Clearing areas to make a native Pecan grove

        If you are in an area where you are lucky enough to have a large number of wild pecan trees that are already producing nuts and you are wanting to harvest some pecans either for yourself or to sell, it can make a lot of sense to cut down trees that are 'crowding' the pecan trees. Any trees that have branches touching the pecan trees branches are the first to go, and then any trees that would interfere with you harvesting the nuts, then you can look at the canopy and see if there are any trees nearby that are likely to interfere with the pecan trees growth in the near future.

 

ABOVE On the left you see a large tree and on the right you see two smaller trees. The two smaller ones are pecans that are being crowded by a pin oak tree. The pin oak was cut and both pecans were left standing. They will quickly fill up the space in the canopy left by the pin oak.

ABOVE This is a pecan tree left in an area post-thinning. Notice there is nothing around this trees canopy. All other large trees were cut. This pecan is in an excellent location and should have rapid growth over the next few years.

ABOVE Obstacles to actually harvesting pecans off the ground. In order to pick nuts up off the ground there has to be a relatively 'clean' surface. There can be grass, and it can be a few inches tall, but there cannot be downed trees, huge branches, etc. All trees that I cut that have any value as lumber or firewood get used for those purposes, all other wood becomes brush piles for wildlife. 

ABOVE This is what used to be an old roadside. It is now the edge of a young pecan orchard. This area is undergoing thinning. The trees with colored tape on them are pecans that will remain. The short one on the left with colorful tape was grafted last year (see below)

ABOVE I like to graft relatively 'high' on the trees to prevent deer and other animals from eating my grafts. This tree was grafted in 2018 at approximately 5 feet off the ground and then in one growing season it grew about another 5 feet. That is a lot of growth and a lot of weight to support without breaking. This area is relatively protected from wind for now since I have not cleared out some of the larger trees around it. This greatly improves the chances of my grafts not being destroyed by high winds. When the grafts are fully healed in another year or so I will thin out more of the larger trees around the grafted pecans. 

ABOVE This is a close up of the graft on that specific tree above. It was a type of bark graft and it took very well. The original twig I grafted on this tree in SP 2018 was about the size of my index finger both in terms of length and circumference. Currently, it is larger than the circumference of my thumb and is 5 feet tall. It grew rapidly in 2018 despite a terrible drought. Part of this was because the original tree I cut to make this graft was at least 10 feet tall, so it has an enormous root system and was able to find enough water to make such dramatic growth. There are many good reasons you should consider grafting existing trees. They are much lower maintenance, take much less time to establish, and will produce nuts much sooner. This particular grafted tree was grafted to the variety 'Kanza' and I expect it to begin producing nuts within a few years.

American Hazelnuts - A tough native plant

                 American hazelnuts Corylus americana are native to a large portion of the eastern and midwestern United States. They are a perennial shrub and can grow from seed or from underground suckers from nearby plants. They are an excellent plant for wildlife or for cultivation for people to harvest and eat the nuts. There are some 'improved' varieties and strains of american hazlenuts, and a large assortment of hybrid european x american hazelnuts available on the market today. American hazelnuts are very hardy and productive, but the drawback is that usually the nuts are so small that they aren't really viable as a product to be sold for the in-shell hazelnut market and often so small that even harvesting them for processing isn't commercially viable either. There is continuing breeding being conducted by individuals, and organizations, such as universities, in the United States looking at hybrid hazelnuts and increasing their productivity. On our farm I plant mostly American hazelnuts that have been selected because they displayed particularly valuable characteristics for breeding, but I also will plant exceptional hybrids and their seedlings if they appear really promising in terms of a particular characteristic.

              Just to illustrate how tough American hazelnuts are I am attaching a picture of one of our seedlings that was planted at the end of summer 2017. We have been in a drought here in central Missouri since fall 2017. This particular plant was approximately 4 inches tall when it was planted, it has grown 1 foot in the past 12 months despite not being irrigated, growing on a south facing slope, and having only minimal weed control (light straw mulch). I do provide a cage for most of my plants to keep them from being eaten by wildlife.

Given that this plant has actually grown under these adverse drought conditions, I am really looking forward to seeing how fast it can grow once we actually have some regular rainfall again. Hazelnuts produce nuts at a relatively young age and in one to two years we should see what the quality of hazelnuts is like from this particular seedling. 

Bark Grafting Pawpaw trees

Previously I have talked mostly about bark grafting pecans, but if you have a tree with large enough diameter you can bark graft many other tree species relatively easily. Earlier this year I bark grafted clusters of pawpaw trees in a wooded area on our farm and I wasn't quite sure how the trees and grafts would respond as the weather turned hot and dry very quickly after I grafted them in our part of Missouri. Additionally most of the trees were in heavy shade and some were likely root suckers from other nearby pawpaw trees.

After going through today and inspecting the grafts I am very satisfied with how things turned out. I grafted 10 pawpaw trees in the wooded areas and had 100% success with bark grafts. Next year I will definitely be grafting more trees around the successful grafts from this year and thinning out other trees around them to eventually establish an orchard in partial shade along this riparian area.

The steps I took grafting these are as follows:

1) Pick a tree with a diameter suitable for bark grafting. In my case I didn't pick any trees that were less than 1 inch in diameter and I really liked them to be 2+ inches.

2) Cut down pawpaw trees within 6 feet of the tree you are grafting. I did this because I was worried that pawpaw trees that were closer than 6 feet would be connected to this tree and if I cut the top off to bark graft my tree it would stimulate the growth of nearby trees at the expense of my grafted tree.

3) Graft it.

4) Come back to it within a month check the graft and cut off branches and new growth below the graft if it was a successful graft.

Here are some pictures of the grafts after about 5 weeks. They have all grown very rapidly and have put on between 1-2 feet of new growth from the grafts.

Looking at the seasons grafts - Pecan

It is time to start keeping an eye on the grafts done earlier in the season and making sure development is on track. In an earlier post I talked about grafting I had done earlier this year on pecans, persimmons, and peaches. Almost all of my pecan grafts were bark grafts where I cut off the top of sizeable young trees and grafted 'Kanza', 'Major', and 'Yates 68' pecan scions onto my native rootstock. These trees I grafted them onto were wild trees that had grown up in old field and pasture areas and had just been left to grow by previous owners.

I had good luck this year with bark grafts on pecans and most of them are growing quite well (would probably be doing even better if we had some rain!). The one in this picture has grown from both buds, has already grown over a foot since it was grafted in May, and has produced catkins AND female flowers. These female flowers are what later turn into pecans if they are pollinated. Grafted trees will begin producing nuts MUCH sooner than pecan trees grown from seed, especially if they are grown on a desirable site to help them grow quickly and given some basic care and attention. Since my tree is so small however I don't want it using all of it's energy in flowering and attempting to produce a few nuts, I want it to grow large and tall as fast as it can. So I will go through and cut off all of the female flowers. Attached is a picture of the graft and male catkins (see that organ in the lower half of the picture covered in pollen = catkin).

Wild Blackberries

It is the time of year blackberries are blooming here in central Missouri and the fruits are just beginning to develop where the flowers have been pollinated. Blackberries have very attractive flower clusters and their habit of suckering everywhere means they make excellent hedges.

Blackberries beginning to bloom 2+ weeks ago

On our farm we have some large stands of native wild blackberries in overgrown pastures. We have left almost all of them and now actively manage them for berry production. Combined they are approximately 1/3 of an acre, which is about all the blackberries we can pick during the period they are ripening. To manage wild patches we took a narrow bushhog (4ft) and cut paths through the patches in the fall, then cut those same spots in the spring, then we will mow them again right before harvest. In the fall we also seeded the paths with a mix of crimson and white Ladino clover just to add some nitrogen to the areas and to give us a groundcover. We left the rows where the blackberries are growing uncut and we left them approximately 3 feet wide, since these have thorns on them we don't want to have to reach very far into them to get berries. This left us with aisles cut through the patch that are 4 ft, followed by a row of berries that is 3 ft wide, followed by another 4ft aisle, and then another 3ft wide berry row, and on and on. The length of the rows and aisles is simply based on whatever the length of the wild patches are, some are 20 feet long, others are 40+. After the summer harvest we will let the back berries grow back into the rows we cut last fall and we will cut the areas down that we harvested from this summer. This is to eliminate old canes, encourage new growth, and make harvesting easier.

Wild blackberries leave a lot to be desired in terms of size, consistency, etc, but since they take almost no time to manage, if you have a market for them and you have the time to pick them, then go for it.

Grafting season May 2018

When you graft a tree you have a root stock and a scion from at least one other tree and you take advantage of the way plants and trees grow to connect them together. This can have big advantages for the grower because there are many species of plants and trees that do not come 'true' from seed, which means every seedling will be atleast a  little different from it's parents. This can be a disadvantage if you need fruits or nuts, or any other crop to produce in a reliable way year after year, or have a consistent size fruit, nut, etc. So by grafting you can take an orchard of trees grown from seeds that are all very different from each other and you can make the tops of them the same. Your roots and sometimes the lower part of the trunk will still be the 'seedling', but the top of the tree that is producing fruit or nuts will be what you grafted. This is just my simplified grafting explanation and some things can be different in some situations.

Spring is traditionally a good time for many different kinds of grafts. This spring I focused on grafting many pecan trees at our farm. These were mostly wild pecan trees that were between 5-20 feet tall. Almost all of them were bark grafted. For more information on bark grafting pecan trees it is very hard to beat Bill Reid's northern pecan blog as a reference. Most of the pecan trees I grafted were to the variety 'Kanza'. I also grafted some to 'Major' and 'Yates 68' and a few others. Next year when many more of our pecan sprouts are larger I will be grafting many more to these varieties and a few others. We focus on grafting only pecan varieties that are currently very pecan scab resistant because there are excellent scab resistant varieties out there right now and it will be one less disease/pest we will have to worry about.

Peach scion beginning to break bud grafted onto an American plum rootstock

Another common species we have around our farm are different species of wild native plums - mostly American plums. There is some research indicating that as long as you are willing to prune off the prolific suckers which will occur from the ground - using American plums as a rootstock can be a great way to have a very hardy and naturally dwarfing rootstock to graft peaches onto. You will notice in the picture above the peach scion is just beginning to break bud. When I start seeing the leaves fully unfurl I will go in with pruning shears and cut off all leaves and growth below the scion to ensure the rootstock does not out compete the scion.