NATHAN PEASE
Like many other growers, Ed Greenwell planted a bundle of seedlings
when he first joined our organization. Among these was one which
contracted blight early, and the dark orange canker circled the 1/4 inch main
stem. But then it began to swell and healed itself within that growing
season. A few years later, another canker appeared on the same tree, now
grown to an inch in diameter, and the healing process took over once again.
Ed documented these observations with photographs, named the tree Nathan after
his son (Pease is the mother tree), and has created a Web page.
This tree demonstrates a higher level of resistance than our
breeders have seen among original source trees, and it has manifested the
resistance at a much earlier age than we had considered probable.
To rule out the possibility of a hybrid from stray pollen, Ed sent
ten leaves, which he collected in July in full sunshine, with several immature
leaves included in the sample, mounted bottom-side up on cardboard for
microscopic examination. Gary found only American characters.
Ed has made some Nathan nut grafts which we have planted at Virginia
Tech in medium and high elevation sites for observation and testing. He made
several with the objective of having some for comparison purposes.
So far, only one other grower has reported similar observations to
us. We wonder how many other trees like this are growing unobserved and
unreported.
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| 7-11-99 | 7-11-99 | 7-26-99 | 8-16-99 | 9-3-99 | 7-13-00
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| 7-13-00 | 10-02-00 | 6-23-01 | New Trunk Canker 6-23-01 | 8-5-01 | 8-12-02
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| 10-03-03 | 10-03-03 |