Hardy Hickories: Hybrid Variety Wins and Propagation Tips with Alex Tanke

Welcome everybody to Farming Matters, the storytelling series where you get to hear directly from innovative farmers and ranchers across the North Central region. Um, each one has had a Sar Grant. Today we're joined by Alex Tanky. Um, he's going to tell us about his hybrid hickory work. Uh, my name is Liz Brownley. I'm a farmer in Indiana and I work for SIR running some of our grant programs. I'm joined today by Marie Flanigan. >> Hello everyone. Welcome to Farming Matters. Marie's our producer and I'm the host and we get the pleasure of talking to all these wonderful farmers and ranchers. Um I said that we work for SER and these folks have had SAR grants. SAR stands for sustainable agriculture research and education. And basically we give out grants to farmers and ranchers to try out innovative ideas to test them and then share what they learn. Um and our mission is to advance sustainable innovations to the whole of American agriculture. And so today we get to learn from Alex. Um Alex, tell us tell us about yourself. Hey, I'm Alex Tanky. I live in the outskirts of Madison, Wisconsin. Uh, which ends up kind of being a a dead zone for a lot of crops other than apples. Um, so but I'm particularly interested in hickory nuts and their propagation and making them a commercial commercial crop over my lifetime. Um, and this this grant has been really helpful in making steps towards that. Yep. Again, my name's Alex Teni. If you need to contact me, call me anytime. I pick up, email me, makes no difference. And I run dispersion farms, which is a a small nursery um with limited stock and [clears throat] very irregularly available because I'm working on these propagation methods. This is my this is my focus. Um and like selecting the right varieties. So why why am I interested in hybrid hickories? Well, in my area, we have apples. That's a sugar. And I I want oil. I want kernel. I want like I want nuts. And what is the best nut? It's hickories. Pecans are pretty close to hickories. And they grow really well in the south, but they do not grow well up here. if they do grow, they produce the smallest smallest nuts and they don't look as healthy as you'd hope um at a at both of the sites that I manage or help manage, including Badger and Carl Leky's farm, which were evaluated as part of this grant. Um there are there are pecans there, but they don't look that good. They like barely hold on, and you just need the right direction. And the nuts are generally smaller than hickories. So why? So, I'm focused on hickories. They taste wonderful. They also are able to produce oil like pecans and kernel, but they can also make milk. Uh, which is behind over here. Here's a photo of some milk on the right. And the milk is like a frothy, oily, hickory flavored um really easy to make uh product where you just bash the nuts and then throw them in a pot of boiling water and you get a milk and the the kernel separates and the shells separate sink. Um so it's there's additional things you can do with hickories and let's keep moving on. So there are a lot of challenges in the way of hickories becoming a pecan for the north and one of them is propagation. Pagans grow if you have a seedling pan it's going to grow like a foot and a half in the first year. If you have a shag bark it's going to grow like 4 in which is not enough. Um and additionally this is all because hickories are really fire adapted especially shag bark hickories. So they invest in the root system instead of the top which makes the farmer unhappy when they get a grafted plant. But the root system is so big that it's prone to just like dying on transplant. It's just one long tap routt that's you know trying to get to water below grass systems um of the prairie and it doesn't like to be transplanted. So you got to keep those roots small. Um and for all nuts that's the case. Um, even for pecans, you need to keep the roots small to have a really healthy uh plant on transplant. In the pecan industry, you when you buy a grafted plant, you're getting a most likely a three-year-old plant in a pot, which is so old, that's so much growth. And I want to transition to what if we could make a one or two year plant. The only way to do that though is uh really effectively is epicado grafting. And that's grafting onto a nut. and Mark Hammond got me on this um this strain uh of thought and black walnuts were my first trials and I I was able to see with black walnuts that they're performing like a seedling when you graft them to the nut but so they they have the similar amount of growth as a seedling. Um and the root systems are like a seedling which means you can transplant it like a one-year seedling. Um, and the the graft is so well healed that um you can like yank on it and it's totally healthy and fine because there's that juvenile tissue um of that freshly germinated nut. Um so walnuts were super successful, but what about with hickories? Um hickories the first year was an utter failure. I got 0% success. The second year, and this was before the Sarah Grant, um the second year I got like 10 successes out of 300. And then the Sarah grant started. Was it coincidence that I started getting you know 20 30 out of 300 and then the second year getting like um yeah I don't know 50 60 successful graphs. Um what is the different or like what are some of the details that go into that? First of all I found these are yellow bud or bitter nut hickory nuts. They did not graph that well. Um, I don't know why, but at least with my scion being shag bark dominant genetics, they did not like to graft. Um, it's possible the reason why yellow bud hickory had lower success rate was because the epicado was 50% thinner. I don't honestly think that's the case. Um, because I I I don't know for sure why, but it just it felt like it was genetics. It felt like the yellow bud didn't like to graft as well. um even on the inverted radical I was getting similar take rates and it was the difference between 50% success and like 10% success >> and I was able to both graft onto the epicle and you wouldn't think this is possible you could but you can flip that upside down and just graft onto the root in an inverted uh manner and Connor Dunn put me onto this and it's amazing because the radical which is the root system is about 50% thicker generally than the epic both on yellow bud and on shag bark. Um, and additionally being able to graft on the radical is helpful because sometimes the nuts come out and here's a here's a sample on the right bottom right of um what comes out of my germination chamber. Um, sometimes you get really really tall epicottles that are ready for grafting. Sometimes they're barely big enough to graft and sometimes you have no epicle. So all you have if you're digging up all of those at once, uh if you're going to get high yield of grafted plants from your stock, you're going to need to graft on the epicle or do some farting around with um the the seedlings. So and then putting them back in the germ chamber. So what does an epicle and a radical graft look like? Here's an epicado graft. You can see the root on the bottom. Here's the uh epicle. Here radical epicle. Here's the nut. I'm doing a cleft graft and then putting a small piece of scion in and then using a tomato or melon grafting clip to hold that together and then I dip it in a wax once that's all done. And on the right side, it's hard to see because our photos are in the way, but this is an inverted radical graft. The epicado was ripped off and um yeah, I was just using the root system to make that all work. And one thing to note on this, if you do get into epicado oil or radical grafting, it ends up being really helpful to put the clip on the nut side, um, and same with the bud, because, uh, eventually I'm packing all of these into pots and then callousing them in a greenhouse, and that helps conserve space in the greenhouse. Um, but yeah, this is what it looks like. Um, one thing you'll note on this, the it this aligns, this scion aligns with the root system, but that isn't necessary. And what I've found, though this wasn't specifically controlled for in the experiments, but what I found is that larger buds, though not terminal buds, which are the biggest of the buds, you want large buds, but actually thicker scion, and it's best to just align one side of the cambium, um, and have not overlap on this side because that scion needs to be really healthy vigorous wood, um, in order to get a vigorous healthy graft. um if if you have scion from the shade, it's not going to be healthy. It's going to have small buds. I think all of that's just connected to where it wants to grow uh next year. And large buds are a sign on hickories. Um and I think a lot of other crops that that is going to be a growing bud in the following year. Um so I'll just point that out. Here's some more graphs. And this is what inverted radical graphs look like. So there's the root coming out of the nut and then it graphs. Here's a success. It grew about an inch, which is typical. I hate to say it, but that's normal. And then the root just shoots out the side and it is totally fine. It's It's happy like that, which is crazy. Um, but that's an inverted radical graft. And you'll notice that there's a wax on top of the whole graft union sealing everything in so that it doesn't dehydrate. Because this white tissue is really fleshy and is it's called blanched when it's never seen the sun. It's undifferentiated tissue and it's if it's exposed to low humidity and sun, it will shrink up and start to differentiate and turn into wood. Um, and you actually want it to be like really juvenile and undifferentiated so that it doesn't care as like it just becomes whatever it needs to be. >> Yeah. So then we stick all of these graphs in the greenhouse um and callus them at 80 degrees is the target and you want to be my experience says plus or minus 5 degrees. Like it's a tight window for hickories. It is way less tight for juglons uh meaning walnuts. Um but that's my experience with the hickories. They need to be in that tight window. If it's too cold, you'll get the it'll take a lot longer to take and you'll get a lower success rate. And but if you have it at the right temps, um they start breaking bud at about 14 days. Um and I would start disposing of my graphs at maybe like 30 days, but under lower temperature conditions, it can take up to 40 days. And that doesn't mean you have a failure at that point. But the earlier the buds start to break, that either means you have a terminal bud which is trying to break too quickly um and is going to kill the graft or you have a non- terminal bud that's very healthy and the callus is very well formed in that graft uh graft union. Um here's some successes coming through. This is an example. So this is a variety called bench press and for some reason this tree really likes to put on a lot of growth in the graphs and I think it has to do with the way that the tree grows that that tree likes to grow about equal distances on all sides of the trees all side of the tree which is different than most trees. Usually they like to grow up on the top of the tree very vigorously and then slowly on the sides. That's a genetic thing. But this particular wood was throwing like three, four inches consistently. Um, yeah. And then I'm just going to talk about the graph the grafting wax a little bit. A lot of people use oil mixed with beeswax or paraffin wax. What I found works the best uh or has worked really really well for me is beeswax and cheese wax about 5050. Mark Hammond put me onto this. And the cheese wax has a microcrystallin uh wax in it. And though it's petroleum based, it can technically be organic, though I don't think it degrades as quickly. But that stuff does not allow the wax to fracture. And to seal that whole graft really consistently without fracturing, makes it so that that juvenile tissue never shrinks down and it can heal really well before um before it starts having to differentiate and gets stressed. Um, there is an alternative uh that I was able to find to that cheese wax and you can use natural pine ground or pine rosin uh that's been ground. It is harder to mix because the melting temperature of that pine rosin is above boiling point which makes it harder to regulate in a like you can't use a double boiler to get it up to that temperature. But if you bring it back down to temperature and like harden it and then thaw it back up, it doesn't need to get above boiling. That's these are just the properties I've found. So, it must like combine with the the beeswax in a weird way. But this is what the traditional old ways that the old-timers were doing it in the 1920s. And it does work really well. It's super pliable like cheese wax. Um, and yeah, is is really powerful. Just wanted to note that though wasn't part of the sermon. Here's some notes. Read [laughter] it. Read it somewhere else. Take a screenshot now. But here's some notes on the things that I think are very relevant to successful hickory appetite grafting. Um, and you can read this on the full report for hydro hickory variety recommendations and propagation trials online. >> That's a great connection, Alex. We'll have the link to your full report with all the details um in the description. >> Thank you. And then what was the other aspect? So, propagation trials was one part of the title. The other part was hybrid hickory variety recommendations. In the process of variety recommen recommending, uh there's a lot of things that you see and you're out there looking for things. Some interesting things that I simultaneously found that aren't really part of the variety recommendations is um pollen sterility was rampant at Badger. a lot of the and in the historical documentation of what pollen sterility looks like especially in Carl Wesky's book growing nuts in the north um he kind of suggested that it was something else other than it is it appears that the best way to assess pollen sterility is two like multiple years in a row checking to see if the catkins fall off prior to pollen shed and sometimes they fall off prior to pollen shed because they're uh the catkins are actually differentiated the year prior in the terminal bud of shagbar hickory. Um so they'll you'll see little baby uh nubbins of catkins inside that terminal bud as they expand out. But these are more developed. They like develop into this size or this size and then they uh fall off before pollen shed. Um and that will happen sometimes on low nut years for trees uh for hickories. But if if it's going if it's simultaneously a high nuty year and the catkins are shedding prior to uh pollen dropping prior to pollen shed, then that is a sign that it's pollen sterile. And about 30% of the population of Badger said is pollen sterile. I'm going to move on, but there's a lot of I've I've recorded maybe 80 pages of college world, you know, data on these trees. It's so much data and it's too much. Um, but it's really interesting to have and you learn a lot about the base like what is a hickory and the process of doing that. For example, right here you'll see a photo of a podunkcle. A podunkcle. The definition of a podunkcle is the stem that holds the fruit or nut. Um, that's temporary. It's not like a permanent part of the stem, but it's a temporary part that holds the fruit in the nut. One thing I noticed as uh in doing a lot of this data uh collection was that some trees have long podunks, some have short. And then I go to the wild and I'm like, "Oh, shag barks have short podunkles generally unless except for in rare conditions." And yellow buds, bitter nuts have really long podunks. So this though the initial genetic testing that Warren Chat Chatwin helped us with um not part of this grant though that initial testing says that this tree is a pure shag bark. It's not like there's a couple of things that are dead giveaways and one of them is this long podunkcle. Um so I just wanted to point that out though. It's like kind of separate variety recommendations. We're finally going to get to it. One of the varieties that I think is really interesting, especially for uh someone in Liz's location, is Vernon. So, up north in Wisconsin, I wouldn't recommend this, but this I evaluated this tree at the Spurgeon collection in Indianapolis. And this tree is the best tree I've ever seen. It is loaded with nuts. It cracks out like a pecan. It's massive. It tastes like a shell bark, which I think is better than a pecan, though not as good as a hickory, a shag bark hickory. Um, and I don't think it would milk well. Um, and the kernel percentage is high enough that it can be oil pressed. Snack shack. It does. It's just looks like a normal hickory. It's a normal hickory tree, but it dumps nuts. It cracks out perfectly. The shell is a little darker than a shag bark, but it still is milkable. Um, it comes up in the genetic testing as a pure shag bark. It is a very interesting tree. Not only that, but I sent the nuts down to modern E& um to test in their uh Meyers style pecan cracker and it actually worked really well and they put it through their sheller. They were able to run it as if it's a pecan except for the shell separation was a little bit iffy on in the blower because the shell of a shag bark is a lot thicker. And this this isn't a pressable nut. has a fairly thick shell at 42% kernel. Um, but this tree does hammer out crops. It is crackable. It is shellable. And we can use uh optical sorting to sort it out. I'm I have no doubts about that, though I haven't tested the op optical sorting. I just know that the oil content is high enough that uh in the IR spectrum, we'll be able to sort out uh hickories from their shell. But this tree goes hard by annually, though it's in a good context at Badger Set. This one's ready for the north. Um, and Shiver is a selection that cracks out really well. It's pressable. It's It's reliably over 55% kernel. I've seen it hit 57% kernel, which is the thinnest shag bark I've ever seen. The only problems with it is I don't I haven't seen enough data off of it. I've been watching it for four years now and because of the fertility context that it's in um it's only produced one and a half good crops. Um and it's yeah so it needs more observation but and it is maybe a little bit weevil susceptible. We'll see how fertility affects that. We'll see how nutrient management affects that. But it is the thinnest crop I've ever or thinnest nut I've ever seen. I was shaking when I first cracked it. That's why I call it shiver. And it cracks out beautifully as you can see on the left. though it does have a mild shag bark flavor which is still better than a shell bark flavor. Um but it's it's mild. It's more subdued but it's it's a lovely malt. So those are uh those are three of the variety recommendations. If you want to see more of the variety recommendations, check out the Sarah website uh for my full report. And just thanks to everyone who's been involved in the process, including people in the NGA, Levi, Sam Fyer, Mark Hammond, the the whole crew. Um, yeah, thanks for your time. >> I just learned so much. Thank you, Alex. You You made that really approachable. I'm not somebody who does grafting. I'm a livestock person, but I understand so much more now. Thank you. Um, what if you stop sharing your screen so we can see your face? Yeah, thank you, Alex. That was really helpful. Um, and I'm sure there are a lot of other tree nerds out there who are just so excited right now to be learning this from you and your hard work. Um, one, um, one question I had, it's pretty introductory, but you said, you know, that hickories could be the pecan of the north. Where do hickories, where do pecans stop and hickory start or what does that overlap look like? >> My understanding of pecans, they don't seem to do well in Wisconsin. That's what it seems. I would I would say that in Indianapolis, they can grow very well there. I could recommend pecans up to, you know, Indiana, maybe even halfway through Indiana, uh or Indianapolis, halfway through Indiana and uh Illinois. Um but I wouldn't go too much farther north than that. Once you're in Wisconsin, Minnesota, you're you're too far. Um though roottock is still pecan roottock can still be used um much farther north because you don't need those early ripening large nut characteristics um when it's you're just using pecans as a roottock. Uh all you need is hardiness, which there are a lot of pecans that are hardy enough to live um and really vigorous still, but they're not ever going to produce enough for you. Once that hickory is established, how long until it's 5t tall? How long until it's then later, you know, producing nuts? Like what's the trajectory here? >> So, the trajectory that I see generally is uh when you're transplanting a really really well-cared for hickory, when you're transplanting really well cared for hickory, that's a three-year-old plant. You transplant it, the first year it sleeps, it doesn't do anything. and the next year it creeps and then the third year it's going to put on three feet of growth in that year. Um that's my experience that's really really normal. Um >> is there an informal network or a formal network of people who are exploring this um in depth if people are interested? >> Yeah, the formal network would be the northern nut growers association. Um they will have their conference next year in Massachusetts. The Savannah Institute is a larger organization, less like connected and networky. Uh like at when you're at the Northern Nut Growers Association, you're hanging out uh with with people and it's not you're watching presentations, but mostly you're hanging out. And um other than that, the way to stay connected and like who who is the Wii, it's like me calling up Mark Hammond, me calling up Levi Guyire and me calling up Jesse Mars. uh and them, you know, it's a network of people that are actually just people calling each other is is also less formal. >> I'm I'm so grateful that you were here to teach us today, Alex, and um I can't wait to hear what happens next with your grafting trials and the cracker and everywhere in between. [music] We'll be cheering you on. >> Thank you. Appreciate it.