Seed Production and Dissemination
Pignut hickory begins to bear seed in quantity in 30 years, with optimum production between 75 and 200 years (16). The maximum age for seed production is about 300 years. Good seed crops occur every year or two with light crops in other years; frost can seriously hinder seed production (22). Usually less than half of the seeds are sound (2,3), but 50 to 75 percent of these will germinate. The hickory shuckworm (Laspeyresia caryana) can seriously reduce germination. Pignut seed, averaging 440/kg (200/lb), is lighter than the seed of other hickory species. The nuts are disseminated mainly by gravity, but the range of seeding is extended by squirrels and chipmunks.
Read more about this topic: Carya Glabra, Life History
Famous quotes containing the words seed and/or production:
“I care not by what measure you end the war. If you allow one single germ, one single seed of slavery to remain in the soil of America, whatever may be your object, depend upon it, as true as effect follows cause, that germ will spring up, that noxious weed will thrive, and again stifle the growth, wither the leaves, blast the flowers, and poison the fair fruits of freedom. Slavery and freedom cannot exist together.”
—Ernestine L. Rose (1810–1892)
“The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)