North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Charles Rhora <rhoras@nuttrees.com>]

Mr. Romborough,

I read with great interest your question about the grafted Pinus trees.  Do 
they have too be grafted trees?  I ask this question because I have worked 
with these edible nut pines for now over 30  years.  We have a selection of 
over 11 varieties including one variety you had mentioned (Pinus 
edulis).  Unfortunately the other variety Pinus pinea will not survive in 
our Zone 4 (temperatures to minus - 35 degrees F.) At the present time we 
are exploring the northern limits of the Pinus pinea in hope of obtaining 
seed which would be adaptable to our climate.   We originally started with 
seed collected from Sweden, Russia, Siberia, Mongolia, China and Northern 
Japan.  We also tried some grafted varieties of the pines.  Much to our 
dismay we found as time went along, the grafted trees showed 
incomparability in some cases, then the production of cones were delayed by 
several years.  Also the grafted trees cones were mostly blank nuts.  So we 
discarded the grafted trees and have since devoted all of our time to the 
seedlings.  We found that the Korean pine would produce cones as early as 7 
years from seed ( we started with the Korean pine first).  The other edible 
nut pines have shown that they will bear cones much earlier than reported 
in some of the books and articles written on the pines.  For example, the 
Swiss stone pine will bear cones by the age of 8 years from seed. Of the 
trees producing cones and the edible nuts, we have not had any problem with 
the squirrels or other animals bothering them as the cones produce an 
abundance of resin which locks the nuts into the cones.  85 percent of the 
cones fall to the ground for harvesting.  Once the cones are gathered they 
are air dried for 2 weeks and the cones open allowing one easy access to 
the pine nuts.  As an added precaution we planted a grove of hazelnuts 
close to our orchards.
For further information, please refer to our website at www.nuttrees.com.

Charles Rhora, Zone 4, Ontario


At 11:44 PM 10/09/2005, you wrote:
> Does anyone know of a source of grafted trees of Pinus edulis or P. pinea, 
> the two pine species grown for pine nuts?  I've seen them in the past, but 
> it has been years and I can't find the nursery that sold them.  I suspect 
> there may be small, local nurseries somewhere, but a mail order source 
> would be the best.
> Seed is available of both species, but both take so long to come into 
> bearing that a tree grafted from an old, bearing tree would have to be faster.
> -Lon Rombough
> Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at 
> <http://www.bunchgrapes.com>http://www.bunchgrapes.com  Winner of the 
> Garden Writers Association "Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003.
> <br>
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