Plant Black Walnuts

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In cases where the terminal shoot has been frost-killed (or nibbled by a hungry woodchuck or deer), select one of the main shoots from around it as your new tree top and prune away the rest. (Be sure you make all cuts clean and flush to the stem. Otherwise, they won't heal . . . and heartrot may kill the saplings.)

To achieve maximum value for your efforts, your trees must be of veneer quality (such walnuts can command prices of $2.00 to $8.00 per board foot). And the only part that can be used to produce veneer (super-thin sheets of wood "peeled" from a log and used to cover lesser-grade lumber products) is the main bole (the trunk). A tree whose trunk rises 16 feet to the first branch will be twice as valuable as one with a branch at eight feet. The $11,000 hardwood I mentioned earlier was 30 inches in diameter at breast height (DBH) and towered 26 feet to the first branch!

After three years you should have a stand of nice straight trees, each an inch or more in diameter and eight to ten feet tall. At that point you can begin clear-stem pruning ... that is, cutting away superfluous lateral branches to produce knot-free trunks. The trees must have vigorous crowns to put on girth rapidly, so remove only the side growth sprouting from the lower half of each tree. In other words, if your saplings are ten feet high, you should cut off all branches below the five-foot level. Prune them flush ... then, a few weeks later, go back and remove any new shoots or suckers that have started around the cut area.

Every three to five years, repeat the procedure of pruning away any branches on the lower half of each of your trees. All branches to be excised should be cut before they are an inch in diameter . . . to prevent knots from forming In the wood.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Stem form can also be enhanced if you plant autumn-olive ( Elaeagnus umbellate ) between the walnuts: The shrub's bushy shape will crowd out low branches and partially substitute for lateral pruning. In addition, autumn-olive — being a leguminous plant — will fix atmospheric nitrogen and add it to the soil in a form available to the black walnuts . . . and its bright red berries will provide an excellent food for song and game birds.]

You won't have to worry about thinning for eight or ten years. However, after that amount of time has passed, your trees (if they were planted ten feet apart) will start crowding each other . . . and their growth rate can slow by 50%.

Of course, you'll want to remove first any deformed, crooked, diseased, and runty specimens . . . and to select the "sacrifices" in such a way that the crowns of the remaining trees will be able to expand uninhibited.

If you were ambitious and planted a full acre on ten-foot centers, you will have set out 400-plus black walnuts. By maturity, there will be room for a maximum of only 50 trees. So don't be shy about thinning! When the leafy unbrellas start to touch on more than one side of a tree, it'll be time to sharpen your axe. Chances are you'll need to repeat the selection process every five to ten years in the first half of the stand's life.

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