The walnuts are of course the main reason for the popularity of the walnut tree. It is all the more annoying when your own tree bears little or no fruit. But what can be the reason? In our article, we take a closer look at this important question.
There can be various reasons if the walnut harvest fails to materialize
Possible causes for missing fruit
There are several reasons why a walnut tree does not bring a (rich) harvest.
The most important at a glance:
- too young age
- frost damage
- lack of pollination
old
A seedling that you grow from a walnut usually gives you the first harvest after ten years at the earliest, more like 15 to 20 years.
It goes a little faster if it is a grafted walnut tree. Then you can often look forward to good yields after just four to six years.
frost damage
Walnut trees are generally endangered by late frost. A single late frost can be the reason for the absence of flowers and fruits. In concrete terms, this means: If cold temperatures occur during the walnut blossom in April/May, it is very likely that there will be no or very few nuts in autumn.
pollination
Sometimes it happens that pollination does not occur.
To explain: The real walnut (bot. Juglans regia) is monoecious - means that the male and female flowers are on the same plant. Now, the former usually flower up to four weeks before their plain white female counterparts. Due to this time delay, the walnut tree is often dependent on cross-pollination in order for the fruit to develop.
Note: In principle, there is nothing wrong with the male flowers pollinating the female flowers of the same tree. They just have to meet to some degree in their maturity. This means that the time between the appearance of the male flowers and the appearance of the female flowers should not be too long. However, you cannot influence this yourself, Mother Nature decides.
Measures to promote fruit formation
You can hardly actively counteract the causes described. You only have the opportunity to take general important measures:
- choose the right location from the start
- always take proper care of the tree