@#$%^&*((*&^%$ Hickory Trees!

[BostonBull]

I have 2 large Carya Glabra in my neighbors yard that hang over my perennial bed and driveway. They are VERY healthy trees which have been taken care of, which is great! BUT they are dropping their nuts right now and there is at least a 1" deep carpet 70-100' up my street and on my driveway! I blow it off every other day. I am wondering if there is anything that can be done to them, ie injected/sprayed to halt nut production? I know if I prune all the flowers off in the spring it will help but these are big trees 20-30" DBH and this task is more effort than it is worth.

So............

 

[Justice]

I know ethephon has been used on some species with some success. I believe the trade name Florel. I myself have never used it, but am interested to hear if anyone has and what the results have been.

 

[rbtree]

Used Florel once to control ornamental plum fruiting. It worked.....

 

[Justice]

was it expensive, and how do you think it would translate to treating a 40ft sweet gum price wise?

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

NAA is supposed to work well if the fruit is still immature.

 

[Ed*L]

I have 2 large Carya Glabra in my neighbors yard that hang over my perennial bed and driveway. They are VERY healthy trees which have been taken care of, which is great! BUT they are dropping their nuts right now and there is at least a 1" deep carpet 70-100' up my street and on my driveway! I blow it off every other day. I am wondering if there is anything that can be done to them, ie injected/sprayed to halt nut production? I know if I prune all the flowers off in the spring it will help but these are big trees 20-30" DBH and this task is more effort than it is worth.

So............

I feel your pain. I've been picking up Walnuts for a month now. I just can't bring myself to take a chainsaw to the "old tree in Grandmas yard"

Ed

 

[Husky288XP]

It is Juglandaceae Carya glabra!!!! Just say Pignut Hickory.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

It is Juglandaceae Carya glabra!!!! Just say Pignut Hickory.

Or bitternut, or sulferbud, or yellow bud or....

 

[BostonBull]

all the CA knew what I meant, and the post did say hickory tree.

maybe a pignt Hickory is different in other parts of the country, that is why it is best to use latin names when speaking amongst ourselves.....not with laymen or customers :monkey:

 

[CA arborista]

Hey!

And when is this Florel to be sprayed? Had a customer that had a tree service spray their American sweetgum (we call it a Liquidambar up here) and had fits that it still prickly-balled all over the place. Don't want to make that same mistake.

 

[BostonBull]

From the reading I have done it seems right when the flowers are coming on.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

From the reading I have done it seems right when the flowers are coming on.

Yeah, the windows are pretty tight. A few years ago a number of services tried spraying crabapples (Malus sp. ) because of the big messy smears of fruit on hardscape.

Most will not do it without a waver stating that there is no guarantee with the service.

The NAA causes abscission of the immature fruit, but can cause dieback of new succulent growth. I tried it once on honeylocust (gleditsia triacanthos) with good results.

Another thing that the clients need to know is that these are fruit thinning products, not elimination.

 

[Justice]

I believe coverage is very important as well. With large trees getting proper coverage will be difficult. Has anyone treated a large specimen?

Funny but I have one homeowner who wanted the four 24' -30 " dia liquidambar styraciflua (because we are going there I guess) trimmed.. town trees...hehehe. OK, and the tree's reaction to being trimmed was stress and MAJOR SEED PRODUCTION!!! There were literally 10's of thousands.

 

[treesandsurf]

This is just a thought. What about heavily fertilizing the trees with nitrogen? Obviously you don't want to go over board and have nitrogen leaching into the ground water supply, but if the tree is receiving copious amounts of nitrogen it may produce vegetative growth at the expense of reproductive growth, just a thought.

jp