Sunday, August 31, 2008

Follow up Inspection of Canker Resistant Butternuts

There was some unfinished business to attend to. Some of the trees still had to be tagged and I found that some of the geographic coordinates were inaccurate.

Also I found tree number seven so this means we have a 9 out of 10 survival rate.

I will be updating each of the individual tree blogs.

I also found additional butternut trees for which I will be creating individual blogs as well. It is becoming apparent that I will have quite a time tracking all the blogs.

How to conveniently label trees


To uniquely label special and noteworthy trees in the woodlot and to track them with a blog they need to be labeled. The label has to be durable enough to last many years. I thought that a plastic square cut from a Javex bleach bottle, or joghurt tub might do. After all these plastic bottles are known to last for up to 30 years in a landfill. The identification information would then be marked on it with an indelible marker. I noticed however that the permanent markers will fade completely when exposed to the sun after only one season. So instead I found the aluminum cat food can lid quite suitable and there is a plentiful supply. Using a punch set - bought from Princess Auto and hoping one day to find a use for it - I could punch the tree code on the lid. I could then tie this to the tree trunk while it is still small with a bit of wire or screw it into the trunk when it is larger. Aluminum corrodes very slowly and will last much longer than 30 years and more like 50 years.

Survey of Canker Resistant Butternut Trees

I visited six of the butternut trees today, took measurements, and tagged them.
Of the trees all survived the summer except: Tree #3 was uprooted and Tree #7 was not found today but may still be healthy and alive.
I still have to measure and report on trees #1 & 2.
For the remaining healthy and measured trees I have created blogs as follows:
http://crb4c.blogspot.com/
http://crb5c.blogspot.com/
http://crb6c.blogspot.com/
http://crb8g.blogspot.com/
http://crb9g.blogspot.com/
http://crb10g.blogspot.com/

Visit these sites to view photographs, geographic coordinates or pictures of the subject trees.
Not all photographs are posted yet.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

New Blog for Butternut Tree CRB1I

This is the first of the butternut trees that are confirmed to have survived the planting and the summer. The code CRB1I for numbering tree means Canker Resistant Butternut #1 in Area I of our woodlot. Click on title to see the blog.

George and Sean Planted the Black Walnut



The Walnut tree has survived the trip to Campbellton. In this picture, see link, my Grandson Sean and Father-in-law /good friend George are planting the tree.

Saturday, August 02, 2008

More about the Black Walnut

At the end of the woodlot tour on Lalandes property, which was held on October 14th, 2006, one of the members was giving away walnuts that he collected from a tree on his property. He gave use about 50 walnuts, which I planned to plant here at Heartwood.

In the mean time we had the nuts stored in a basket outside, and by the time we were ready for planting on December 24th 2006 -- it was a very mild fall -- the squirrels had raided the basket and left us with 36.

We laid out a 6 metre by 6 metre grid and planted the nuts at each one metre intersection. The ground was very soft and wet so to plant them we simply pushed the nut into the ground with the heel of our boots.

Next spring 7 of the nuts sprouted. I cut squares out of old carpet and cut a slit from the middle out and placed the carpets around the nuts that survived. This was to control the weeds around them which worked very well.

The following year we had 14. Yay! seven more nuts sprouted. So what are we going to do with them all?

The previous trees did not do so well and were late putting out leaves. From this website I see now that it might be the high moisture that has delayed the trees. We have had a record number of rainy days this year in this area.

The referenced website also describes the process for transplanting walnuts. It appears that the nut produces a large tap root, so one can not wait too long to transplant them. They should be less than one metre (3 feet) tall. I might have another year yet since these seedlings are only about half a metre (16in.) tall.

This weekend I potted one of the walnuts as a gift for my father in-law who lives in northern New Brunswick. Some members of my family were going up to see him and took it with them. It is much colder up there and the winters are much longer. We are already at the northern edge of the Walnut habitat. I wonder how it will do.