I collected these a few weeks ago and am making a half hearted attempt at germinating them. i guess I would try to graft them over if they grow out. I wanted to make sure I had correctly identified them
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Yes, pecans.
They look pretty decent sized for wild pecans. Where did you get them? If there was not much scab, you may want to consider grafting over your seedlings to the same variety of the tree which produced those pecans.
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The large tree was in someones backyard with branches hanging over the fence.
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Yes they should sprout pretty easy. I get several every year from the squirrels burying the pecans in potted plants.
@39thparallel Have you grafted nuts before? I have not succeeded. I gather itās like getting your PhD in grafting to succeed with nuts. But why not try. Maybe some veterans will share their secrets. There was a recent good discussion on secrets to persimmon grafting- make sure rootstock has started robust growth, force the rootstock to feed the graft by not leaving nurse limbs at least when putting kaki on native, grafting low (cutting off substantial part of rootstock) and disbudding rootstock sprouts almost daily. Plus alum. foil heat shield. What else?
Mike, they look like they may be a good find.
What town, and state does the mother tree grow in?
Iām presently growing pecan nuts here in Connecticut, a zone 5b/6a.
What your holding in you hand looks like maybe 80 nuts to the pound.
Also, chances are there might be a pollinating pecan close by.
Bob Harper
@hambone yes, I hear nuts are hard to sucessfuly graft, but Iām sure its just a matter of the right methodolgy and timing. I dont have anything to lose by trying.
@robert_2007
They came from a tree in Baldwin City, KS zone 5/6. I may be able to collect scion from it. If the grafts take, I will collect some more nuts first and make sure they taste good.
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39th, you appear to be in the middle of pecan country.
You should be able to grow, two of the best pecans in the world, Hark, and Kansa.
I would graft or plant those two, verses trying to find out if the nuts you have from a seedling will be any good.
Kansas nut growers association would have grafting wood for you.
Bob
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Yep, pecans; ditto the recommendations above. After 20 years of playing around with them, I still look at a 50% success rate on pecan/hickory grafts as fabulous success! But, it can be done.
Dr. Bill Reid, pecan specialist for KS & MO, maintains a really good northern pecan blog - and has some good detailed descriptions & photo series on grafting, pruning, etc. Check it out.
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Anyone in zone 4 ever get any pecans to fruit? I have planted a couple Northern Pecan seedlings in my orchard just to see what might happen. Global warming?
@lucky Thank you Lucky for that Bill Reid blog link. His pecan bark graft video is best one Iāve ever seen. I just typed āgraftingā in the search window on his blog (your link). He reveals all the tricks precisely and clearly. At first I couldnāt understand the reason for the angle of some of the cuts until I saw the magical way the finished scion fits into the bark. And he lifts only the left side of the bark! Neat.
I plan to use this technique in Spring to graft Kaki on native persimmon as I am zero for lifetime persimmon graft attempts. All I need is a staple gun. This gives me hope. Keep Hope Alive (Jesse Jackson). Smile.
Iām confident you can figure it out, although my guess is that the exact grafting technique wonāt prove to be a real hurdle but rather, as was the case for me as best I can tell, graft after care and protection from persimmon psylla, or something more like that. Now that Iām having pretty good success grafting persimmons, I find that pretty much any variation of bark graft works for me about as well as any other. I bet I made something like 100 kaki on native persimmon graft attempts over three years before I ever got one to take and survive through til the next year. I still have plenty of problems with persimmons (weak bark grafts breaking out before I get them staked properly, twig girdlers, grafts that never even start to growā¦) but I have plenty enough success now to be able to establish as many kaki trees as I want.
As far as pecans, Iāve only made a few attempts so far that have all failed, but Iāve had reasonably good success right off the bat with black walnuts, which are apparently similar as far as grafting (although pecans leaf out quite a bit earlier, I think), so maybe thereās a little hope for me grafting pecans.
edited to add: Bill Reid of the blog linked above certainly deserves thanks for any success Iāve had grafting black walnuts.
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Hambone,
I do a bark graft for just about everything - persimmons, pears, pecans/hickories. Large-caliper stuff, I may do a 3 or 4-flap ābananaā graft, but the vast majority are done as modified bark grafts.
Canāt put my hands on it right now, but Cliff England has a youtube video of how he grafts most of his stuff - itās kind of a modified bark/splice graft with lots of cambium contact and more strength than my typical bark graft. Itās pretty much like this:
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northwoods
Maturing/ripening pecans appears to be principally an issue of growing degree days.
Look here: Northern Pecans: Northern pecans: Climatic adapation
Thanks, Lucky. Yes, Iāve seen that article before, which is why I asked if anyone in the North has ever gotten a crop. Iāve never heard that anyone has, but I thought maybe some freak warm summer someone might have.
I have friends at Flint and Eaton Rapids, MI that have pecans that ripenā¦ but Iām not certain but that they are zone 5ā¦ 4 may relegate you to shagbark hickoryā¦
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