Hello! A few years ago someone gave me some McCallister Hicans, which I planted and now have a bunch of small seedlings. I have read (thru this forum and a few others) that hicans are not really worth growing. But could these be used as rootstock for hickory or pecan? Would pecan outgrow it? A quick google search resulted in something saying pecan grafted on hican would result in a dwarfed pecan tree. Thats pretty cool if it’s true!
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Generalizations are abundant but real information is difficult to come by when talking about hican seedlings. Pecan is arguably the fastest growing member of the Carya family. Any time it is crossed to another species, there will be a change in growth rate and other characteristics. Most of the time, the F1 cross will grow slower than pecan. You won’t be dealing with F1’s. Your trees are F2’s which means segregation will change the paradigm. Some of your seedlings may grow as fast or even faster than most pure pecan. Some may grow as slow as or slower than the hickory parent. The best I recall, McCallister is a cross between pecan and C. Lacinosa aka Shellbark hickory. I would expect that the fastest growing seedlings would make good pecan rootstocks. The slower growing seedlings should probably be put to a different use.
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Agree. Whether or not these F2 seedlings will be consistently vigorous is a genetic crapshoot.
Most of the hicans I’ve grafted and have growing (on Major pecan seedling understock) have been equally as vigorous as the seedling pecan they’re grafted onto.
Graft compatibility with pecan and hickory should not be an issue. As F_p suggested, the most vigorous seedlings would likely work best for pecan… less vigorous ones probably for hickories.
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A couple more points. The slower as the guys say are more likely carrying the hickory gene, but this happens with pecan runts also. It’s as they say a really mixed bag.
Here’s how I would use these. The vigorous with the pecan gene being dominant (let’s assume okay) I would use those for moist areas and graft pecan onto those (low lying areas). The less vigorous with the hickory gene dominant (let’s assume again) I would plant in upper areas where moisture is going to be less/much less. Graft hickory to these.
Pecan seedlings do not do well in droughts. What you’re trying to avoid is a rootstock with pecan traits being planted upland that may go thru drought followed by a difficult winter. It would be very easy to have your rootstock killed outright under these circumstances.
This is the best planting advice I can give. And you don’t need to follow it. It’s only a supposition of the possibility of variables involved.
Dax
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