Indigenous Landscapes has collected via purchase and donation; pecan seeds from Central Missouri, Central Indiana, and Chicago. This is the beginning of a proven northern adapted pecan breeding grove, though most of the resulting saplings from this seed collection will be sold through Indigenous Landscapes fall of 2020 to support our land purchases that will promote native plant agriculture. Like Passionflowers and Persimmons; Pecans with genetic origin from too deep in the south don’t fruit or flower correctly when planted in northern zones (4,5,6). But naturally Passionflowers, Pecans, and Persimmons have northern populations that are locally adapted and it is these populations that fruit and flower on time to be productive in northern climates. So when you find a planted or wild Passionflower or Pecan that is maturing its fruit correctly in these zones, what you have is genetic expression that can be cultivated into a breeding grove of sorts to produce more northern adapted plants. Whether the intention is for Native Plant Agriculture (NPA) or wildlife support, the northern adapted strains are the best strains to benefit your project.

In our particular breeding grove we won’t be mixing Missouri adapted genetics with the Chicago and Indianapolis born pecans as the more northern born pecans have better potential of being productive in Zone 5 where as the Missouri adapted genetics are more likely to be most productive in Zone 6 and 7. When we ship our saplings out fall of 2020, Zone 6 and 7 customers will get a mix of the Missouri genetics and zone 5 customers will get a mix of the Chicago and Indianapolis genetics. Years from now, people throughout zone 5 through 7 will have locally adapted pecans and will be able to continue on the selection process if they’re interested. Each year we’ll introduce more pecans from different populations found within zones 5 and 6 to invigorate the gene pool.

The same process will be repeated with Passionflower, mixing genetics of zone 6 fruiting Passionflowers for either wildlife value or native plant agriculture saving a few for our local breeding patch and shipping the majority out for sale each fall.

We’ve already begun this process with Common Persimmon as well, collecting from persimmons that drop their entire fruit crop fully ripe in August and September which are zone 5 and zone 6 adapted persimmons. The persimmons that get stuck up in the tree into the winter in these northern zones are also from southern genetic origin which causes the tree to go dormant before the fruit are fully ripe. The most productive persimmons for wildlife or native plant agriculture in zones 5 and 6 are of northern genetic origin with fruit that fall fully ripe to the ground before the tree goes dormant.

In these simple ways of evaluating, creating viable seed strains of northern adapted pecans, persimmons, and passionflowers is not difficult.

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