don’t under estimate grass and deer Join Northern Nut Growers Association Eat nuts!

8. Cultivars VS Seedlings Destroy Dichotomy! Cultivars: Predictable characteristics Yield Quality Disease resistance Uniform ripening time Grafted or clonal plants more expensive Often in short or no supply depending on species and variety

9. Cultivar VS Seedling Seedlings: Opportunity for selecting better varieties Cheaper to buy and/or propagate Can be used as rootstock if it sucks Not applicable to every species Often more vigorous growers Ripening time spread out Diversity also includes negative characteristics!

10. Cultivars VS Seedlings Choosing Seedlings Use seedlings of proven cultivars*Especially important for chestnut if you want to graft* If you know it was pollinated by other good cultivars, even better Seedlings of good, non-cultivar plants Look at what the other trees in the planting are like Is this a commercial planting? Does the owner actually depend on nut production? Avoid buying run-of-the-mill seedlings, especially from large nurseries Applies to rootstock too

11. Chestnuts Castanea C. mollissima and hybrids C. crenata X C. sativa Wouldn’t recommend pure C. dentata due to blight. Soil characteristics are important for chestnut! Acidic soil 4-6.5 Well drained Best to use seedlings of desired plant as rootstock

12. Varieties C. mollissima Mossbarger Luvall’s Monster Sleeping Giant Lockwood Qing Gideon Gellatly hybrids with isolation from Chinese Complex hybrids

13. Varieties C. crenata X C. sativa-for trial only zone 4 and 5! Szego -Actually mollissima X sativa Maraval Marsol Marigoule Bouche de Betizac

14. Farm or Homestead? Both! As long as your site fits its needs Commercial production will require transportation or proximity to population centers Immigrants from chestnut cultures like chestnuts Main advantage is that it doesn’t need shelling

15. Walnuts Juglans regia - Eurasian walnut, “English”, “Persian”, “Carpathian” Juglans nigra -Black walnut Juglans cinerea -Butternut Juglans ailantifolia-Heartnut Hybrids of above, especially butternut and heartnut AKA Buartnut

16. Juglans regia What nut growers dreams are made of Then what their nightmares are made of Compared to other walnut species it lacks hardiness and disease/pest resistance Walnut blight Butternut Curculio Usually grafted on black walnut with few incompatibility issues Thousand Canker disease could change this

17. Juglans regia Varieties Papple Combe Lake ISU 73H32 Harrison Broadview-from Gellatly via Ukraine. Produces pendulous fruit like heartnut Sejnovo Dooley 69-E-( nigraXregia ) X regia Idaho- regia X nigra

18. Juglans regia Characteristics to look for Lateral bearing Short, stocky shoots that harden quickly Not just hardy wood but hardy flower buds, especially male Don’t confuse blight or curculio damage for lack of hardiness Healthy foliage

19. Juglans nigra Native walnut species Thick, hard shell Strong tasting nut meats disliked by some High value timber Thousand Canker disease Grafted on same species

20. Juglans nigra Varieties: Emma K Ohio Vandersloot Sparks varieties Weschcke -especially for zone 4

21. Juglans nigra Things to look for in a good tree Adapted to your climate Leafs out late Matures nuts before frost Hardens off early % kernel and shell structure more important than nut size 25-30% kernel Disease resistance Anthracnose Thousand canker disease?

22. Juglans nigra Farm or homestead? If close enough to a processing facility it can make a good farm crop

23. Juglans cinerea Native walnut species with elongated nuts, now found primarily in early succession ecosystems Population devastated by butternut canker Often grafted on black walnut or butternut. Buartnut would make a lot of sense

24. Juglans cinerea Varieties- Any local tree that’s alive! Buartnuts selected for butternut characteristics- “Butter- buarts ”

25. Juglans cinerea Farm or homestead Little prospect as a commercial crop due to butternut canker and poor cracking characteristics.

26. Juglans ailantifolia East Asian species with some trees having butternut type nuts and some having the heart shaped nuts Seems well adapted to U pper-Midwest conditions zone 5 and up Bunch disease only potential issue Often grafted on black walnut but can out grow stock Suggest grafting on buartnut seedlings for hardiness, disease resistance, and vigor

27. Juglans ailantifolia Varieties: Etter Campbell CW3-seedling of Etter . Late bloom and cold hardy. Said to be side bearing CW1 CWW Campbell’s West Imshu Pyke Blunt-cold hardy from Manchurian walnut genes Locket Stealth Szukis

28. Juglans ailantifolia Buartnut varieties with heart like nuts Mitchell-Thought to be most hardy Dooley Filzinger Miekal’s buartnuts

29. Juglans ailantifolia Farm or homestead Farm? Needs cracking, easier to do small scale but still time consuming

30. Hickory Carya ovata-shagbark Carya cordiformis -bitternut Carya illinoinensis -pecan Carya laciniosa -shellbark?

31. Carya ovata Native upland species, often co-dominant with oak Grafted on it’s own species or on hardy pecan

32. Carya ovata Varieties: Yoder #1 Porter Glover Wilcox Neilson Weschcke Campbell #26 Campbell #8 There are shagbark X pecan. Badgersett

33. Carya ovata Good nut should give at least 50% whole halves At least 85 nuts per pound Size is less important than internal shell structure

34. Carya ovata Farm or homestead? Homestead Farm possibilities with a shelling facility

35. Carya cordiformis Native hickory, faster growth than shagbark and more precocious Very similar to pecan Bitternut with high tannin High oil content Useful for breeding purposes

36. Carya cordiformis Varieties Halesite -sweet bitternut Hatch-sweet bitternut Abbott-cross with pecan Galloway-cross with pecan Mall-cross with pecan Nelson-cross with pecan Pooshee -cross with pecan Westbrook-cross with pecan

37. Carya cordiformis Farm or homestead? Potential for income from pure bitternut for oil. More viable wild collected Potential for bitternut X pecan but more breeding work needed

38. Carya illinoinensis Closest native range is the border of Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota Hardiness not as much of a problem as length of season Need to drop nuts before hard frost “Northern” pecan works in southern Illinois, northern Missouri, Kentucky. Need “Ultra-northern” for upper- midwest Issues with scab in susceptible varieties

39. Carya illinoinensis Ultra-Northern Varieties- Snaps PK Jumbo Deerstand Oaks Diken Lucus All are small nuts, 1-1.5 inches long

40. Carya illinoinensis Northern varieties for breeding purposes or warm years Posey-fair resistance to scab Starking Witte Major-Scab resistance Hark-scab resistance Shepard-Scab resistance Warren 346-scab resistance Kansas state varieties Kanza -scab resistant Lakota Osage Oswego

41. Carya illinoinensis Farm or homestead? Ultra northern pecans are too small to compete with southern production. Potential as an oil crop? Northern pecan could be grown as pollen source for breeding with ultra northern or other hickory species

42. Carya laciniosa Shellbark hickory native to southern part of Midwest and up the Mississippi to around Iowa City Large nut, biggest of hickory Tends to be more of a mesic species than either shagbark or pecan Takes a lot of heat to ripen nuts Lots of “packing material” and convoluted shell structure

43. Carya laciniosa Varieties?

44. Carya laciniosa Farm or homestead? Neither except for homestead trial. Gary Fernald says he thinks that there could be varieties that ripen in Zone 5 Wisconsin

45. Corylus Corylus avellana -European hazelnut Corylus americana -American hazelnut

46. Corylus spp. Long history of breeding and attempted industry in Wisconsin Euro hazelnut has cold hardiness and disease issues American hazelnut tends to have small nuts Hybrids are seen as the solution Selection for Euro characteristics can lead to disease problems Selection for disease resistance can lead to more American characteristics

47. Corylus spp. Varieties- Tom Molnar breeding pure C. avellana for disease resistance and cold hardiness Midwest hazels-hybrids of american and European Clonal selections being made and trialed. Few available but starting Controlled crosses available and being trialed John Gordon varieties collected by Molnar Gordon 1-4 Contact Tom Molnar for scionwood Could be used as reference cultivars

48. Corylus spp. Farm or Homestead? Farm? Genetic improvements are happening but processing industry is in its infancy Homestead use for sure

49. Suggested Reading NNGA Newsletters A Guide to Nut Tree Culture-Editor Dennis Fulbright Nut Tree Culture in North America-Editor Richard Jaynes Nut Tree Ontario- Ernie Grimo Nut Growing Ontario Style-John Gordon available online http:// johnsankey.ca/songnews/nutgrowing.html Growing Nuts in the North-Carl Weschcke also available online https:// www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18189 Growing Hybrid Hazelnuts-Philip Rutter et. all

50. Suggested Reading NAFEX Upper-Midwest Hazelnut Development Initiative (UMHDI) Chestnut Growers of America University of Missouri School of Agroforestry Nut Competitions