Bugs & the Shagbark Hickory nut on a Regenerative Farm

Bugs & the Shagbark Hickory Nut on a Regenerative Farm

The delicious, one-of-a-kind Shagbark Hickory nut is worth the hunt through the woods. But let’s talk about the ugly side of this wild edible nut harvested on a regenerative farm.

If you’re here, reading this article, then you’re probably familiar with regenerative farming practices. On our farm, we work hard to ensure our practices are strictly regenerative. It’s not always possible, and that’s okay – read here about our first two years of working towards 100% regenerative farming successes and failures.

Hickory Nut Weevil Infestation on Our Regenerative Farm

However, our farming practices applied to the food forest is already 100% regenerative – we’re just adding to it. In that light, harvesting from a land that is self-reliant means there will be follies.

After harvesting the nuts after they fall to the ground, we inspect for possible signs of weevil infestation, hull the nuts, float to sort out the bad nuts, reinspect, and then cross our fingers.

It’s a downfall to solely natural practices; there will always be a bug hiding somewhere that we can’t find even through our thorough sorting methods. It’s an ugly thing to see a white larvae grub wriggling around in a crushed hickory nut after tedious sorting.

It’s not a well-researched concept either – how to know a nut inside of a shell has larvae inside – so I’ve gone about testing some theories I’ve found. To cut to the chase, it’s about preventative measures – as there’s no 100% guaranteed method of sorting out 100% of the bad nuts on a regenerative farm.

The only method that truly does sort out the bad nuts, whether the meat is underdeveloped or if there is a Hickory Nut Weevil larva inside, is to float the nuts in water. If they sink, they’re mostly good. If they float, they’re definitely bad.

Methods to sort the infested nuts from the good Hickory Nuts

That leaves a small margin of possible bad nuts left in our “good nuts” sorting. Some advice I’ve found and tested to sort these bad guys out:

• Look for a hole: great idea – but it means that the larvae has already burrowed out of the nut and into the ground to continue developing

• Look for discoloration: difficult to assess - what’s the definition of discoloration or is it slightly different browns or is it large spots or small? Too many nuisances to consider!

  • Tested it; mediocre results. Lot’s of good nut meats inside these discolored nut shells.

• Look for a “cigarette burn” brown spot: great idea – however, after testing, it didn’t appear to hold true.

  • Lot’s of great nuts had these types of spots on the shell.

• Place the nuts that sank into a refrigerator for 48 hours, the larvae crawl out of the infected nuts.

  • Wish it worked, it didn’t - I tried both refridgetaor and freezer and room temperature

So what’s a regenerative farmer to do? Wait it out - Let the nuts dry in the shells and wait for the infested ones to make themselves known OR crack and sell the nut meat so that I can screen each one. Let’s look at some preventative ideas first to stop the Weevil cycle from affecting future harvests.

Preventative measures to reduce Hickory Nut weevil infestation

I could spray insecticide throughout the soil but that’s not regenerative. I could dust Diatomaceous Earth (DE) around the trees and the branches I can reach. But I’d kill a lot of wonderful and productive insects in the process. So, time to pivot and look at other options.

A few interesting and regenerative ideas I’ve found to prevent these infestations:

• The first technique I will be researching and possibly applying to reduce the weevil larvae infestation is the application of nematodes, specifically Steinernema carpocapsae Nematodes

  • Read more about what I’ve found about the goods and bads of this natural technique [coming soon]

• The second technique will be encouraging some natural predators to the area, specifically birds

  • Read about how this technique will work [coming soon]

• The third technique will be adding rotational grazing with either chickens, turkeys, and/or ducks.

  • Read more about how the food forest rotational grazing with poultry will work

    [coming soon]

How to Hull and Shell a Shagbark Hickory Nut

How to Hull and Shell a Shagbark Hickory Nut

To hull a Shagbark Hickory Nut is all in the wrist – grab a hammer, any size you like and a flat hard surface. Oh, get the Shagbark Hickory nut too. Hit the center of the hull – the nut should come out easily. That’s it guys, that’s it. This article is over.

Hulling a Hickory Nut is easy - shelling is not

Just kidding – hulling the nut is easy but shelling it is a whole ‘nother story. We’ve tried several ways to crack open our hickory nuts. Our goal is to keep as much nut meat intact as possible. We’ve tried hammering it 1/3 below the old stem – it did okay. Lot’s of intact nut meat, but it mostly exploded the shells with fragments of nut meat inside, leaving lot’s left to manually pick out. Plus, safety glasses are needed.

We’ve tried the vice grip – works great, but again, lot’s of nut meat fragments left. On a small, family scale, having to spend time to pick the meat out is reasonable. On a scale for profit, it’s not reasonable. Also, those eyes, going to need some safety glasses.

One tactic we’ve tried, if you don’t mind picking the meat out, is covering the nut with a towel, and hitting it with a hammer. Of course, lot’s of nut meat is fragmented but it’s all in one spot, making a family friendly pastime a little easier (and maybe safer for the eyes).

Other methods of shelling a Hickory Nut

What’s left for us to try?

• Soak and crush

• Custom hickory nut crusher made out of stone

  The options are slim but to sell hickory nuts profitable, an efficient way must be developed!

Until then, I will pick the delicious nut meat out of the shell fragments. I don’t mind; it’s as worthwhile as picking crab meat out of the smallest part of the crab leg.

How to Efficiently Harvest Shagbark Hickory Nuts in the Woods

How to Efficiently Harvest Shagbark Hickory Nuts in the Woods

The day I discovered our own little patch of established Food forest on our property is the day I learned everything I could about how to harvest the Shagbark Hickory nut.

Here is everything I’ve learned and what I personally do when harvesting Shagbark Hickory nuts as efficiently as possible -

Firstly, our Hickory grove is younger and is mostly located on an incline which makes clearing out the inedible weeds more of a chore than normal. It also makes for an interesting harvest. I can’t use tool for nut gathering easily on the uneven terrain especially when the multi-floral rose takes over in late summer [one day, I’ll rotate some goats through there to knock them back permanently].

So how to harvest the small green-brown nut when leaf litter and dead organic material litter the floor?

Before the nuts fall, I mark main “hot spots”, where the previous years nut hulls lay on the ground. Sometimes it’s right near the trunk and in small low spots that are scattered on the hillside. For other trees, the hulls lay perfectly underneath the branches with no movements. To make efficient time while harvesting, these “hot spots” are marked with a flag – so on days that I don’t have a lot of time to gather and harvest, I can quickly find these spots and gather what’s there already.

About two or three times a week, I take the time to fully search around each Hickory Tree to find any nuts that I’ve missed. This has been the easiest way to harvest these trees in an unmaintained and uncultivated forest setting.

Turning the Food Forest Hickory Grove into a Regenerative Practice -

In the coming years, this grove will become a cultivated part on our farm – from clearing out the underbrush to clearing canopy space for young hickory trees to compete – each harvest year will become easier and more efficient.

If your harvesting in areas that are clear or flat – look into purchasing nut gathering tools to save pressure on your back. I’m looking forward to when these tools can be used on our farm!

Read more about Shagbark Hickory Nuts in the Food Forest and check out the article, Discovering and Developing the Food Forest.

Hickory Nuts in the food forest: A Regenerative Farm Bumper Crop Opportunity

Hickory Nuts in the food forest: A Regenerative Farm Bumper Crop Opportunity

This is the first year I fully get to dive into discovering what exactly lays hidden on our farmstead. There are wooded fence lines and ravines scattered about – that have been totally unexplored by us, until today.

We’ve been zeroed-in on the farm operations - built fences, repaired fences, cleared fences, and developed water lines for the South Poll Cattle herd and Hair Sheep flock this year. This has left little time to explore. Now that fall is here and that all of the fencing and water lines are nearly finished, it’s time to find what our farmstead has to offer.

After reading the book Farming in the Woods by Ken Mudge and Steve Gabriel, I truly couldn’t wait to see what our own “food forest” was already providing. So, a walk through these unexplored areas yielded a great result – tons of Shagbark Hickory and Black Walnut trees everywhere.

This first year, we’ve have spent hours foraging for the hickory nuts scattered around. It’s been a fun fall treat to do with the family. We’ve hulled and sorted all the Shagbark Hickory nuts; they are stored and ready for our customers to purchase.

Of course, I’ve kept a lot back for our family – this is the best tasting nut I’ve ever eaten. It’s a maple-rum like flavor that has outdone the taste of pure maple syrup.

The Beginner’s simplified guide: Discovering and developing a Food Forest

Discovering and developing a Food Forest

The Beginner’s simplified guide

This year, we’ve had the opportunity to discover our property from end to end and everything in between. The most exciting discovery this year was the 100 + edible nut trees strewn through the woods.

Checkin’ out the Canopy to Define Which Term to Use: Forest and Woodlands

Let’s talk about the word “woods” often used in the English language to describe everything from patches of trees to sprawling thousand acres of trees – according to my new favorite book, Farming the Woods by Ken Mudge and Steve Gabriel, naming the type of “woods” is dependent on the canopy. If the canopy of the woods is nearly 100% covered by the tree canopy with few openings, the “woods” is defined as a forest. A majority of the canopy being covered by trees but still has open spots of sunlight coming through is considered woodlands.

The Farmstead’s Forest was Full of Black Walnuts and Shagbark Hickory Trees

On our property there are several acres of forest and several acres of woodlands – I’m excited to develop both of these areas into both forest farming and forest gardening. Forest farming will come naturally as the mostly young Black Walnut and Shagbark Hickory trees are dropping their nuts to the ground. The few mature trees around (this property was selectively logged long before us, about 25 years ago) have a huge bounty that I’m waiting patiently to fall to the ground to harvest.

The discovery of these edible nut trees is exciting for both farmsteading purposes and also in our farm business operations. The discovery has led to a host of learning experiences for every age in the family and the discovery has led to a new low-input and low-overhead bumper crop that we can count on every Fall (as much as one can depend on Mother nature).

I want to leave you with this article, as I want to spread the excitement of discovering your own food forest (or woodlands).

The Steps to Discover Your Own Food Forest

• Take walks along animal paths

• Photograph each different tree – Take photos of bark, leaves, leaf structure, limb structure and ground litter

• Check the ground for litter – old leaves, old nut shells, companion plants growing

• Go to Google or your favorite search engine and find a starting place – start with your specific country/state/providence/etc and type in something like, “natural forests in XYZ area”

• Narrow down your searches after you’ve gathered what type of trees grow naturally in your area – one might try “MYstate DNR tree ID” or “what does thistreeleaf look like”

• Document what trees match your photos

• Go back out on your walk, mark the trees to be used in your own food forest with impermanent means (flags, stakes, paint) so that you can practice finding them easily

• On this walk, be sure to count the trees and guesstimate their ages to determine if or when they may start producing foods

Now that I’ve walked through the above process, I have moved to the next step which is planning on how to develop this food forest and woodland areas best.

Development Plans for Forest and Woodland Cultivation

Fall 2020

Young Honey Locust trees (the trees with crazy thorns bunched together on the truck and limbs), were competing in the canopy with young Black Walnut trees. The Honey Locust trees will be Coppiced or a variation of that.

Young saplings are competing with sunlight amongst multi-floral rose bushes and other non-edible weeds such as Poison Ivy and the Virginia Creeper Vine. These non-edibles will be removed and piled into hügelkultur mounds in the woodland areas.

All non-edible weeds will be removed from the creek bank and will be marked for Sedge and Rush seedings for a light Riparian buffer.

Hügelkultur mounds will be initiated with all dead brush that is cleared out.

Winter 2020

Continuation of Fall 2020 projects

Spring 2021

Mark with flags all young Black Walnut and Shagbark Hickory saplings

Finish hügelkultur mounds and begin planting edible bush plants

Seed Sedges and Rushes along the creek bank for a Riparian buffer

Plant several edible producing bushes and trees in selected spots

The Farmstead’s Plans to Intergrate the Food Forest into Business Operations

All in all, exploring and discovering our own food forest had a wonderful outcome – existing trees ready to have their produce harvested was an added bonus to our business operations and our own personal table. The planning and developing to further our food forest and woodlands will be one of the lowest overhead costs to produce bumper crops. Black Walnuts and Shagbark Hickory will pair wonderfully with the additional selected bushes and trees we will be planting in the Spring of 2021. I’m excited.

Please reach out to us if you’d like some help with your own food forest discovery and development!