Painted Trees

Whitewash

Nancy and I recently returned for a visit to Romania. The purpose of the trip was to check-in with friends from our Peace Corps days and to check up on the Walnut Tree project.

Everyone we touched base with all seemed to be in good health and high spirits. There were new babies to admire and more on the way. While the economy in Romania is shaky, so far our friends have survived and at least are holding their own, if not prospering.

The Walnut project does seem to be prospering. This is a program that I came up with while volunteering with the Organic Farmer’s Association of Romania and it involves connecting investors to land owners and farmers of Transylvania to plant, tend and harvest ‘English’ walnuts. Walnut trees are native to the region and the temperate climate favors their growth. At one time Romania was 2nd in the world in walnut production but it’s been over 50 years since there have been active nut tree orchards.

Last year the investors purchased trees and the landowners signed contracts for 25 hectares (approx. 52 acres). The grafted plants were set last spring and survival rate appears to be over 95%. This year an additional 25 hectares was added to the contracts. There are now 7 separate landowners farming sites ranging from 21.3 hectares for the largest to a single hectare for the smallest. All of the plantings are close to small villages in four separate counties. It was exciting to see the progress of the trees and feel the excitement of the new landowners in the program.

It will be another 4 years at the earliest that we’ll have a worthwhile harvest but one of the farmers proudly announced that he had a handful of walnuts last fall from his very young trees.

The largest of the holdings belong to the Utilitarian Church of the village of Magyarsoros (Romanian name of the town is Delenii). As we began our tour of the site, I was told by the church council president that not all of the trees had been whitewashed yet. Surprised, I laughed and said, “You don’t need to whitewash them.”

In Romania and in other former communist countries trees are painted white from the ground to about a meter and a half. I have been told three different reasons for this. Reason one is that the whitewash keeps the bugs out – as if there were bugs that only climbed or flew a meter and a half from the ground. And I inquire to this reason, “Why do you whitewash the telephone stanchions? They are cement.”

Reason two says that the paint is for decorative purposes. It does make the trees stand out and are less likely to be damaged in the hay making. That also explains about the telephone stanchions. However applying whitewash to over 2,200 trees for decorative purposes seems like a lot of work.

A third reason I’ve been told is that “Not sure why we do it, but we’ve always done it.” I hold with the inertia of tradition. But when asked my opinion I point to the trees in the forests and say, “No body whitewashes those trees and they seem to be growing pretty well.”

Nancy has a fourth hypothesis of the whitewash tradition. She says that the Communists countries needed to put people to work, so some official made up this theory of whitewash to employ the proletariat. It was a make work project. In any case, I’ll attach a picture of a whitewashed grafted walnut tree. Note that not only was the tree whitewashed but the support post as well.