Millwood Thornless Honeylocust Seeds

currently unavailable No Thorns, Good Pod Production,, Sweet Pods Higher in Sugar

Inermis is one of the sub species that was used in the breeding for pod production for livestock use. Millwood falls into this category but it can also show thorns if not grown with other thornless types.  There is also quite the variation on the level of sugar found with the pods. With that in mind, several customers and colleagues of mine sent me pods of some of their best selections. I remember getting them in the mail and was surprised at how fragrant and beautiful the pods where when I tore open the box. Completely unexpected compared to the wild collection I was doing near the Kalamazoo River. 

Thirty years ago, I planted different groups of seedlings of seedlings of the Millwood variety and others trying to figure out if the pods could be produced in a more northern location. Millwood is the most southern form of thornless honeylocust.  As of 2020 only one tree has produced however flowering is now starting to pick up on the other seedlings so likely there will be more of a crop to look at. I also made plantings of other species of honeylocust at my farm and surprisingly they take long too! But in the last few years, I can see the flowering and likely I will have more of a crop report to share with others soon. When I first heard of honeylocust, I thought of the wood quality as wekk as the durability of the plant itself as it is the number one urban tree for many years. It is insane how much it is used and at the same time, how good it works in the most toxic environments. That is something to take notice in a tree crop. 

Honeylocust can be grown as a companion tree with walnut, oak, persimmon and pawpaw. It casts little shade so the suppression of grass or flowering trees like our plums, produces almost no effect on fruit quantity. (Maybe less that 10% on forage plants.) Honeylocust does fix nitrogen and will produce nodules under the right circumstances. I have seen it at my farm several times. The trees are super fast growing reaching 8 ft. in two years. Another reason they were so often produced by the nursery industry. Honeylocust also provides rot resistant lumber, nitrogen fixing roots and high nitrogen foliage which can be cut and used as fertilizer in multi-species permaculture and agroforestry plantings. This  honey plant along with the pods can be used for food for livestock and human use. What an untapped resource!! More research needs to be done on its application as animal feed just like alfalfa. It could be possible the gum also has use for human consumption and more needs to be done to evaluate that fragrant delicious smell that comes from those pods. The sweet gum if taste tested even to a small amount causes a raspy type throat experience and this is of concern if someone decided to make a milk shake out of it. So for now, do not consume. 

The seeds of this selection are pollinated within the population which surrounds them or is totally self pollinated. It is possible some thorniness will show up in the progeny. I cannot guess if it will be all or none. I have had several non-thorny seed sources and seedlings grown from other nurseries and seed companies that produced a lot of thorny plants somethimes and none other times. It seems hard to predict. I think some of it might be related to the pollen sources in the surrounding area. The Hershey honeylocusts I grew had some thorns too but not very many of the population. But it takes 2-3 years of growing to see the little tiny thorns showing up on the seedlings. For others the thorns are not a problem and they are pruned off the trunk as it matures using lopers and a steady hand. I have tried this and it appears so far they do not resprout.