There seems to be a lack of information on the best hickory varieties. I would like some thoughts on the best selections for ease of cracking, nut size, flavor, production (alternate bearing?), etc. Also, any experiences on varieties that do well in the South would be greatly appreciated. Sources for scions would also be appreciated. I know @Barkslip and @Lucky_P have spoken here and there on this subject. Any must have selections in your opinion?
I have hundreds if not thousands of Mockernut Hickory trees on our property. Next year I would like to top-work some of these trees to a better variety. These nuts will be mainly for personal consumption. I know it will take forever for production, but some of these trees are quite large. I plan to top these large trees and graft onto this year’s new growth next Spring. Maybe that will help speed things along.
Other excellent hickories:
Selbhers shellbark
Henning shellbark
Simpson #1 shellbark
“Gary’s Unknown HIcan” which is likely a shagbark. I have access to scions but they’re always skinny and short of pencil-size.
Fred Blankenship said if he could redo his orchard today, he would grow Porter, Grainger, 'Gary’s Unknown Hican" and another I have grafted that’s not in circulation that’s another shagbark. His shellbark picks if he were to redo are Fayette, Selbher, & Henning.
Then,
Tyler Halvin hands down states:
The only two hicans necessary to have are:
T-92
Underwood
Shellbarks:
Keystone is No.1 in Tyler’s opinion
Longnecker
Fayette
Selbhers
Shagbarks:
Hands down best flavor is Lake Icaria
Gary’s hican/shagbark
Porter
Grainger
These guys have cracked and tasted a lot more nuts than I have. And I trust them both.
Excellent post, very well organized. I will go ahead and plan on topping a few of these larger trees in preparation for next year. The diameter is much too large for bark grafting, and I’ve noticed hickories have even thicker bark than pecans.
Looking around, I don’t see scions offered for the following:
Keystone shellbark
Lake Icaria Shagbark
Underwood Hican
Any ideas for sourcing scion wood for the above three next year?
I’ve grafted/am grafting all three this year. I’ve yet to go to large trees and set them but I will in the coming weeks. I have bench grafted all but Keystone & Underwood (I think I didn’t have Underwood then) but I have set a few on seedlings in a raised bed that are 2-years old so I knew I’d have wood next year right at my house if I need it.
At some point and I’m thinking when I go to field grafting that two years from now I’ll have wood for you. And, I should have wood for all the others too… so don’t buy any.
BbMan
I grew up in east-central AL(Lee Co); pecans were everywhere, as was mockernut. Only one shagbark on the farm i grew up on, and no shellbarks.
I’ve not tried grafting into mockernut in nearly 25 years… pecan, and rarely shellbark seedlings, usually get the nod as rootstocks for hickory here.
I’ve got probably 30+ hickory selections grafted and growing here but have lost IDs on a number of them, and only Simpson #1 has borne nuts for me so I’ve largely depended on local natives for my nut supply. Have identified two shags and one shellbark that are worthy of collecting and propagating
I’m guessing Mockernut doesn’t work well as a rootstock for other species of hickories? I had a bunch of extra pecan scions so I grafted onto a few Mockernut saplings. I know they will end up unequally yoked. I did it mainly as a test/scion wood source.
We also have tons of pecan volunteers, which I routinely use for pecan. I imagine when more of my pecan start bearing even more volunteers will pop up.
First successful Carya graft i ever did was Lindauer shellbark onto mocker nut. Grew for one year, then woke up dead.
Guy Sternberg sent me scions of a mockernut broom once…i got one take on pecan understock and accidentally pruned it off that fall.
Witches broom is usually caused by viroid infection of a tree. I’ve seen it a couple of times when a tree was excessively pruned such as when limbs were broken by an ice storm and the resulting pruning left too little top for normal growth.
I’ll limit the number of hickories a bit more by saying Porter, Grainger, Lake Icaria, and Simpson #1 are what I am grafting this year. I am grafting T92 hican.
My Sinking Fork shagbark selection won 1st Place at the KY state fair when i entered it, back in 2001.
Next local selection, Morris #1, is better, IMO: larger and cracks out with higher percentage of intact halves
Other than Simpson #1, none of my grafted hickories have borne nuts, so I can’t really compare to the noted varieties
Here’s about half of a Grainger hickory nut. I had already eaten about half of it before I thought to photograph it. I was super impressed with the size and how open the inside of the shell was. With just a little practice it seems like one might pretty easily be able to regularly crack out intact halves. It seems Grainger would be almost as easy to crack as the average pecan and about the size of a not-too-small pecan. This was from a sample sent to me from Missouri along with a couple pecan samples, all of which I was told were smaller than usual this year because of unfavorable weather.
Got first few nuts from the oldest Grainger tree I have here this year. I, too, was impressed.
I have 2 local shags that also crack out mostly intact halves/quarters, but both are smaller than Grainger.
Simpson #1 is a good small shellbark nut with open central cavity that cracks out mostly intact halves.
Quick crack-out of a few: top left - Garnett shellbark, a local selection I made
bottom left - Simpson #1 shellbark, introduced by Fred Blankenship
top right - Morris #1 shagbark (local selection I discovered)
bottom right - Sinking Fork shagbark (local selection I made; this one took 1st place at KY State Fair, back in 2001)
Mockernut. All my pecan to Mockernut grafts failed. Some of them put on quite a bit of growth, but our first serious heat wave zapped them. I am hesitant to grow the named hickory selections in my area. My hicans have already lost their foliage with temps in the 90s. I fear for the long term health of these trees in my zone (8b). Any thoughts?
Edit: my post wasn’t clear. My hicans have gone dormant in the last couple of weeks, but it’s so hot I worry this may lead to sunburn or other problems later.
IDK. We get temps into the 90s-100s, sometimes for weeks at a time. I wouldn’t let that dissuade me from trying them…success probably more likely than with those hicans…
Scab will be there, but they evolved along with it…doesn’t seem to impact nut production as badly as on pecan. Shellbark seems less scabby than shagbark
