Anybody have any real world experience growing peaches and plums near black walnuts? I read stone fruits are jugalone tolerant, but it doesn’t seem so. I have a few planted near a black walnut and they don’t seem to be doing as well as the ones planted away from it. The ones planted this year away from the walnut are already the size of the ones planted last year. Same soil, sun and watering.
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If I remember correctly prior discussions here say that stone fruit are highly susceptible to jugalone. Three to four years and they’ll be dead.
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Ive read conflicting info on different sites. But, I’m pretty sure they need to be moved.
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Does anybody know if it’s worth transplanting them, or will they not recover due to the jugalone poisoning?
They should recover just fine. Not only is juglone a sort of natural herbicide for other trees, the close proximity to the walnut trees themselves forces the stone fruit to compete with the walnut roots for water, and nutrients (and compete for sunlight if the walnut is a large tree).
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This seems like a repeated question on here (I know because I’ve searched many times for my own planning!). There’s a lot of conflicting information on this – for example, Cummins says stone fruits should be fine by black walnut. The brief from Purdue that Cummins links to lists P. virginiana and other ornamental cherries as sensitive, but culinary cherries as tolerant (they don’t say which species this refers to). Purdue lists crabapple as tolerant of Juglone, but U Wisconsin lists crabapple as sensitive to Juglone. Penn State lists stone fruits as tolerant of juglone – as well as Pyrus sp. (except for P. communis) and Quince.
For those that are more in tune with the scientific literature on this, is this truly a matter where there just isn’t a consensus? What’s strange to me is that the Uni extensions seem to be mostly citing each others’ briefs so I’m having a hard time actually digging back to find any of the papers that these could be based on.
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That’s exactly the problem I’m having. Keep getting conflicting information. The peaches and plum do look stunted though.
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So the whole deal is how stone fruits do next to trees which produce juglone.
I’d expect the research for juglone producing trees could easily get conflagulated with research with adult shade trees vandalizing young stone fruit trees.
I’d recommend not planting stone fruit trees next to any shade tree, regardless of the genus or species.
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Not vey useful advice for home growers who have big tree roots on every square foot of their property. Most of us don’t live in KS. I own 3 acres surrounded by forest trees and almost every orchard I install has tree roots already established wherever I dig.
Japanese plums compete much better than peaches against established forest trees, it takes a lot to subdue their vigor. However, my nursery has trees growing right up to the forest land and all my trees manage to grow. In the nursery I’m always digging and cutting competing roots that enter it in the process of planting and then removing trees. I also use tons of woodchip mulch and we usually get adequate rain throughout the growing season. Ample supplementary N. also helps- the other nutes come from the woodchiips.
Walnut trees seem especially competitive even beyond any jugalones affect which may be the reason research is conflicting, it’s pretty hard to tell which is which. Norway maples also are exceptionally competitive here. .
In areas where fruit trees can’t get their footing I recommend trenching 6-8’ rings around the trees in early spring- consider renting a trencher for the purpose, although I use a King of Spades spade- the one with the longest blade.
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Thanks for the reply. I’ll try putting a trench around them and fertilizing in the spring.
You may have to do it for at least 2 or 3 seasons. I had a site with very competitive N. pecan trees growing right next to peaches, and I had to trench every other year even when they became established, but not so with other species. Without that, the peaches would runt out and die, but it could just as well have been the tough competition as death by poison. However, such effort has never been necessary when dealing with other forest species nearby. I’ve read that pecans have much less juglione than black walnut trees, but I couldn’t prove it at that site. The black roots were everywhere.
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But it’s probably useful advice for people who don’t have big tree roots on every square foot of their property. And there are plenty of growers on the fruit forum who don’t have big tree roots on every square foot of their property who don’t live in KS, or don’t own 3 acres in NY.
I mentioned it because the OP was considering moving the peach trees that are near the walnut. Since the OP was considering moving them, I mentioned it’s best not to plant stone fruit next to any adult shade trees. Of course if there is not an option, then one does the best they can with what they have.
I’ve had peach trees near a large oak in my backyard and ended up removing them both due to poor fruit quality. I currently have two more peach trees near a neighbor’s locust tree. Fruit quality suffers, but not as badly most years, so I haven’t removed them yet.
If there is a choice, it’s best not to plant stone fruits near large shade trees. Instead plant something like blackberries in those spots and save the stone fruits for the “open” spaces.
I have a Fuji apple near a large oak in my backyard. The fruit quality is very good. The Fuji never runted out, but it’s on standard roots.
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Best i remember the guy Stefan ? Miracle Farms (youtube)… has a vid showing that stone fruit can be planted and flourush closer to black walnut… as long as you plant mulberry for example… (densely rooted jugulone tollerant) fruit tree between your walnut and stone fruit tree.
Perhaps the mulberry roots decrease the spread of blackwalnut roots in that direction.
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Good vid… on jugulone.
About half way thru vid he talks about using tollerant varieties as a barrier for intolerant varieties.
I have a 20 year old Methley plum quite close to a 100 yo Black Walnut.
Both have produced prolifically.
I feel that most of the negative juglone comments are usually repetitions of a few experiences. It becomes quite the echo chamber.
I was referring to the fact that you live in the a prairie state. We are talking about black walnuts which usually aren’t planted as ornamental trees, or even for nuts. Most of the time people are talking about native trees, whence probably in forested areas. Anyway, that was my assumption, but I’ve only grown fruit trees in two regions, and there were always forest trees present in orchards I’ve helped manage. Sometimes when there’s a lot of land the trees can be far enough away not to be an issue, but it is always amazing to me how far their roots can go beyond their branches. .