The first thing a walnut seedling (nutling?) does is send down a deep tap root to chase the water up from deep in the ground. Self-seeded walnuts seem to survive the hottest summers, but transplanting them, which cuts the tap root, never works.
The walnut nutling will have a single vertical branch that shoots up quite quickly. However, this represents a tasty morsel for deer, boar and hares that eat the shoot or gnaw the bark off the stem. But if the upper part of the tree is killed, the root just sends up several more branches to replace it. These tend to shield each other so the tree has a chance of finding a leader shoot that remains uneaten, until it hardens.
Apparently, it's not good to put walnut shreddings onto compost heaps as they prevent the decay, so they have some kind of bug protection too.
And they make walnuts. Excellent.
We grew several walnuts from seed in one of our houses in France and were lucky enough not to have had the attention of boar or other creature for whom they would have been a tasty morsel.
ReplyDeleteThey made a fair plantation...we saw them when passing from time to time...but now, some twenty years later the latest owner has had them felled. No idea why...I sincerely hope that the house ghost will give him a visit.
I think I detest all the people who have bought our houses over the years: seeing what they do to them I wonder why they wanted to buy them in the first place.
It is interesting that they grow so well such dry conditions.
ReplyDeleteThere was, according to my neighbour, a big walnut plantation not far from me, but they have been cut down to make way for a boar farm.
ReplyDeleteWell well, never knew how it was all done.
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