Nyirségi

'Nyírségi' is a Hungarian forestry cultivar named for the Nyírség sand region of north-east Hungary, and it exists because Hungary decided to breed black locust for lumber rather than firewood. It came out of the plus-tree selection programme launched at the Hungarian Forest Research Institute in the 1960s under Béla Keresztesi, which screened superior individual trees out of stands across the country; like its siblings from that first breeding period, 'Nyírségi' is not a single clone but a clonal mixture of several superior selections, and cultivars from that programme have averaged roughly 12-15 percent better stem quality than unimproved stock on semi-marginal sites. Hungarian reviewers group it with the cultivars showing shipmast-type character, meaning strong apical dominance and a long clean bole instead of the forked, crooked trunk typical of wild black locust. It ranks among the best of the Hungarian cultivars for timber volume at felling age and is one of the small handful, alongside 'Appalachia', 'Kiskunsági', 'Jászkiséri' and 'Üllői', still recognised and commercially available as of 2021. For permaculture growers it is the black locust to plant when you want fence posts, beams and milled boards rather than coppice fodder.