West Tennessee Variety, Breeding and Propagation Tests, 1947

AUBREY RICHARDS, M.D., Whiteville, Tennessee

I surely wish I could have made the trip to the Northern Nut Growers Association meeting, but I simply had "too many hens setting" at that time. I've been waiting for you [the Secretary] to show up down here for the big news—at least it is to me—if it holds up. If you have ever tried to propagate heartnuts on Japanese walnut you know what it means.

Here it is: Rhodes, Wright and Fodermaier heartnuts patch-budded on 10 Japanese understocks (all I had) took 100%. The same 3 varieties as a control on black walnut gave a take of only 80%.

These trees give me a chance to check on the performance of black versus Japanese stocks for these varieties. From last year's propagation, Rhodes on black is beating Rhodes on Japanese and Bates (which was not used this year) seems fully as good on black walnut stocks.

An isolated tree of Bates did not set a nut. Its pollen all shed before the pistils were receptive. An isolated tree of Rhodes bore a full crop.

Incidentally, a weak chlorine bleach (Clorox) after these heartnuts are hulled does for them what peroxide does for the ladies and makes them look very inviting.

Stambaugh again led in topworked black walnuts, bearing its second consecutive full crop on a 3-year graft. It seems to be immune to whatever it is that causes the other nuts to turn black, shrivel and drop off from the time they set until near maturity. Thomas was second. Snyder, Sparrow and Myers had no crop. I budded 25 more trees of Stambaugh this year.

The Carpathian Persian walnut that we pollinated this spring with Wright heartnuts [no other walnuts were shedding at the time] matured a nice, large, rather pointed, heavy nut. It also matured another nut higher on the tree than we could reach with the catkins, but I'm sure it's a blank. It is still more pointed than the well-filled nut. The good nut is stored for planting.

Rush hazel that set fruit last year with the help of a bouquet of native [West Tennessee] catkins set only 5 nuts this year "on its own." These I have also stored to plant.

I didn't have enough stocks to utilize all the pollen-sterile Japanese chestnut buds you sent me [in early September]. I put in most of them, even in some cases several to the stock to see what percentage of takes we would get with the twin T. [See 1946 Report of N. N. G. A., pp. 87-88, for a description of the Twin T budding method.—Ed.]

Here are the percentage takes for chestnut propagation this year. Of course I don't know how many of these buds will later drop off.

1. Pollen-sterile Japanese on Japanese stock. Late summer buds100%

2. Austin Japanese on Japanese Stock. Late summer buds86%

3. Hobson Chinese on Chinese. Late summer buds75%

4. Zimmerman Chinese on Chinese. Late summer buds50%

5. Colossal hybrid on Japanese stock. Spring grafts60%

I had a nice crop of Chinese chestnuts on my young Hobson and Zimmerman trees. The 1947 nuts were exceptionally large. One 3-year seedling bore 1 bur with 3 nuts fully as large. Connecticut Yankee bore for the first time, 3 nuts to a bur, but very small, scarcely ½" in diameter. (You will notice I budded none of this variety!) (Perhaps mislabeled seedling.—Ed.)

I have about 100 nuts from isolated trees that were hand pollinated, as follows: Austin x Hobson, Austin x Zimmerman, Hobson x Austin and Hobson x Zimmerman.

I have altogether 3 quarts of select nuts stored in the refrigerator. So far they are keeping nicely. (I dusted them with Fermate, hope it doesn't affect germination.)