e of Chinese
chestnut, that are lying on the ground and I should have removed those
limbs five or eight years ago. You should remove them in not more than
five years after planting.

DR. McKAY: I want to make a comment. Some grafted trees are not bearing.
This to us shows the importance of varieties. This difference between
7916 and the two others is so striking it means in the future we have to
pay more attention to the varieties. There is no question that some
varieties will bear sooner than others. We have to talk about grafted
trees because that is the only thing that can be developed. Every
grafted tree is potentially like every other of the same variety.

MEMBER: What factors suppress them? In pinching back, do you mean that
the actual growth rate is changed, or that debudding will suppress the
entire tree?

DR. McKAY: We mean the amount of the top itself. Usually it is the
spread and the height together. When you prune, you tend to hold back
the total amount of the fruiting area of the tree. If you allow it to
develop untouched you have a greater fruiting area.

MEMBER: The chestnut tree often will sprout from the trunk. What are the
processes to check that?

DR. CRANE: It is very largely root pressure. When you have a tree that
is uninjured, all of your water and soluble minerals are going up to the
top. When you have the tree trunk killed or cut off you still have water
in your root system. In some trees you have a lot of adventitious buds
that are still there and never forced out. Nitrogen will force those
dormant buds into growth. At each walnut node or leaf we have as many as
seven buds, all of which are capable of producing growth. Normally it is
only the major bud that grows, but propagators sometimes get a patch bud
back to life even though the primary bud dries up. Keep on forcing it
and you are bound to get a sprout out of that bud. That is just the way
it is with a lot of dormant buds. There are so many that when we cut off
the top these dormant buds are forced into growth. Some trees don't have
them. Tung does not form dormant buds, but will form those adventitious
buds. They will form numerous buds even in a very small area of callus.
It is just a safeguard that some plants have developed to keep the
individuals alive.

MR. McDANIEL: I think what Mr. Craig had in mind was the tendency there
is in Chinese chestnut to form multiple trunks.

DR. CRANE: That is due to these dormant buds and the a