ve found budding the best.
Mr. Reed: Doctor Morris referred to the analogy of the pecan grafted on
pecan as coming into bearing in two years. Do you account for that in
the fact of its being a graft, or the fact that the wood you selected
came from a tree that had the characteristic of early bearing?
President Morris: No doubt that characteristic was transmitted, and
further, no doubt the grafted stock was used from bearing wood. Those
points are all of interest.
Mr. Reed: Does the mere operation of grafting or budding influence
earliness of bearing?
President Morris: Yes, if I understand the question rightly. A tree that
might not bear for fifteen years as a seedling may bear in three years
grafted.
Mr. Rush: I have Persian walnuts that bore two fine nuts the second
year. I have young trees, one about thirty inches, and I am sure it
will be full of nuts next year, unless some providential misfortune
should intervene.
Mr. Reed: At what age did the original trees begin to bear?
Mr. Rush: Those were buds shipped to me from California.
Mr. Littlepage: I am firmly convinced that there is something in the
process of budding or grafting that stimulates the growth. For example,
I have scions that were not over four to eight inches long grafted on
one year seedling pecans which, at the end of this season's growth, were
as much as thirty inches high. All along in the same row where seedling
pecans were not grafted, there is none over eighteen inches high.
Mr. Reed: To have made exact comparison, you would have had to take buds
from your seedling nursery trees, and graft on other trees. You are
comparing these buds from one tree with seedlings of another.
Professor Lake: I would like to ask if you didn't bud or graft the best
stocks in the row too?
Mr. Littlepage: We took the whole row, as we came to it, but that
particular tree might have been on some particularly favorable stock. It
is a matter of a good deal of interest to see why a seedling which
wasn't budded at all didn't grow as high as a scion which was budded in
summer, stratified all winter, then put into the ground in an unnatural
position.
Professor Craig: It is the same principle, I think, which we discover in
pruning. If we prune heavily during the dormant season, the effect is
increased vegetative growth. If we wish to stimulate the growth of an
old tree somewhat debilitated, we go to work and cut off a large portion
of the top. We don't
|