We have talked a bit about the black walnut seed. Strong roots but not so good to eat. There are many English walnut varites that are much better; such as chandler, vina, howard ..... So in order to get the varity he wants, the farmer grafts a piece of wood onto the black root stock.

I'm going to explain two different way's to graft. Why 2 way's? The farmer tells me it enables part of the trees to be done in August and the rest to be done in the spring.

First is patch budding.

With a double sided knife a piece of       Then a piece is cut from grafting wood

bark is cut awat from the root stock.       which has a bud on it.

The patch is placed on the root stock     and tied with a rubber band.

This is the end result - the tree heals itself and begins to grow from

the English variety that was patch budded on to it. Amazing!

Here is the lapbook that J & C are doing. They thought it up and took the whole day writing about the processes they learned. I am so proud!

The black walnut seed can just be placed any which way in the ground, unlike a bulb, it knows which way to send the root and which way to send the sprout. It is important to keep the ground moist so the sprout doesn't curl on it's way up. If it does curl, the tree will end up with this crazy looking twist in it and will be unsellable, aka burned in the burn pile. *This is why during my farmers and my date night last night we had to stop and shut off the sprinklers at the nursery. :)

OK so sparing you a few details, see the big center root in the picture below. That is called a tap root. It's the main root that grows way down deep into the soil. This is one reason a walnut tree can stand up in wind and rain, unlike almond trees, which can fall over in very wet gound.

My farmer will be undercutting the tiny trees this weekend. This cuts the tap root  and forces it to shoot out roots. When the trees are pulled out of the ground in December, they will have a well-branched root system established for replanting. (I'll add a picture of the undercutting on this post later.)

           a dormant tree

Here is a picture of the black walnut seed. Seed comes from a tree specificly grown as a seed source. Why plant black walnut seed? Because it has a stronger root system and is less susceptible to disease's.

Planting happens in October and November.

Question's?