Where are heartnut trees sold? I've never seen them anywhere I buy trees from....

Grimo is probably the most respected heartnut tree source for named varieties.

https://www.grimonut.com/index.php?p=Products&category=heartnut

Grimo has around a dozen different varieties of heartnut trees for sale. The growers I know in Ohio, mostly bought their original stock from Grimo and then grafted scions from those trees on black walnut or heartnut saplings started from seed.

I'm going to pot up a bunch of black walnut saplings I grew from seed this year, after they go dormant and then graft heartnut on them in the Spring.

I'm going to plant several hundred heartnut seeds this fall too. They may be crossed with black and English walnut. I'll graft onto some the following year, but will let some grow to see what they produce too.



Keith

Keith, I was making some trap dye this a.m.
Noticed lots of maggot/grubs in the walnuts.
The more decayed they were the more chance of grubs.
Any idea what they are?

walnut husk fly (Rhagoletis completa)

Thank you

so to get a tree to grow from the nut[seed] do you dry the nut and then put it into fridge,?

You don't want to dry the nuts out more than minimally, or you can kill them. Nuts like chestnuts, buckeyes and acorns are easy to over dry and kill. Cold stratification in the refrigerator works well in slightly damp, not dripping, peat moss, vermiculite or sand. Even a damp paper towel can work. It can take up to 120 days. Because of space constraints, I cold stratify most seeds and nuts outside.

Keith

The walnut husk flies don't harm the nut meat in the black walnuts. They don't get inside the actual nut. They just wash off when you clean the husk off the shell.

Keith

These rocks are what I use for hulling black walnuts and heartnuts. Black walnuts usually take 2 or 3 hits. Heart nuts usually only take 1 hit. These rocks came from where the Native American camp was on my farm and were likely used for the same purpose. I am more sure of the anvil stone than the hammer stone.




I have 3 barrels of black walnut seedlings, I planted last Winter, that I plan on grafting named varieties of heart nuts and black walnuts on. I'll dig them and pot them up after they go dormant.



Keith

I really hope Vinke doesn't notice this thread.

He already did, go back a few posts........if you dare!!!

so, you put the nuts, in the barrels, in the fall, and they came up in the spring, and you will plant them this fall,

Yes, I'll dig them out when they go dormant, trim them back a lot, but not all the way and put them in pots. Roots grow most in the Fall and Winter. In the Spring, I'll cut them back to a few inches tall and graft pieces of heartnut and named cultivars of black walnut, with characteristics like more nut meat and thinner shells, to them. I'll then baby them until next Fall, when I'll plant them in my hayfields. I'll likely sell some too.

Not all the grafts will likely take, so I'll make many more than I think I need. I won't put them in the fields right away, because the new grafts need a lot of care and it's easier to keep them together near water. Just a bird landing on a new graft, before it fully heals and grows, can break it off. A lot of people that do put them directly in the field, tape on a piece to the trunk, that sticks up higher than the graft, for the birds to land on.

I'm hoping their roots didn't get to long. If they did get to long, I'll have to buy deeper tree pots. I think the tallest I have are 11 inches. Most of what we planted we put in air pruning beds. Air pruning beds have wire on the bottom, above an air pocket. The tap roots pause when they hit air and lots of lateral roots progressively form and pause too. It keeps the roots shorter and more manageable. It also makes many more roots.

I have a bunch of cold hardy pecan, shell bark hickory and apricot trees, which we will graft onto too. I'll put named cultivars on them too. The apricots will get peaches and nectarines grafted to them.

Keith

Here's some of what we sell on weekends, that I took pictures of as I was unloading yesterday.


Amorphophallus konjack, AKA voodoo lilies. They are by far our best seller.



Elephant ears.


Cold hardy apricot.


Cold hardy pecan.


Shellbark hickory.


White oak.


Redbud.


Buckeye


Persimmon


Canna lilies.


Earlier in the year and still for some, we also sold/sell lots of types of tomato plants, peppers, eggplants, herbs, annual flowers, perennial native flowers, serviceberry, pawpaw, catnip, spearmint, coleus, spider plants, elderberry and Easter lilies. Next year we will have a lot more.

Keith

To stratify walnuts you can always heal an onion bag of nuts in a small gravel pile. Works like a charm. Just don't forget about them like this batch from the late 80's in from of my cabin!



Incidentally, these came from Lagerstedt's "walnut wilderness" near Corvallis, Oregon back when I was still an NNGA member (Northern Nut Grower Assoc.) These were nuts collected form a timber variety with purple heartwood and likely pollinated with nut varieties planted all around it. Harry Lagerstedt was a long time NNGA member and USDA horticulturist. He is accredited with the "Ennis" variety of hazelnut among many other innovations in the nut and fruit world.

Keith, you ever do any grafting of pecan scionwood onto hickory rootstock?

…. No profanity