Walnut Blogletter

Walnut Blogletter 29 – April 2017 This blogletter is a quick appeal for information from you lot. We have just had the absolutely worst season weather-wise that any of us imagined. A problem, yes. But it is also a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn about growing these walnut things. So please get on your computer and give us a quick description of how this season has treated you. If everyone does it we will learn answers to questions none of us ever thought of. So, if you are reading this, give us a quick note of how this season [...]

Walnut Blogletter 28 –  March 2017 Covered in this blogletter is our continuing battle with Phytophthora, and the latest results in our search for better walnut varieties. Plus I have thrown in a few notes on random walnut topics spotted on the internet. But first… A follow up on our stumping experiment… In the May 2012 blogletter I described an experiment of ‘stumping’ some 4 year old trees that had been knocked over by a slip. That winter I cut off the tree as close to the stump as I could get and a year later had a profuse coppice of [...]

Last July I introduced the blogletter with this paragraph. With the huge increase in walnut plantings around the world, especially in China, we need to focus on what advantages we can exploit for walnuts grown in New Zealand. Massive planting has also been happening in countries around the Mediterranean as well as non-traditional places like Australia and Chile. Even in USA the big increase in walnut area is meeting headwinds now their exports to China are finding resistance. We need, and will need even more in the future, to exploit our competitive advantages. In this regard I view any differences in [...]

Obituary Very sad news. Les Gruebner, a long time Bay of Plenty Tree Crops member, died quite unexpectedly on Monday night. No other details are available at the moment. Les was a major force behind NZTCA getting a website, and was also very encouraging to me producing this blogletter. He will be sadly missed. Some feedback Hi Nick, Thanks for the recent newsletter.  I wonder if you can help me with something I think I read somewhere. I seem to recall reading in a newsletter somewhere an advert from an organisation that were buying up walnut shells for use in, among [...]

The May Walnut Industry Group (WIG) newsletter raised some issues in my mind. It seems that we were not the only people to have a challenging walnut harvest with prolonged autumn rains. This report was in April this year. Intense rainfall has had a major impact on Chile’s walnut production, in particular the late season Chandler variety, says the grower and exporter association Chilenut. You can see the full article here. The report went on to detail how the rain not only caused significant loss of production, but quality downgrade for part of the harvested crop too. They also said that [...]