At 07:32 PM 01/15/2001 -0500, David Consolvo wrote:
>In a park today I spent a lovely 20 minutes in the sun cracking and eating
>beechnuts with my six-year-old son. They are fairly easy to open with
>teeth, and the taste was most pleasant, but they sure are small. Are there
>cultivars available which have been selected or bred for size and other
>attributes?
To my knowledge, there has been little, if any, selection for nut size,
quality, or production in American beech; but I'll be interested to hear
from folks who know of any.
Most of the European beech selections have been made for aesthetic
qualities - purple, copper, variegated, cut/lace leaves, weeping,
fastigiate, or twisted conformation, etc.
While pomefruits, stonefruits, and even Persian/Carpathian walnuts have
been subjected to selection by humans for hundreds or thousands of years,
intense selection & breeding of native American fruits and nuts is pretty
much in its infancy - significant selection pressure has only been being
exerted on American nut tree species in the past 100 years or so, if you're
of a mind to disregard the seedling orchards of oaks and hickories planted
by the indigenous peoples.