I saw some info on black walnut trees and figured i woudl solicate as much advice as possible regarding pruning.
I have a black walnut tree in my front yard that i should probably trim some branches from. I say this because some of the branches are almost hanging out over public sidewalk....which i'm certain is not allowed by county code. So i will either have to trim these back to the 'trunk' or take part of them off. Any advice on this?
Another possible issue is that some of the branches are not growing out and up. Instead they are growing down, then out then up. I suppose sort of like very large 'U' although not that pronounced of a dip. I beleive this is because the weight of the nuts and and branches pulled the limbs down. Will this hurt the tree? will the limbs straighten out?
I also would like to take off some branches that are within 4 feet of the ground so i can take care of the ground beneath it without having to crawl around.
I want to avoid 'shocking' the tree by removing to many branches. Any comments on which branches should be removed first would be appreciated.
Some background follows. This tree is approx. 8 years old and is maybe 15-17 feet tall. At its widest point, the tree is maybe 17 feet wide. From a distance, it is shaped like an equilateral triangle.
I harvested approx 400 nuts this year. Most of these had a shell about the size of a golf ball. This is the second year of nut production. The first year(2008) produced approx. a 12-18 or so nuts. The treeI had an infestation of aphids in summer 2008 and used a systemic insecticide to get rid of them. It worked well enough, but i did not notice that it had a low dose of fertilizer. I suspect this may have had some consequence with regard to the #of nuts and how wide the tree is. I staked the tree from year 4 through year 6 to keep the trunk growing straight. This seems to have worked. I picked off 2 caterpillar tents this summer. If it matters, i grew this tree from a nut.
Thank You,
Troy - Bear, DE
