WALNUT TRAINING AND HEDGING FOR EARLY PRODUCTION AND PROFIT

Standard training of young English walnuts in California consist of removing branches below 1.5-1.8 meters from the ground, heading the leader and desirable scaffold limbs and leaving some less desirable branches alone for early nut production. A modification of this system, which can result in more early production and increased tree size, is to keep and annually head the leader and all scaffold branches above 0.9 meters from the ground that make good growth and leave all other short branches alone for early nut production. Both methods of training begin in the second leaf and continue until trees are near full desirable size, at which time branches below 1.5-1.8 meters are removed and crowded branches are thinned out. In orchard comparisons on three, four, five and, six year old Chandler walnut trees this “low-scaffold” system of tree training has resulted in more than twice the yield of standard trained trees and has shown a significant increase in trunk-cross–sectional area in a young replicated trial as compared to standard trained trees. Early production on “low-scaffold” trained Chandler walnut trees in conventional orchards has out produced a Chandler hedgerow planting at considerably less cost.
Annual or biennial pruning the young-developing orchard is expensive and time consuming. The use of a hedger in place of hand pruning can get pruning done quickly and less expensively than annual hand pruning without sacrificing tree growth or production. Various hedging systems have been evaluated for 3 years in a 13-year-old mature Chandler walnut orchard. Recent data suggest that some hedging systems are more advantageous than others. Although not statistically significant the hedging treatments are beginning to out yield the non-hedged/non-pruned treatment, which has not been pruned for three years.

IV International Walnut Symposium

W.H. Olson, D.E. Ramos, W.C. Micke, J. Yeager, N. Shawareb

english walnut, Juglans regia L., tree training and pruning, mechanical hedging

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2001.544.59