I’m looking for pollination information and approximate ripening dates in comparison to better known varieties of these hickories/hybrids:
Mitch Russell (Shagbark x Shellbark) - is it pollinizer or pollen sterile? If it need pollinators does it need a shagbark or a shellbark? Also what kind of hickories can it pollinate?
Marguardt (Hican) - should be partially self fertile
Vernon (Hican)
Abbott (Bitcan)
Bridgewater (Shagbark hickory)
Tell me about your experience with them.
Thanks!
I have very little information about these hybrids. Mitch Russell is one that Fred Blankenship found IIRC as a free standing tree in the middle of a field with a huge yearly crop. His description was that this tree was guarded by a red tail hawk which kept squirrels away. Going on past history, it is most likely to pollinate with a shagbark. It breaks buds relatively early for a hickory hybrid. It would probably cross with a late pollen shed variety like Adams #5 if you want to try for a pecan cross.
Marquardt is most likely protandrous with pollen overlap. My reasoning is that it is described as partially self-fertile. Almost 100% of self-fertile hickories are protandrous.
Lucky may be able to shed some light on the others.
I have a large James hican which makes a handful of nuts each year. It is unproductive.
I have a young T92 which will likely be several years before it makes nuts.
All hicans I have grown (10 cultivars for at least 25 yrs, another 9 or so for less than 5 years) are very low producers and bear mostly unfilled ‘blank’ nuts despite what should be ample pecan, hican, shellbark, and shagbark pollen floating about. Additionally, they seem to be more attractive to weevils than either parent species.
Among those hican that have been bearing for years are ‘Vernon’ and ‘Jim Wilson’, which are the same cultivar, ‘Vernon’ having been discovered by Jim Wilson near Vernon Iowa.
I do not know why you would postulate that it is pollen sterile?
‘Weschke’, long considered to be a bitshag hybrid is reputed to be pollen-sterile.
That said, I have never really paid any attention to flowering periods on hickories… I just keep adding ‘new’ cultivars to my collection as I get my hands on them.
I can’t really contribute anything substantive to the discussion.
Perhaps @carya can shed some light…
I’m not sure about Vernon, since my comment was based information on the internet, not my personal observations. I removed my comment about it, so I won’t confuse others. I am aware about problems with most Hicans filling nuts, thanks for reminding me that.
Mitch Russell looks interesting. I wonder if it doesn’t suffer from the same problems like hicans or is it somewhat more reliable?
I would suspect Mitch Russell is more reliable than any of the hicans. My grafts of it are too young to fruit yet, but it bears and fills reliably for everyone I know who’s growing it.
I wonder if Mitch Russell hybrid and Grainger shag would pollinate each other or would I need more hickories for it to work?
Also perhaps anyone knows if Mitch Russell ripens earlier or later than Grainger?
In my mind there is a distinction between the hicans (hickory-pecan hybrids), the bitshags (bitternut-shagbark hybrids), and the other hickory hybrids like the shag-shells. It’s the hicans which primarily have filling and weevil issues, but the bitshags also suffer although possibly less. And it’s the f1s which have the most problems, not the backcrosses.
I’m not aware of any problems with Mitch Russell, which is roughly 75% shag and 25% shell. So far as I have seen it’s a pretty good, and pretty underrated nut. Generally I find the f1 shagbark x shellbark hybrids pretty good as well. Since shag and shell are so closely related, I presume those crosses get the heterosis of hybrid vigor but without the weirder affects of wider crosses.
F1 backcrosses of hicans might possibly lose their negative traits. For example, Burton hican (shag-pecan) is a weevil magnet. However, it’s offspring Dooley Burton (75% shag, 25% pecan) is highly weevil resistant (I once filled a bucket with all nuts no husks and found 10 or 12 nuts total with weevil damage in an otherwise infested orchard).
As far as filling of kernels and timing of pollen shed goes, that’s a more complicated question and I don’t have much to say about it.