Just finnished up our walnut harvest

Got the semi loaded and sent on his way to Missouri with our 15,000 lbs of hulled walnuts. We are buyers for the Hammons company and this was out first year. This year was the off year for walnuts in our area so it gave us an idea of what we could expect and what we needed to do to streamline the operation. Learned a lot, met a lot of great people who brought us walnuts. Looking forward to next year and a motherlode of nuts!

I've got a few dozen walnut trees in the yard, but nearest buyer is Rochester I believe, long haul.

Do they take soft hull and all, or just the hard nut?

Paul

I have several walnut trees. Would like to
know more about the harvesting and hulling
(or processing) walnuts. Thanks

Sure wish someone would pay me for them. Scattered all over this farm and most places they are a real nuisance. But then I guess I have more to do than pick up walnuts..

Years before his passing, a neighbor was a walnut buyer and shipped about 6 semi loads per year, probably all hand picked up from the ground. Now I have several acres of walnuts planted in several groves grouped by age. The oldest have just completed their 24th growing season, with several now producing small crops of nuts.

My question to you is- Have any of your customers developed any kind of powered or mechanical collecting methods? I'm very interested in seeing your reply.

Pay heck I tried to give a bunch of them away for free and had no takers. I had several cattle protein tubs full of them. One guy wanted them delivered to him and he lived 30 miles away from me. Everyone else said they would come pick them up but ended up being a no show. I was giving away walnuts and the tubs both for free. They were in the way so I just dumped them in a ditch finally.

A local fellow around Wooster Ohio buys them for .13 lb. You pick them up and bring them to him they run them thru something to take the outer hide off and then weight them.
I have seen a tool that is a wire cage looking thing on a handle you roll it along and they go into the cage then you empty it and go again.

Here is our story. I bought this place in Aroma, In Hamilton County 3 years ago. Place has 14 walnut trees. Last year, I decided to look up who was buying them and found a guy in Kokomo who was buying for Hammons. We hauled in several pickup loads picked by hand. We then looked up picking devices and found a couple kinds. One called Baganut is like a lawnmower with a big spiked wheel that grabs the nuts and dumps them into a basket. Works great, but pretty expensive at about $299. We also found the football shaped basket things called Holts Nut Wizard. Those also work great. I can fill a 5 gallon bucket up in about 1 minute. They are much cheaper than the baganuts. A 5 gallon bucket with average size walnuts brings about .91 cents so I figure $60 an hour isn't a bad wage! Pickup truck loads vary in size, but a 2000s Chevy extended cab can haul about $120 worth with side boards. Hammons brought us out a hulling machine that takes the outer hull off and has bagging chutes. We weigh them on a certified pallet scale. We paid .13 cents a lb this year. Folks closer to Stockton MO where the company is make a little more due to shipping costs.

Now, guys who have walnut tree groves they planted for the wood investment can make enough to pay the property taxes and then some every year selling the nuts! W have several groves close to us, but those guys didn't show up as they got tied up with corn and bean harvest. This is where a Church group or Scout troops can really make some money! The cash can be deducted from taxes if a non profit group sells them to us. Last year we picked up nuts from our 14 trees and from neighbors who hate to mow over them and we made over $700, mostly picked up by hand as we got the picking tools late in the season. One load I hauled in my 1971 Chevy Custom Camper 3/4 ton truck went across the scale at a local feed mill with 2.5 tons of nuts in the bed! Guys eyes got real big when he read the scale! Ol truck handled it fine but drove like a dump truck. That was when we decided to look into getting a hulling machine saving the 30 mile one way trips. We just have a ton of walnut trees in this area! They are everywhere! We are really looking forward to next season!

Last year while at the hulling station we talked to a guy who had around 100 acres of walnut trees planted. We was working on something to hook to the front of his tractor to pick them up with, but we haven't heard any more about it. He was near Peru, In I think. Baganut makes a deal to hook to a lawnmower, but that might be pretty expensive. What ever you do, arrainge it to go on the front so the tractor wheels don't push your profits into the ground. Also remember you can overwhelm some of the hullers if you haul in semi loads or even dump truck loads. Best to call the local guy and find out if he can handle that many at once. We are working on our set up to be able to do it but we may have to get a loader tractor and have the semi dump them on the ground. Also the device needs to pick them up as clean as possible, with few leaf stems and sticks as possible. Those can clog the huller just about like green stem soybeans clog a combine. Make a big mess in the machine.

The company only wants the hard nut, We have a machine to remove the hull and I use an old Model H JD Ground driven spreader to scatter them around the yard.

Are you talking about English or Black? I have a grove of black Walnut that go to waste every year. How do I find a market?

Black walnuts. Here is the link to find buyers in your area. Bad news is they are done buying for the season, but there is always next year to get ready for!
Hammons hulling locations

My friend has about half dozen walnut trees and one is near his driveway and he keeps a couple of 5 gallon buckets and fills them to keep the place cleaned up and he dumps them in a larger barrel. I go down there and he tells me there is a place about 15 miles away that pays 14 cents per lb for them. I started picking up walnuts at my daughters house about a mile away and we combined out haul and took them to the huller. We thought there was about 800 lbs so 800x.14=$112. Then we wised up at the operation and after hulling we got about $42.
It was still an enjoyable experience.