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]