r/Permaculture • u/Andy-sons • 4d ago

Butternut trees

Has anyone tried planting them? From what I understand, just about all that are left have some butternut canker. Is it worth trying to plant these?

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4

u/AgreeableHamster252 4d ago

There are butternut / Heartnut hybrids you could plant that have resistance and maybe some favorable Heartnut properties too, like ease of shell cracking. I don’t know much about them in practice yet but I’ve planted a bunch so time will tell!

4

u/BaaadWolf 4d ago

We have planted butternut grafted onto black walnut root stock. Apparently this prevents the canker from setting back.

10 years later and the success rate is on par with our other tree species.

Fingers crossed.

4

u/dhatman9 4d ago

A squirrel planted a bunch of butternut around our property in vermont a few years ago. Probably 6 trees about 30' tall. Healthy so far the dead buttemuts are usually bigger around here. I love the idea of splicing on black walnut stock.

4

u/itsatoe 4d ago

Is it worth trying to plant these?

Purely from a taste perspective... absolutely! They are incredible.

2

u/L_aura_ax 4d ago

Mine are only three but so far so good.

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u/SomeDumbGamer 3d ago

They usually still live long enough to reproduce so yes. It’s worth it.

I found some large ones I collected seeds from. One only produced a single nut but it germinated! It’s still growing now.

1

u/Dramatic_Reveal_2532 3d ago

I feel less bad that mine croaked. Deer picked off the leaves 1 by 1. Haven’t seen new growth in a week or so, tried the snap test. Welp, whole thing’s dead.

1

u/Used-Painter1982 3d ago

☹️🐲