ot-planting black walnuts and acorns

What does a person have to do to make acorns and black walnuts grow in northern states? The squirrels seem to have it figured out.
 
Well, the squirrels just "plant" a half a gazillion and let the law of averages take over from there--studies have found squirrels find less than a third of the nuts they hide. If you want to be a tad more selective, the site below gives the basics. It's looking like a good walnut crop here in northern NY this year--I usually gather a bunch from several trees I know of as I have several friends (not to mention their kids) who enjoy cracking and eating them over the winter, and they sure do set off a batch of brownies!
black walnut planting
 
To get acorns to grow put them in water and discard the floaters. Put them in the fridge for 30-60 days and plant them. Walnuts need 120 days in the fridge. After that they will grow like anything else. They are both tapeooted so they don't transplant well!
 
As I was reading the first sentence, my thought was "hire a squirrel"... but I see you've already noted that. :)
 
My brother has over fifty acres of Walnut trees he has planted over the last 20 years. He took a single shank subsoiler. Then he mounted a 2 1/2 inch pipe on the back side of it. At the bottom he made it curve towards the back. He made the top funnel shaped. He has an old tractor seat on the back so he can ride along. He has someone drive the tractor while he drops walnuts down the pipe. He runs the subsoiler about 6-8 inches deep. The walnut end up about 4-6 inches deep. He just counts to himself while dropping the walnuts. This way he "times" the spacing of the planted nuts. When he has planted all the walnuts he want to he just drives the tractor back over the row to pack the ground around the nut. You do not want or need a big tractor to do this with. He uses a JD 2020.

His rows are 15 foot wide. He drops the nuts at 3-4 foot intervals. After a year or so he thins and transplants the seedlings to a 10-12 foot spacing. After 5-6 years he thins them some more. He stagers the tress so even on the 15 foot wide rows they have plenty of room. He kept them thick enough they grow pretty straight.

He uses whole nuts, hulls and all. He plants them in the fall after it is cold but the ground is not frozen yet. He sprays the rows with Round Up early each spring before the walnuts have any leaves for the Round Up to absorb in them. On the larger trees he sprays around them several times each year. He mows and bales the grass between the rows.
 
Some 25 or so years ago I took some acorns and kept them in the refrigerator all winter. Then when spring came I placed them between two towels in a container and kept the towels wet. Soon the nuts began to sprout. I transferred them to pots of dirt and eventually when they got large enough I planted them in their permanent location. I now have a number of fairly good sized oak trees in my yard.
 
the old timers trick was to plant in the Fall & cover the nut with a tin can with the closed end of the can up. This kept the squirrels from smelling nuts & digging them up. By Spring the can had rusted & the sprout could grow up thru the end of the can. If the metal had not rusted clear thru, no problem. The sprout would dissolve what little metal was left & grow thru the cans end like it wasn't even there. Since Walnut always grows in moist climates, there is always enough water to rust the cans. But you cannot grow Walnuts in ground that has standing water. Walnut "doesn't like to get its feet wet".
 
Sorry but I hate walnut trees. One of the damn dirtiest trees on the farm. Now English or Mediterranean paper thin walnuts are a whole different story. Very good eating.
 
Keep in mind Walnuts poison the ground under them for most things that grow,don't plant them near your garden or they'll run roots in and stunt your vegetables.Around here Walnut, Oak.Persimmon
and Hickory grow like weeds constantly bush hogging them except where the goats are pastured they keep them down.
 
The ones the squirrels don't eat seem to sprout up and grow.
Till some ground soft and stick them in and I bet they take off and grow. I had some fall into the garden once and they sprouted up fine.
 
I find it hard to believe a tin can would rust that much from fall to spring. Here in mid Mn. the ground is froze. I would punch a hole in the bottom for the sprout to get out.
 
I have 2 big white oak trees beside my garage and they are beginning to drop acorns now. About 5 years ago I picked up about 100 tilled a small spot in the garden and spread them out and covered them up. The following spring about half of them had sprouted. I dug them up and transplanted them and gave a lot of them away. I have several of them growing around the lawn now about 10 feet tall. They tend to want to branch out so I prune them and try to maintain a central leader Spoke to a conservation guy last week, and he said they have to go thru a period of freezing before they will sprout. The story with my parent trees is that a previous owner of my house planted a field of them when he came back from the civil war.
 

You want to deliberately plant and grow black walnuts? I can't wait for mine to die. Such a messy, PITA tree with no meat in the nuts.
 

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