Has anyone here worked with the hybrid Juglans nigra X Juglans hindsii (Royal Walnut)? From what I’ve read, these trees are very productive and vigorous. I wonder how they would perform in the Southeast? Stark Bro’s once had this tree available provided by Luther Burbank. I wonder how well the nuts crack?
Juglans Nigra X Juglans Hindsii produce a relatively low crop of black walnuts that don’t crack very well. The hybrid is useful as a rootstock. It also makes a decent timber tree. I would only grow them as timber or as rootstock grafted to a better nut producing walnut. If you decide to pursue this, try to get seed nuts from as far North in California as possible. The Klamath river valley used to have some decent trees.
In case you start looking, Juglans Major is common in the southwest. I got some nuts and started a few trees about 15 years ago. They do not make a good hybrid with Juglans Nigra and they produce very few nuts by comparison. I could see using the hybrid as a rootstock on alkaline soils. They don’t grow very well here in the Southeast and they are not very good for timber.
Juglans Regia hybrids tend to be low growing umbrella shaped trees that are susceptible to anthracnose. I culled all of them several years ago.
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Great info! They don’t seem like anything I would be interested in.