Graft compatibility Pecan Walnut Hickory

Anyone have feedback on can you graft Pecan or Hickory or Black Walnut to each other?

Such as can Kanza Pecan graft to native black walnut?

Can Granger hickory graft to black walnut or to pecan?

Kind of like grafting apple on pear? I wish. If any of that was possible everybody would be doing it. Pretty sure none of them will graft to each other.

Maybe I’m wrong. I would love to go graft my walnuts up with some hickory and pecan.

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Sorry, no pecan & hickory on BW.

Pecan & (32-chromosome)hickory are mostly compatible, though we don’t recommend putting pecan on most hickory understocks(except possibly bitternut & bitter pecan), as they’re slower growing,.
There are anecdotal reports of some hickory clones (shagbark & shellbark) struggling on pecan understock, but usually a vigorous pecan understock will push better growth than a hickory understock.

Yeah.
Has anyone experimented and shared results?
Itd be neat to know.
Any interstem options?
Like with almond/peach/apricot/plum types, etc we have some pretty reliable reports.
And asian pear/euro pear.
Even some apple/pear interstem are claimed compatible but I havent tried it yet.

Paul, here’s a young Grainger-on-pecan in my back yard.
20220428_065938|690x920

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When I first started with nut trees,back around 1995, all I had to play around with, as far as rootstock, were native hickories.
My first successful graft was ‘Lindauer’ shellbark on mockernut…it grew well for one year, then woke up dead the next spring.
I grafted a scion from a mockernut witch’s broom that Guy Sternberg sent, onto pecan…it ‘took’ but I accidentally pruned it off later in the season…don’t know if it would have been long-term compatible or not.

So…my limited experience cross-grafting diploid(32-chromosome) and tetraploid(64-c) Carya species is something of a mixed bag.

I generally have a low enough successful graft rate with nut trees that I wouldn’t want to mess with trying an interstem. Ted Daniecki used to like an interstem of ‘Fayette’ shellbark between pecan understock and shagbark, but that just looks unnecessary to me.

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Thanks for sharing! Interesting info.
I wonder what some tricks may be to increase successful graft rate with nut trees?

The most skilled grafts I make are pecan on pecan. If I do the very best whip & tongue I can make, the success rate is usually 90%. This means an exact match of scion size to rootstock size and means the graft cuts are flat and mate with each other with no air gaps.

The best way I know of to improve success with hickory grafts - and that includes pecan - is to use a heat tube with dormant grafts.

Walnut is a different story. I can make inlay side grafts on 2 inch diameter rootstocks with nearly 100% success. Walnut is dead easy compared with any of the hickory family.

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I had much better than my usual success rates last year, doing inlay bark grafts on 20 yr old pecan trees that I cut off and grafted standing on a 10 ft stepladder.

I had this same question, and based on my research it should be possible. I have included citations, but I was not allowed to include the links. The citations is the same as having one source, but the source had his doctorate and was head of the Citrus Research Center and Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of California. I would like to hear more comments on the success of grafting walnuts and pecans to each other. He said this in 1919, so it was just over 100 years ago.

GRAFTING WALNUT ON PECAN.

To the Editor: I notice an inquiry recently in the Pacific Rural Press concerning the feasibility of grafting English walnuts on pecans, a question which you asked if some of the readers might have definite information on. The walnut can be grafted’ on the pecan as well as the black walnut, apparently. Although my observations are exceedingly ljmited, I am of the opinion that pecan trees top-worked to black walnuts might make a fairly satisfactory growth. The use of the pecan, however, as a root stock and nursery grafting, I am inclined to believe, would have a dwarfing effect on the resulting walnut tree. —L. D. Batchelor, Citrus Station, Riverside.

The Citrus Research Center and Agricultural Experiment Station

After Webber retired in 1929, Dr. Leon Dexter Batchelor became the second director of the CES. Under his direction, the land, capital facilities, and operating budget expanded significantly, and the station moved into several new areas of agricultural science, including statistics and experimental plot design, herbicides to reduce weeds, and the first studies of the effects of air pollution on crops. It was during this time that the station battled a mutation of Citrus tristeza virus, resulting in some 9000 trees (87% of the station’s orchards) being destroyed in order to contain the outbreak. After Batchelor retired in 1951…

No matter how many phd’s he had and no matter how good his credentials, he missed it on this one. Walnut and hickory are not compatible. See Graves around 1980. He tried crossing walnut and pecan and claimed to have made successful hybrids. DNA tests later proved him wrong. Grafts will take then go into decline and fail within a few years. Persian walnut on black walnut is a compatible graft. Paradox hybrid is a cross of persian walnut X Juglans Hindsii (California black walnut) that is used with high success as rootstock for persian walnut.

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Thank you for answering my question! I did realize that he was wrong.