Starting a Butternut tree from it's nut

My friend gave me 8 nuts from a butternut tree. His friend (an 85 year old lady) said they came from the only living limb of her tree, and she believes it is the last living tree in Scioto County, OH. These trees are becoming scarce in the US now. One website I found begins saying "Are the butternut trees going the way of the American Chestnut trees?" The American Chestnut trees have nearly disappeared, too. OK, long story shortened--I want to try to grow this tree from these 8 nuts. Should I plant them straight into the ground (like a squirrel would do), or start them in pots planted into the ground? I have Black Walnut trees they can pollinate with as they grow, so I'm not worried about that, but I really want to succeed with at least two or three (or more) of these nuts. What advice can any of you tree people give me? Thanks.
Jan

The butternut is fast succumbing to canker infections. The USDA is looking for healthy trees growing amid diseased stands in hopes of developing resistant varieties but as yet there aren't any resistant strains. The cankers are spread through spores and possibly by the seed themselves. Seedlings planted in areas of infected trees likely will not survive. (The spores can live for two years or more.)

The tree your seeds came from, a stubborn specimen, may show signs of having some genetic resistance. Though there is a chance you will grow healthy seedlings, there is also a chance you are setting yourself up for a disappointment. If the seeds are healthy and you plant in an area with no diseased trees you might be successful. It is worth the effort if you can contribute to propagating a resistant strain. Godd luck.

This site from Ohio Div.of Forestry has some planting requirements: http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/forestry/Education/ohiotrees/butternut.htm

Wayne

that's very interesting, there are so many butternuts here in Keene.. the squirrels plant them everywhere, and it seems that they are very easy to grow. they are almost like weeds. Perhaps the canker infection adk mentioned isn't active here yet. My experience, guided by the squirrels, is: plant a nut about 5 inches deep in the fall, and wait till spring! It seems to work for them, by the looks of things here.

The canker is reported to be active in NH. Keep an eye on your healthy stands, not so much for signs of disease, which you can't do anything about, but to watch for potentially resistant specimens.

Here's a link to a NH Cooperative Extention article about it in PDF format. http://ceinfo.unh.edu/Wildlife/Pubs/Habwin01.pdf Scroll down to page 4. They specifically request information of healthy, disease-free specimens 10" or wider growing in an area with diseased trees.

Wayne

Wayne, Thanks for the hyperlink to the Dept of Natural Resources. I went there and fouund out I have an ideal spot to grow one!

sjms, I think you might be right about the squirrels. They plant the walnuts and pecans we have all over the place in my yard. I'll try a couple of these nuts that way, too. But unlike the squirrels, I'll mark the places I plant mine. But today, I also emailed a nurseryman, Fred Hower, (at BuckeyeGardening.com) who specializes in trees and expect an answer from his website "as soon as we can."

I don't know how to tell if one has a canker, or even how to look for a canker, or what a canker looks like.

Right now, the squirrels are running up and down my black walnut tree selecting which walnuts they want to pick and drop to the ground and don't select every one. They examine each one very carefully before snapping it off and dropping it down to the ground. So, I don't know if these butternuts were ready to have been picked or not. Maybe they weren't ripe enough, but I have to try to do something with them. The DNR said nothing about how to plant them, but ony mentioned where they should be grown and the growing requirements.

I've planted three in one gallon plastic containers (the kind you get from nurseries with potted plants in them) and I'm going to bury them into the ground pot and all to ground level. I've done black walnuts this way, but I'm not risking all 8 of my butternuts this way.

I'd be willing to pay shipping charges for a box of butternuts if you'd be willing to bend over and pick up a few and package them up and ship them to me. If your area doesn't seem to be affected by the cankers, I might be able to grow some sapplings from some of your nuts and get a healthy tree or two here. Maybe 25 nuts or so? If you wouldn't want to, I would understand.

Jan

jan- i would need to take a trip down the street to a HUGE tree (bigger than a full hug-maybe a two person hug), that i think is the parent of many of the saplings here- our next door neighbor chopped his down a coulple of years ago, so we have less burried in our yard these days- i'll check it out and see if there are some on the ground around the giant tree, and though i don't know those people, i'm sure they wouldn't mind donating a few- we'll see what we can do! i'll let you know-

Plant the nuts IMMEDIATELY. If the nuts dry out, the nuts are dead and will not germinate.

Your butternut tree will probably NOT cross pollinate with a black walnut, but I suppose anything is possible. Hope to get at least two trees from the nuts and you won't have any problems with pollination.

I would protect the pots with nuts already planted in them; you don't want the squirrels to dig the nuts up and eat them. The reason I say this is that the squirrels will find those nuts and eat them because those nuts are of value to you. Trust me on this. Put some hardwire mesh over the surface of the soil in the pots and put a rock or brick over the mesh to keep the squirrels out. Just remember to remove the mesh and rock next spring, before germination begins.
Mike

Just found this thread -- perfect advice IMHO from Mike (above), on all counts. One more thing -- some of the nuts might take two years to sprout, so don't give up on them too early.

The canker disease is much less active or virulent in northern climates. From my own observations, many more trees are surviving in Ontario, at much larger sizes, than in Indiana and Illinois. That might account for the trees in New Hampshire.

Finally, I've heard reliable sources report that many of the surviving trees found in cultivated settings in more southern climates are not true butternut, but Asian species or hybrids with Asian species.

Guy S.

sjms, I found a webside (http://www.directgardening.com/ that sells butternut trees, and they seem to be affordable. Don't ask your neighbor to help you "hug the tree" :o). It's really sweet you would make the effort for me, but I might buy a couple of trees from the website and try to grow some like treelover3 said, too. I may not live long enough to see them grow to full height, but my grandkids will enjoy them. With this tree becoming so scarce, I didn't think I could find this much help here. Thanks so much. I'll let you know if I have any success.

Jan

hi jan- they'll grow pretty fast i think, at least at the start. i do wonder how old this one i'm thinking about is. nonetheless, i'll check on it..we just had a rather surprising flood after 10 inches of rain in a day and a half, and that road was definitely a lake for a while! my house and garden are on a hill (very sloped) which all of a sudden, i'm very glad about. glad you found a source- i hope they do well for you.

Thanks for the good wishes. 10" of rain, wow! Thank goodness you're on a hill. We are, too. my DH says of we get flooded, town will have to be under water before it gets to us.

I do have the other nuts in pots now about 5" deep and planted into the ground, but I'm going to buy a couple of trees already about 3' tall already. Jan