Harvesting Walnuts - Need Expert Advice

Certainly understanding that you do not want someone to come in and clear cut, you may want to have a forest manager come in, like someone else mentioned, and take a look at your trees. You may be able to thin them to make the remaining trees worth more, or possibly just sell the most valuable ones, keeping the rest for nuts. Not do say you have to do anything but just knowing the possibilities can be helpful.

Timber is like any other crop, it eventually matures. As Matthew notes above, a forester (NOT a logger) could tell you if you have any mature trees that need to be taken out. I'm certainly not advocating a sale if one isn't needed, but I've seen good timber deteriorate significantly when not properly managed. Sorry for drift, I use a nutwizard to gather mine. Often, the sale price is low compared to the labor input. Sell your first load then decide if it's worth pursuing.

A vacuum pulled behind the mower with an operator-held wand will pick them right up. Black walnuts are tough! They will survive the impeller. The vac mounted to the mower deck won't work as good, since the suction is spread out rather than concentrated. Wear ear protection, it is noisy!

As far as cracking them, a friend in WV took a pieces of PVC, cut off the end at a 45-degree angle, and he jacks up his car just a little off the ground. Places the PVC cut side up close to rotating tire, drops seasoned walnut in it, the tire catches walnut and smashes it. He says he has also used his garden tactor in the same way. When a pile builds up, he gathers shells and all, puts them into a big box and shakes off the shells like a gold panner, picking out the meat. Not OSHA approved, for you chronic worriers out there, but he can do a lot of walnuts in just a little time.

Still took much work for me, for such little bit of reward. LOL.

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Jim Steele
Sweetpea Farms
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." -- Robert Gates