Harvesting black walnuts raises cash, in a nutshell
Posted on Saturday, October 28, 2006
MARSHALL — Money does grow on trees. Just ask Brian Hammons.
Since 1946, his family’s Stockton, Mo.-based firm, Hammons Products Co., has been buying black walnuts gathered in the wild by thousands of people throughout the Ozarks and across the Midwest.
Now the nation’s leading black-walnut merchant, Hammons Products in 2005 bought 36 million pounds of hulled nuts — with the outer husks removed — worth about $ 4. 5 million, he said.
“Last year was the fifth-largest crop we’ve seen in the 60 years that we’ve been buying nuts,” Hammons said.
About 2 million to 3 million pounds of the 2005 crop were purchased in Arkansas, he said.
Hammons began buying this year’s black walnuts on Oct. 2, paying $ 13 for 100 pounds of hulled nuts at more than 250 “hulling stations” in 16 states, including 20 locations across northern Arkansas.
“The harvest was a little earlier than normal this year because the nuts fell from the trees earlier,” Hammons said.
Clyde Eaton, 17, and his cousin, Nathan Eaton, 14, already have walnut-stained hands after handling thousands of pounds of nuts this month. The two teenagers, who operate a Hammons black-walnut hulling machine at EZ Discount Inc. on the outskirts of Marshall in Searcy County, help customers load nuts into the gasoline-powered hulling machine. Then they bag the hulled nuts, weigh them and stack the mesh bags, which hold about 50 pounds each, on pallets.
Nathan’s father, John Eaton, said EZ Discount is one of Hammons Products’ smaller hulling stations, buying about 75, 000 pounds of black walnuts each fall during harvest season, which usually lasts five weeks.
“One year our extended family gathered about 20, 000 pounds of nuts ourselves,” Eaton said, scouring lawns, pastures and fields “where God planted blackwalnut trees.”
Like many fruit and nut trees, the black walnut tends to produce nuts in an alternate bearing-cycle of big crops one year followed by small crops the next. Although 2006 should have been an “off-year,” the crop has been bountiful, Hammons said.
“We’re finding that southern Missouri and northern Arkansas have nearly a bumper crop of nuts,” and Hammons Products has been able to purchase enough nuts to operate its plant and meet customer orders during the coming year, Hammons said.
As a result, the company reduced its price Oct. 21 to $ 12 per hundredweight and, on Friday, to $ 10. Most hulling stations will continue buying black walnuts through Nov. 6, Hammons said.
Two major varieties of walnuts are grown in the United States.
The black walnut or Juglans nigra, also known as the eastern or American walnut, is native throughout the central and eastern United States, especially in the Appalachians and the Midwest. The English walnut or Juglans regia, which originated in Persia, is grown in commercial orchards, almost exclusively in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys of California.
Black walnuts are a relatively small niche crop compared with English walnuts, Hammons said.
Last year, for example, Hammons Products bought 36 million pounds of black walnuts, but nut meat accounted for only about 6. 5 percent of the weight, or about 2. 3 million pounds, Hammons said. The shell accounts for about 60 percent of the hulled nut’s weight, and moisture the balance, he said.
In contrast, California’s 2005 English-walnut harvest totaled about 710 million pounds, according to the U. S. Department of Agriculture. But nut meat represents about 45 percent of an English walnut’s weight or about 320 million pounds, Hammons said.
Black-walnut production also is small compared with pecans. Last year, the United States produced 280 million pounds of pecans — 2. 3 million pounds of them harvested in Arkansas — and pecan meat yield averages about 40 percent.
After the hulled black walnuts are delivered to Hammons Products in Stockton, Mo., about 50 miles northwest of Springfield, they are cleaned, dried and cracked. A series of machines then separates the shells from the nut meat, which is graded into various sizes for sale as a food ingredient.
About 45 percent of the nut meat goes to ice-cream manufacturers, “most of the rest goes into packages, either our brand or someone else’s brand, and is sold in grocery stores,” Hammons said.
Black-walnut packages clearly specify the nut type, but “English walnuts will just say ‘ walnuts, ’” he said.
“English walnuts are lighter colored, and they have a much milder flavor. The black walnut has a very rich and pungent flavor,” Hammons said.
Walnuts, which are low in saturated fats and high in polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, have been shown to reduce “bad” cholesterol, or LDL. A recent study also found that they may help reduce inflammation of arteries and growth of sticky deposits, called plaque, in blood vessels. Walnuts also are rich in calcium, iron, minerals and fiber.
Hammons Products grinds black-walnut shells into six sizes for use in a variety of industrial applications, including metal cleaning and polishing, and oilwell drilling.
In the future, improved blackwalnut varieties “that have shelling percentages from 25 [percent ] to 40 percent” offer real potential as a cash crop, said Dave Brauer, an agronomist at the Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center in Booneville.
These higher yielding nuts also could be combined with other crops in an “agroforestry” setting, such as hay production or cattle grazing, Brauer said.
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