posted 3 years ago
Interesting question! Walnuts definitely seem to be sensitive to certain allelopathic plants. Squirrels plant huge quantities of black walnuts around here, and they come up pretty much everywhere they can. Black walnut seedlings don't mind growing in the shade of most trees, but I almost never see them sprouting under oak, eucalyptus, pine, privet, cottonwood, or locust.
I'm not sure which allelopathic understory plants might affect walnut in a guild. Elderberry can be allelopathic, but walnuts and elderberry get along fine. I guess a competitive understory plant might get discouraged by the juglone before it has a chance to discourage the walnut. I'm not sure I've ever seen a black walnut above a certain size struggling to thrive, except when dying of old age -- they're pretty tough trees!