Seed nuts from Gideon — Dottie (D-25)

The variety

Gideon came out of a 1972 planting in Carroll County, Ohio, where Greg Miller selected it — along with Amy and Peach — from seedlings his father had raised. It has become one of the six standard mothers Miller recommends to anyone establishing a seedling orchard.

The nuts are medium sized, twelve to eighteen grams, and unusually uniform and attractive. The tree is cold hardy, drought tolerant, and a consistent bearer.

What sold us on it is a single figure from a Tennessee trial. In 2011, the worst year that orchard recorded for both size and yield, one Gideon tree produced 7.45 kilograms of nuts — the heaviest crop of any tree in the study. The next best was a Colossal at just over half that. Gideon is never the biggest nut on the table and never the smallest, and in a hard season it is still standing there with a crop. That is worth a great deal on a working farm.

Dottie in 2026

[TO BE WRITTEN — 2026 Ellington observations: bur set in the hard 2026 season, first drop date, nut size, shell splitting, whether burs drop whole.]

The tree

[TO BE WRITTEN — the mother tree's own note: where it stands and anything particular about it.]