North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["kieran or donna" <redherring@tnaccess.com>]

 I tend to talk to mine, at least when doing something that affects their
survival.  But I got my husband to talk to some of my trees, and that led to
some really interesting revelations.  I have some plums in terrible soil,
they complained about it.  A chinkapin was nervous and wanted me to protect
it from the big trees all around, while a chestnut seemed to think it didn't
need any help.  I had him check some hicans grafted to mockernut.  The hican
on pignut was asleep, he said, and didn't want to be disturbed.  One tree
told him it could hardly wait till spring.  Another bigger one that I'd
stood on a ladder to graft seemed to laugh at his question of whether it
needed anything.  Apparently being on top of a hill, it felt that it was
going to be a big strong tree and could take care of itself.  I had one
burning question for him afterwards:  how did these trees feel about having
been grafted to another species?  He said that was what was so strange, that
none of this group thought of themselves as separate parts, they considered
themselves to be one tree.
I know he's getting real info because I've had him do it with people's
health problems, and also because last winter I had him finding daffodils
before they came up.  He could feel the energy.  (I needed to move some, and
since he's so good at this stuff I figured he could use the practice).
Harvey Lisle has about 30 American chestnuts that he mows around and they
get knocked back by blight about every 10 years.  He said some native
American came and talked to the trees and said they were very annoyed by the
breeding program to chinese chestnut.  I can certainly imagine that if
someone had actually asked for the trees opinions, that it might not have
taken so long to deal with chestnut blight.  I would think they are feeling
happier with the American chestnut Foundations current approach of trying to
save as many of the local genes as possible.  I think it's said that Burbank
talked to plants.  And I read an interview with a guy who was involved in a
crash program in S American breeding sesame seeds for machine harvest and
cooking oil during WWII.  He said he talked with the plants and asked their
cooperation.  They were willing to have their seeds ripen in an unripe pod,
so that it didn't shatter.  But when he'd got it about perfect, they said
that was all the further they wanted to go, they wanted to let the pod ripen
just enough that some seeds would fall out, so they wouldn't be totally
dependent on humans for their survival.
Sometimes it's easier to acheive goals that are not too far out of line with
what the plant wants.  Modern snap beans are very unnatural, in that the
seeds develop extremely slowly and  most of the plant's energy is directed
toward the pod.  By contrast, the cutshort beans that were so popular in the
south have survived partly becasue they can kind of take care of themselves.
This was important if you were going to say, have a civil war, and hope that
someone would come back next year and find some volunteer plants to collect
seed from to keep the family strain going.   Donna