Growing Nuts in the North - A Personal Story of the Author's Experience of 33 Years - with Nut Culture in Minnesota and Wisconsin by Carl Weschcke
page 30 of 145 (20%)
page 30 of 145 (20%)
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in sight of Lake Superior at Bayfield, Wisconsin.
Many of our best nut trees, from man's point of view, have inherent faults such as the inability of the staminate bloom of the Weschcke hickory to produce any pollen whatsoever, as has been scientifically outlined in the treatise by Dr. McKay under the chapter on hickories. In the Weschcke walnut we have a peculiarity of a similar nature as it affects fruiting when the tree is not provided with other varieties to act as pollinators. It has been quite definitely established, by observation over a period of ten or more years, that the pollen of the Weschcke variety black walnut does not cause fruiting in its own pistillate blooms. Although this is not uncommon among some plants, such as the chestnut and the filbert where it is generally the rule instead of the exception, yet in the black walnuts species the pollen from its own male (or staminate) flowers is generally capable of exciting the ovule of the female (pistillate) flower into growth. Such species are known as self-fertile. As in the case of ordinary chestnuts which receive no cross pollination, and the pistillate flowers develop into perfect burrs with shrunken meatless, imperfect nuts, the Weschcke black walnut, when standing alone or when the prevailing winds prevent other nearby pollen from reaching any or but few of its pistillate bloom, goes on to produce fine looking average-sized nuts practically all of which are without seed or kernels. Such therefore is the importance of knowing the correct pollinators for each variety of nut tree. In the self-sterility of filberts the failure of self-pollination results in an absence of nuts or in very few rather than a full crop of seedless fruits such as the common chestnut and the Weschcke black walnuts produces. This is the only black walnut that has come to the author's attention where its pollen acting on its pistillate bloom has affected the production of nuts in just this way but the variety of black walnut |
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