—by Jack Kertesz, submitted March 2020
Evidence exists of deliberate nut tree planting efforts, primarily directed by a few individuals, some of which have occasionally spread to outlying communities. The remaining trees or stands could provide valuable genetic material and a realistic glimpse at the potential for these tree crops in our various microclimates.
These are a few that I am aware of:
Waldoboro: Carpathian Walnuts planted by General Totman.
Mercer: An original planting of Shagbark Hickory now encompasses several acres.
Downeast / Lubec : Plantings by Radcliff Pike now evident in outlying areas.
A “Northern Pecan” grows alongside of Rt 1 near Lamb Cove.
Orono: Plantings by UMO Dendrology Professor Fay Hyland at the Arboretum as well as
around the campus.
Brunswick: Louis Lipovsky spread a lot of interesting hardwood species around the area.
Pittsfield: I found some Asian(?) nuts near the town park.
Unity, Thorndike Area: Has a bunch of independently planted Black Walnuts whose
parentage may have been trees near the Palmyra Post Office.
Sidney: Two heavily bearing, 2nd generation, young Black Walnut trees. The parent tree
was brought to the area from Connecticut, years ago.
Nut Map. In the American mid-Atlantic/Southeast there is an effort called Nutopia to map edible nut trees of all sorts that are freely harvestable by the public. They have made a publicly editable Google Map of freely harvestable trees from Virginia to Georgia .
