North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Charles Rhora" <rhoras@nuttrees.com>]

Just to expand the subject of apples only, lets change the community to
edible nuts, which is an extremely health dietary nutrition. I will give one
example, while I do have many more.  The Persian walnut (some call it
Carpathian, English, etc. depending where the original seed were obtained
from).  With proper care, have developed a method which requires no
pre-germination treatment (stratification) for the seed.  Have developed a
method of pre-selection of nuts from the "mother tree" grafted in other
words,  which will produce up to 80 percent production of nuts that are
equal to or better than the original grafted tree, in taste as well as
quantity. Just a footnote to this procedure, it has improved the quality of
the seedling trees to prevent infection, and in many cases, eliminated
diseases in some of the other varieties of other nut trees.  In my growing
area, which is a climatic zone 4, hardiness is the most important aspect for
enhancing the survival of the trees. Once the seedlings reach the age of 3-4
years, by proper procedure they may be induced to produce a crop on one or
more branches which tells what the seedling tree will produce in the future.
The seedlings are selected in the following order, 1/ hardiness (which was
mentioned above). 2/ size of nut and kernel content contained in the shell -
3/ taste.  Number 2 & 3 are interchangeable, depending on what one desires.
I had originally planted my orchards to grafted trees, which I found out
later was the worse choose I could have made.  We had a test winter, where
the temperature hovered between - 30 - -35 degrees F. for more than 2 weeks.
Frost was down at least 3 - to 4 feet in the ground. In the following Spring
and Summer 90 percent of the grafted trees died back to the ground,
including the rootstock.  The surviving grafted trees, over the next few
years gradually declined to a point that I have a very few left.  I had also
planted out orchards of seedlings nut trees.  The seedling trees did not
even show any sign of die-back and even produced a bumper crop of nuts that
year.  Needles to say,  from that time on, I have only grown seedling trees
for my orchards and the production is again well worth the effort, as the
taste is much more pronounced in the seedling trees, over the grafted trees.
In summary, growing seedlings trees, which may take up to 3-4 years, which
is not that much time, to know exactly what you may expect.

Charles Rhora,
33083 Wills Road,
Wainfleet, Ontario Canada.

www.nuttrees.com
  

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Richard MURPHY
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2012 7:22 PM
To: nafex
Subject: [nafex] seedling / graft argument

The Geneva Station in New York and EMLA in UK did a lot of very important
work, especially the development of desirable rootstocks for apples. Not
just the ability of the root to absorb nutients; resistance to Wolly Apple
Aphids, Nematodes, Fireblight, Scab. Improved anchoring and cold hardiness.
Drought tolerance and wet soil tolerance. Improved branching habits.
Resistance to crown rot. I would be interested to hear what Dr. Jim Cummins
thinks about the seedling / grafted apple fruit argument.              The
definition of the word 'experiment' is 'work done to prove or disprove a
theory'. In the seed vs. graft argument, we see a 'proclamation', but
surprisingly little mention of things like fruit quality, quantity, size,
acid, sugars, keeping ability etc.. Until someone generates a 'score card',
the contest is over. For myself, I grow seedling trees for amusement and
rootstocks. For production, Geneva and EMLA get the job done in a
predictable and reliable manner.        
     There are a number of excellent 'chance seedling' apples; Cox's Pippin,
Hudson Golden Gem, Wolf River, Virginia Gold, Red Delicious, to name a few.
Are any of these offered for sale on their own roots?  my 2 centsMurph

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