| The walnut (Spanish: Júglans régia) is a type of plant of genus Juglans and family Juglandaceae.
Botanical description:
The trunk is covered with gray bark and branches which make an extraordinarily broad crown.
The leaves are compound, odd-pinnate consisting of 4, 6 and 8 pairs of long ovate leaflets; they are 40 to 70 mm in length and blossom out along with blooms.
Blossoms are small, green in color and monoecious. Staminate flowers are collected by hanging catkins; pistillate flowers are located on top of annual branches, in singles or in groups.
The friuts have thick leather-like (coriaceus) fibrous husk and hard kernel, when ripe; the fruit shell which is dry breaks into 2 parts and on its own separates, the kernel does not open up on its own.
The ECBE states that a walnut tree had grown up to 84 feet tall and to 28 feet in circumference near a church in the Georgian village of Kekhva (Gory district of Tiflis province, presently Tskhinval a region of South Osetia), 12 miles from Tskhinval. The shadow of the tree can provide shelter to up to 200 horsemen. Every year, the tree had an output of 100 tons of fruit. Similar trees were found in many places in the Tran Caucasian region.
Importance and use:
The walnut culture started from ancient times and varieties of walnuts are available; the variety is noticed in the number of leaflets on the pinnate leaves, in the direction of the branches, in the degree of brittleness of the woody portion of the fruit and so forth.
The wood is excellent for use as a fabricating material and is highly valued.
The nuts which are used everywhere in abundance in food contain superior quality oil which cannot be stored for long.
The leaves contain bitter and aromatic substances, evaporation of which causes headaches in some people. They are used in Transcaucasia for stupefaction of fish (trout) in Mountain Rivers.
The husk of nuts contains many tanning agents. It is used in the preparation of jam.
Distribution and ecology:
The main producers of walnuts are the USA, China, Ukraine, Moldova and France. In Europe, many cultivar industrial orchards are found in France and the walnut is also cultivated in Ukraine.
In prehistoric times, walnuts were found extensively in Western Europe though maybe the ones found in prehistoric times weren't close to the ones which are found in present times and may not be the type widely found in the present day.
The walnut does not like heavy and crude soils. They are easiest to cultivate in valleys, irrigated by running waters.
Cultivation:
Walnuts can be cultivated almost exclusively with the help of seeds; however, Frenchman Treiv managed to find a reliable nut cleft-engrafting method to annual or biannual seedlings, transplanted after engrafting in a hotbed.
The walnut is less selective to soils, though prefers deep and loose sandy-stony soil, not very dry, besides abundant lime. Since the walnut tree overshadows other trees, it is better to plant it at the edge of an orchard.
Only 6-14% of land is suitable for the cultivation of walnuts on the entire planet but almost 70% and higher is suitable for the cultivation of walnuts in Moldova. The free area for planting walnut plantations is more than sufficient - 125 000 hectares.
During the 7th – 8th years after planting the tree starts yielding fruit and retains that capability up to 500 years later. A crop yield can reach up to 2.5 - 3 tons per hectare.
The planting and cultivation of walnuts is profitable since it is simple and does not require special maintenance. Since the trees do not start yielding fruits immediately it is possible to cultivate other agricultural crops with (for example, corn) in inter-row spaces. And when the reaping period of fully-grown crops arrives, all the expenses (for the making and cultivation of the hectare of nut orchard approximately constitute 20000 lay-offs) can be covered in one year. The estimates of experts say it is much cheaper to cultivate one ton of walnuts than cultivating the same volume of wheat or grapes.
Wood:
Walnut wood is considered as a valuable breed of tree and used for the manufacturing of high-quality items. Generally, it is the byproduct of the cultivation of walnuts and since its production is irregular, enterprises which use this wood are very few and focus on small volumes. Circumstances such as the digging out of walnut trees along with the roots while harvesting, adds up to the shortage of wood. The bottommost parts of the tree trunk, which are sometimes left in the soil, are tuber-like thickened and used for the manufacturing of the most valuable veneer sheets from the wood and decorated with rich designs.
Crafts:
The walnut tree wood is used for the manufacture of superior quality furniture. Stable, ecologically non-polluting dye is obtained from extracts of the leaves and the husks of the green fruits.
|
