North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Steven Covacci <filtertitle@aol.com>]

Any US-Native Pine Nut/Pinyon for or the Northeast?

Topic: Pine Nuts – US Native

Is there a species or more of pine nut/pinyon that is/are indigenous to North America (west coast and midwest) that can be successfully grown and will produce (even if marginally) in the Northeast/mid-Atlantic – i.e. New Jersey, zone 6b/7a.

North American pine nuts traditionally cultivated that are indigenous to USDA zone 6 (and lower): short-leaf pine (P. echinata); two-needle pinyon (P. edulis); sugar pine (P. lambertiana); California foothill pine (P. sabiniana); and Torrey pine (P. torreyana).

Even though these specific pines come from like USDA zone regions, the many climatic differences (i.e. moisture, photo period, etc.) and differences in elevation (I'm near sea level) make it seem unlikely that I could grow any one of these. However, there is a state park in upstate NY (high elevation) that, perhaps erroneously, lists hosting one of these – I forgot the species - and I think that I remember seeing one or more of these in a champion tree catalogues of neighboring states.

Thanks,

Steve Covacci

USDA zone 6b/7a; New Jersey

(p.s. to reduce redundancy – when replying, where practical, please remove my original text, except for subject heading and specific points being replied to.)

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