them, then we need to make other arrangements to plant them out

Look at the Christmas nut bowl. The English walnuts look especially appealing. They crack so easily and cleanly and they taste, great (sometimes). When they are especially good they go fast, also they get sold fast.

I have a neighbor with several hardy English walnut trees in his yard. He sells nuts for $3 per pound, and now that people know about his nuts, they stop to buy even before he gets his sign out. What is sad is that these English trees are often weather injured and crop less. Late spring frost, deep winter cold, or a wet-bacterial summer ruins the crop. My neighbor complains, as does everyone, but nothing else is done.

The NYNGA was recently formed to help our neighbors with nut problems. The English walnut cycles in and out of favor, a few good crop years and everyone is enthusiastic, followed by some poor years, which demoralize the growers. A partial solution is to buy grafted trees, which are known to resist these maladies. The problem is that grafted frees are expensive, up near $30, and these top-of-the-line selections remain natives of Eurasia, and require special sites. It’s a hard sell trying to get my neighbor to start these hardier English walnuts.

NYNGA has gathered seed nuts from these superior English walnuts in the hope of growing them to select a more native tree than the grafted selections. Hardy English walnuts for New York will evolve if our project searches out, propagates and advertises the advantages of more hardy and disease resistant walnut varieties. Several of our members have been searching for English walnuts that leaf-out later and which will not be damaged by late spring frosts.

You are invited to join with us and share your knowledge of local trees (especially walnuts that leaf out late). We invite you to grow several nuts, which we will supply with detailed planting instructions. Please call Francis Woodward at 585-765-2544 for more information. To order 5 different nuts (mixed selection as supply lasts) with instructions for $10, write check to NYNGA. Send to Colleen Green (treas), 6434 Burke Hill Rd., Perry, NY 14530. Remember, these will be large trees, so you will need to plan for adequate space.

We plan to send nuts out in the April-May period 2005. If a school is interested in the project, we could pre-start some nuts and send them in March for quicker emergence. However, nuts which are germinating are fragile and easily crack in half, possibly injuring the embryo at the root end.

Watching these trees sprout and grow is guaranteed to be interesting and rewarding. We feel that if you plant five seedlings, you should have two good bearing trees in 7 years if you maintain them under garden or orchard conditions and fertilize annually. Of course we would like you to report back to us on how the trees are doing, but if the trees are happy and you start selling nuts, future nutters and NYNGA members will come.

As of January 2005, the seed nut project had made the following progress. John Gordon arranged for a donation of English walnuts from promising cultivars. The nuts were donated by Ernie Grimo, who operates the Grimo Nut Nursery at Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ontario (thank-you Emie) The following nuts are avai1able:

2,280~ nuts from the cultivar “Papple”

360 nuts from “Combe”

480 nuts from “I.S.U. 73H24”

630 nuts from “Lake”

550 nuts from “Harrison”

This is a total of 4,300 nuts

available for NYNGA seed packets.

All of these varieties (cultivars) have shown resistance to walnut blight and yield clean bright nuts under blighty conditions. The parent trees are free of any signs of walnut blight below the first year wood (slits in the bark are typical on non-resistant trees). All of these trees are very hardy and frost resistant with the exception of “Harrison”; it needs a longer midwestern type season.

All nuts have cured to a bright, sweet, semi pecan flavor, with no bitter aftertaste. Ernie Grimo dried the nuts for two days after gathering and cleaning. The nuts were kept in cardboard boxes until December and then stored in chests in the ground through the winter.

These nuts are to be planted in the spring of 2005 so that they can germinate and grow. If we can’t sell them, then we need to make other arrangements to plant them out.

The NYNGA board met with Professor Ken Mudge from Cornell University on March 5^th. NYNGA granted $400 to start the “science” base of this walnut project. This early grant will cover greenhouse space, cold storage, and initial planting. Future granting will get at the quickest way to accumulate hardiness. By John Gordon (Editor’s note; John Gordon and Ernie Grimo deserve our profound thanks for getting this public spirited project started. The nut distribution program is very reminiscent of the distribution of hardy Carpathian walnuts by the Wisconsin Agricultural Society in 1936. These hardy walnut seeds were collected in the Carpathian Mountains of Poland by Rev. Paul Crath and shipped to Wisconsin. From there they were distributed all over the U.S. and Canada. Many of the nuts that we will send out this spring will be descendants of that Wisconsin distribution program. However, the nuts that we send out will be selected from those surviving trees that have done the best in out northerly climes. This selection process should give you a great opportunity to grow tasty walnuts in your own back yard.)