Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting Part 15

DR. CRANE: When you have got something by controlled breeding, you don't know when you have got it. That's the whole story in a nutsh.e.l.l.

Now, I am going to tell you about using controlled breeding. We started almond breeding in California, where we have one of the biggest commercial nut industries in the country. We started almond breeding in 1920 with the best known almonds. In the 30 years of almond breeding we have introduced two varieties. We had a panel of 125 commercial almond growers who decided on those two varieties out of more than 20,000 known controlled crosses that were made of trees that were grown to fruiting.

But it took a panel of 125 commercial growers to determine whether or not these two varieties, the Jordanolo and the Harpareil, were commercial varieties.

Those two varieties were planted. The nurserymen planted them, the grower took them over, and they couldn't grow enough trees to supply the demand. These two varieties have been introduced for commercial planting now for 14 years. Of the two, one has stood the test of time, and it stands now as probably the second most important almond variety in all the United States, has been taken to foreign countries and is being extensively propagated. One of them made the grade, the Jordanolo. The Harpareil is still in the running, but it is down with the 30 or 40 varieties that are of lesser importance.

MR. CALDWELL: Can you reproduce that result?

DR. CRANE: No.

MR. CALDWELL: Then you don't know what that is or the happenstance that got it.

DR. CRANE: Certainly, because you don't know about breeding nut trees.

MR. CALDWELL: That's what I say should be learned.

DR. CRANE: In the first place, the chromosomes are so small and there are so many, that you can't identify them, and you can't tell which genes, and they have got a heterozygous population, and the variety is self-sterile and has to be cross-pollinated, so there is only one way from a horticultural standpoint by which we can do anything, and that is through clones.

DR. MacDANIELS: I think we are getting a little bit off.

DR. CRANE: We are off, way off.

DR. MacDANIELS: How to get a new variety I don't think is what we are trying to decide this evening. As I have looked at this whole field of what we are trying to do, I think we have a.n.a.logies that we can point to. I think any project of this kind in nut varieties goes through various stages. The first is finding what material there is that is available that you can use. The next is the evaluation of that material to see what's worth keeping, and setting up your standards of what you are trying to get, and then from then on out perhaps breeding that sort of thing.

Now, as far as we are concerned, it seems to me the Northern Nut Growers' a.s.sociation made a pretty good stab at surveying the materials available. In other words, I think an additional nut contest is not going to turn up the perfect nut. That is, we have one contest after another, and the ones that win the first prizes as the best nuts we can find are not markedly better. There is no great difference away from the average that we have had in the others.

I think that's a valuable thing to keep going along so we don't miss a trick and let anything be lost. But the next thing is to take these things that we have selected and evaluate them, and it seems tome that's exactly where we stand at the present time.

I also think that we should not in this situation get ideas that are too big. That is, if you get something that's impossible, you are licked before you start. If you have got to wait before you do anything and make a complete study of chromosomes of any one of these nut trees, 99.44 percent of the Northern Nut Growers a.s.sociation might as well quit doing it. I am not capable of doing it, and Dr. McKay is probably the only one that is capable of looking at these things from that standpoint. But we have, it seems to me, to use the machinery we have and take some definite action which will be of some value within a year or perhaps two.

I agree that this idea of putting the State Vice-presidents to work is a very good thing. I think each one could if we could find the right man--take his state and divide it into two parts, and also take in groups of growers of nut trees that are members, and all the others that we can find, and get their pooled opinions on what varieties are available, together with the record of these varieties in that particular locality.

Then I think on the basis of one of the committees we have, that is, our standards and judging subcommittee, we could set that up in such a way that they could evaluate things about which there is some doubt.

But before we do that, we have got to clear the decks and adopt judging standards, standards by which we wish to work or to evaluate different varieties. I don't know whether anyone else has done more judging than I have or not, but I know I have given this a lot of attention through the years.

We had one system of judging which was worked out some years ago and was based on previous judging systems, and they went to a point where it seemed to me and to the others who were working along with me that they just didn't have any real basis in the factual situation that warranted its continuance; that is, a system which was based on percentages of kernel and penalties for empty nuts or flavor, and other things which could not be effectively measured. And they quit with that system and started out on a new tack. And to do that we got Dr. Atwood, who is head of the Department of Plant Breeding Genetics at Cornell, to go through some extensive tests which he applied as a biometrical statistical method, to find out what is the sample which will give you specific results and then to measure the qualities that give you what you want. And I think we are nearer that than before. But I think the schedules are relatively simple and haven't been used to any great extent. They need further testing.

But it seems to me that the a.s.sociation as such must decide whether we want that schedule, making it an official schedule and going ahead on that basis.

Now, a judging schedule for nuts will not tell you anything about the tree; it will just tell you the characteristics of the sample. That's the first thing you want to find out: Is the nut itself intrinsically the type of thing you want to deal with? Then whether the tree bears annually or whether it alternates, or what diseases it is subject to.

Those are other matters.

So I think this is a way out, or at least I suggested the plan we could go along with of putting the vice-presidents to work and setting up a committee under the t.i.tle of judging and standards and try to bring out a report at the next session. It seems to me that would be right practical.

Where we go from there in production of new varieties I think should be a subject for a round table discussion sometime. I think the gentleman in forestry has a good idea. I think we will get a long way if you have proper control of the first elements of the first varieties, and from them we can build up. But it seems to me we have to be practical about things that we can do, then go ahead and do them.

DR. CRANE: Thank you, thank you.

DR. COLBY: I would like to add one point, that we must "zone" all these varieties. In a state as long as Illinois, over 400 miles long, growing conditions are different in the south than in the north. In the north we don't find that Thomas fills out very well and that's true also at Urbana in the central section of the state. Beck and Booth and some of the smaller nuts do fill out. The zones I mentioned may well run across several states where environmental conditions are similar.

I recall a little survey I made when I was honored by being president of your a.s.sociation several years ago, in which I tried to list all of the work that was in progress at the different national and state experiment stations, and most of those stations were carrying on some work in nut growing. I am sure that if you check that matter now, several years later, you would find that many more are carrying on investigations of that nature. They have expanded as much as their facilities will permit.

For example, just the other day I visited the station at the University of New Hamps.h.i.+re, and there they were growing chestnut trees from seed that had been brought in from Korea. Little trees just two years from the seed were full of burs this year. Whether they are going to fill a place in New Hamps.h.i.+re remains to be seen. They were not as yet attacked by blight, but, of course, the trees were small, and there were no cracks in the bark as yet.

I am sure that most of the station workers know that you at Beltsville are extremely interested in testing new nuts as they become available.

In cooperation with other workers it may be found that this variety is good in ~this~ zone and that variety is good in ~that~ zone. Nurserymen might well include maps of such zones in their catalogs.

DR. ANTHONY: Now that the experiences of the Northern Ohio growers has been brought up and you have mentioned many times your own experience as the Northern Nut Growers, I think the Northern Ohio group, a closely knit group, rather closely geographically related, has worked for almost twenty years, and hasn't gotten too far, and this organization has worked for 41 years and hasn't gotten too far. So that if we want to get anywhere, we must have a more closely knit organization with a better financial backing back of it and a better sense of responsibility back of it.

DR. CRANE: That's right.

DR. ANTHONY: You have mentioned the New Jersey Peach Council. We have been talking to our own Pennsylvania nut growers just as we have been talking to you today, telling them that they had a marvelous opportunity in all of these seedlings that we have been finding around the state. I think we have got them quite stirred up. But now they are considering the possibilities of organizing along the line of New Jersey Peach Council, a nut tester's council, which will be an off-shoot and part of the Pennsylvania Nut Growers a.s.sociation.

Now, why have such a thing? Why have it in Pennsylvania? Why not have it as an organization of the Northern Nut Growers. The problem of varieties actually in its final a.n.a.lysis is a local problem. We have one area in Pennsylvania where on one side of the river it's McIntosh and the other side of the river it's Stayman. There are meteorological differences on each side of the Susquehanna River at Scranton-Wilkes Barre where the varieties s.h.i.+ft. In the northern area we go from the northern hardwood with the beech-birch-sugar maple, into the oaks right in the state, with a third of the state in the northern hardwoods and the rest of the state in the oaks. We have no idea that any one variety of black walnuts or English walnuts or chestnuts will fill our needs any more than we know that any one apple will fill our needs, that one grape or one cherry will fill our needs, even one peach, not even the Elberta.

So it comes down to a regional problem, and for that reason I think that the state should be the logical center for your close knit organization to test your varieties.

There is another reason. I don't believe that any group of growers facing a problem of this magnitude can get very far unless you secure continuity by tying your organizations in some way to your state experiment station. I think you have got to have your continuity by making your tie-up there.

DR. CRANE: That's right.

DR. ANTHONY: I have said a number of times in our own group that one of the great disadvantages of our amateur nut growers in Pennsylvania is that most of them are 70 years old or older. That's fine for them, but it's hard on the industry, because just the time that they should be giving us the most valuable returns, they aren't there. So to secure the continuity you want, you are going to have to tie in your experiments with the experiment station. You are going to have to make a group, you are going to have to incorporate, because you are going to face the problem of propagation. You might have one good tree, and it's of no value for you, and you have got to plant it in more than one spot to know how good it is.

If the Delicious apple or Grimes Golden had appeared in our seedling blocks, we'd have thrown them away. I know we have thrown many things out at Geneva which in other places might have survived. We took a number of those and planted them in Pennsylvania and found them worthy of naming. That means you have got to propagate in more than one place and you have got to propagate in conditions where you know you have got the demand.

And all of that means that you have got to have a tight legal organization. Valuable as the Northern Nut Growers a.s.sociation is, I don't think you are going to get it out of your present organization. I think you have got to find some way to condense your stuff into some tighter organization. In Pennsylvania I think it's going to be a nut tester's council, legally organized, financially responsible, tied up to the experiment station, if we can make it just as the New Jersey council is.

The New Jersey council was a success because they had the best possible tie-up between Morris Plains, 15 or 20 miles on the other side, and a good nursery in between. That's why they made a success.

The New York State Fruit Testing a.s.sociation is a success because they have had continuity. Mr. King has been manager of that a.s.sociation for 25 years, I think, and you have a legal organization doing its own propagation where they know the material is true to name.

Use your vice-presidents all you can, use every committee that you have but you have to have something that's tighter.

DR. CRANE: Thank you. Just one comment that I want to make. You have suggested an awful big camel to get over. Now, we are trying to start.

If we could just get a little start towards the end we could grow into it.

DR. ANTHONY: We have got to start.

MR. O'ROURKE: I am one of those unfortunate ones who is supposed to know everything when an inquiry comes in to the college. I happen to have the privilege of answering the nut inquiries at Michigan State College. The first thing people want to know is, "what varieties do I plant?" The second is, "Where do I buy them?" I am very sorry to say I can answer neither one of those questions at the present time satisfactorily to myself, nor to the people of the State of Michigan, and I feel that we do need action, and we need it quick in order that we can select a certain number of varieties that we can conscientiously recommend to the grower, and also a very few varieties to recommend to the nurserymen of the state so that they will propagate them and make them available to prospective customers.

MR. SLATE: I want to support Mr. Anthony's remarks that there are too many old men testing nut tree varieties.

DR. ANTHONY: Not too many, no.

MR. SLATE: And there are too many squirrels involved. If a man gets the idea that he is going to take up the nuts, by the time he acc.u.mulates a collection of nuts, when these come into bearing the squirrels get most of the nuts, and they don't seem to be very much concerned about evaluation. Then the man dies and the collection goes to pot. There must be some continuity, and as far as I can see, that will have to come through state experiment stations.

Now, just how you are going to get the experiment stations started in testing nut tree varieties, I don't really know. Many of the projects at the experiment stations are there because they are catering to the larger industries in the state, and sometimes the projects are there because somebody in an administrative position has an idea which he wishes to see developed.