Trees from Seed

[Grow 4 Food]

Anyone ever try growing trees from seeds? If so how did you do it? My project is growing english walnut trees from nuts gathered from a friend's father's house down the road from me. Thanks for the help.

 

[Rosalind]

How long is this project?

English walnuts take a long time to grow. I'm just saying. If you wanted some more, uh, immediate results, perhaps you might consider the old "avocado pit in a jar of water" thing? Or maybe a nice white oak? You can get good-sized white oak seedlings in a couple of years. Mangoes, I hear they grow fast too. If it has to be a nut tree, almonds grow at a reasonable pace.

If you've got 10 years or so, hey, have fun with the walnuts.

 

[patandchickens]

I've grown several other trees from seeds, but never walnuts. As Rosalind says, don't expect anything to happen anytime real soon, neither in terms of nuts or timber And be aware that if you want them for nuts, cultivars do not come true from seed (normally they are propagated by grafting).

From what I remember, confirmed by google , they are a deep taprooted species. Trees like that, you're generally best off planting them directly in the soil where you want them to grow (you have to prepare it first and keep the area right around the planted nuts free of weeds and protected from drying out, if you want any meaningful % germination). If you have squirrels, expect significant losses of what you planted out

If you are just going to try a couple rather than a plantation, or if you are *really* worried about pregermination losses to squirrels, you could try starting them instead in deepish pots, ideally sunk in the soil in a nursery area outside. As soon as you have a few leaves up, GENTLY transplant them to their permanent location, with suitable shading for the first week or so. I've done this with taprooted oaks and it's worked fine, but you do need to keep a close eye on things and transplant *gently*.

Also I am pretty positive that this is one of the many plants that needs a cold period before the seed will germinate - if you collected your nuts last fall, make sure to store them somewhere cold but not let them dry out especially if the husks are off, until you plant them.

Wherever you start them, remember they will need *regular* watering and WEEDING AROUND for the first year or three. The weeding thing is especially an issue if you are planting them somewhere with lots of grasses, as opposed to in a forest -- with very few exceptions tree seedlings do quite poorly in competition with grasses until they are surprisingly more well-grown than you might expect.

A quick google finds some useful documents, such as

www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/naturalresources/DD0505.html+planting+walnuts+seed&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=ca
http://grow.ars-informatica.ca/plant.php?en=628&nm=walnut, English
http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Juglans+regia+fallax

Good luck,

Pat

 

[Hencackle]

Do you like black walnuts? They begin to bear in about 5 years. Every spring I have to dig walnut seedlings out of my flower beds that were planted by squirrels. I have 2 trees and my neighbor has 4--all were "gifts" from the squirrels.

If you need to start your English walnuts and transplant later, you can try "root bags". Root Bags

 

[Grow 4 Food]

I am after english walnuts. I understand the whole wait process and doesn't really bother me. I just thought if I used a nut from a tree that was already growing in the same type of soil I might be ahead of the game. All the other trees I have planted have already been trees so it wasn't as much of a problem.

 

[Buff Shallots]

I once visited Muir Woods in California and picked up a single seed from a pine cone. I planted it in a pot once I got home to NY and it actually germinated and grew into a conifer. It died after a year. I always wondered if it was a sequoia...

 

[patandchickens]

I am after english walnuts. I understand the whole wait process and doesn't really bother me. I just thought if I used a nut from a tree that was already growing in the same type of soil I might be ahead of the game. All the other trees I have planted have already been trees so it wasn't as much of a problem.

The trees that are already growing there are most likely grafted individuals of good nut-bearing cultivars (quite possibly on pretty much the same black walnut rootstock you'd find if you wnet out and bought young trees yourself). There is no guarantee at all the existing trees' offspring, with all the assorting of genes that go on, will be equally good bearers. So for nuts your best bet would really be to get some grafted whips to plant. Not to say that seed-grown trees would be inedible, but it is much more of a cr apshoot with them. Of course you could do *both*, twice the fun

Good luck,

Pat

 

[beefy]

sequoias dont have pine cones. they are in the cypress family and have cypress like cones.

i grow a lot of cypress trees from seeds. they are super easy to germinate. grow fairly fast too.

 

[Buff Shallots]

Beefy, now I feel better that I didn't start, then kill, a sequoia. Thanks for the knowledge.