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Eastern Butternut...?

Started by DeerMeadowFarm, September 11, 2015, 11:35:56 AM

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DeerMeadowFarm

I have a tree that was identified as an Eastern Butternut. Are these good for anything? What is the fruit that is produced? Do deer eat it? Is it something that is desirable; not desirable?

Thanks for the input!

WV Sawmiller

   Its a type of walnut. I think is often called a white walnut. Has nuts rather than fruit. They are good to eat. Squirrels will carry them off if not careful. I hear it is a soft wood and carvers like it.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

beenthere

Gathered many a butternut when I was a kid. Much like a black walnut, but not the same.
Shuck them, dry them and crack them open in the wintertime to extract the meats.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

DeerMeadowFarm

Beenthere:

I found this on the internet:
"To process butternuts, simply gather them up from under the tree while wearing cotton gloves. Place small quantities in mesh bags (such as those onions are sold in) about 10 lbs per bag. Hang them up in a dry place (garage or barn, etc.) until the husks dry up. You need the husks on the nuts to crack them. Do not remove the husks!

After the husks are dry, take a nut and hold it between forefinger and thumb on one end of the nut on a large stone or anvil, and hit it with an ordinary hammer. A little practice will give you a feel for how hard to hit. Throw the whole cracked nut into a large pan where you can sort out the nut meats from the shells and husks after finished cracking a quantity of them."


Is that your experience on harvesting them?

Rich

beenthere

QuoteIs that your experience on harvesting them?

Roughly... no need for an onion bag.. just spread them out to dry. And the husk may be easier to strip off after drying.. different from walnuts where the green/black husk is removed and the nut in its shell washed a bit before drying.

I don't crack them with a hammer and dump all the pieces in a pile to then sort out the meats.
I use a vise and control the cracking, then use a side-nips to further break off any shell holding the nut meat.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

DeerMeadowFarm

Awesome. Thanks for the info; I guess I'll try it!

g_man

Up here in VT most of our butternuts are dying of some toxin or insect that I can't recall the name of. We don't have any but those that had them and are watching them die are sick over it. They are very highly valued trees. The nuts are enjoyed by people and wildlife alike and the lumber is beautiful.

Clark

It's a fungus that is killing the butternuts.

Clark
SAF Certified Forester

BAR

Ahhh! Butternuts, or Oilnut trees as they were known in my region of Central Maine.  I thought they all died in the late fifties or early sixties.

In my younger years we gathered the nuts when they fell, all green and sticky, and spread them on the attic floor to dry. I don't remember removing the husks after they dried, but when we used them, they were pretty much separated from the husks and the shells were very rough and pointy on the outside.

The meat is somewhat difficult to extract and using the anvil is an excellent idea for cracking the shell.  Another tip, learned from experience, is to place the stem end on the anvil and hit the pointy end with the hammer. (Remember, you are holding the shell between thumb and forefinger) A properly aligned (or lucky!) hit on the pointy end would result in a clean split along the shell  seams and expose the meat for easy extraction.  And, of course, the lobster picks were indispensable to extract the last of the meat.
Cracking oil nuts on an upended chunk of heater wood beside the warm Glenwood kitchen range on a cold January night in Anson Valley was not, in retrospect, a bad thing.....and neither was the homemade fudge that followed!
3340 Zetor with Allied Loader & Fransguard Winch, Woodmizer LT27T,

WDH

William Bartram, a botanist who traveled through the deep South in the mid-1700's and kept a detailed botanical journal, wrote that the native Americans would collect nuts in vast quantities, in this case mostly hickory nuts, crack them, then boil the cracked nuts for a long period to extract the fat and oil which rose to the top and was skimmed off.  He called it "hickory milk".  This was used in a number of food preparations.

His book, Bartram's Travels is a great insight to what the Southeastern US looked like at that time.  It looks nothing at all like that today.  Huge changes in the landscape by the hands of White Europeans. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

thecfarm

BAR,I still have one big one and 2-3 small ones growing on my land.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

CJennings

A subject near and dear to me: my favorite tree species. Personally I think butternuts are the best nuts there are. They are very sweet and oily and mildly flavored. They don't produce big crops every year in my experience but every third year instead. That could vary though. Watching the butternut canker kill them off is painful, but some are resistant to varying degrees (some never get the canker, some get it but heal over and continue living for decades with it). If it's reasonably healthy it's worth keeping a butternut tree around. The disease was first noticed widely in the 1960's but it probably came over in the early 1900's on imported Japanese walnut trees. To complicate things, many "butternut" trees are actually hybrids with the Japanese walnut and nearly indistinguishable from butternut. Then there are backcrosses of those hybrids out there n the wild. The Japanese walnut is more resistant to the canker so these hybrids may be useful in keeping butternut around in some form similar to what the American Chestnut Foundation is doing with chestnut.

There's some good info. on butternut canker here: http://www.uvm.edu/~dbergdah/butnut/butnut.html

BAR

Quote from: thecfarm on September 13, 2015, 09:11:03 AM
BAR,I still have one big one and 2-3 small ones growing on my land.
Glad to hear that Thecfarm, thanks for the info,  Perhaps someday the West wind will somehow  repopulate the valley!  I'm guessing you are about 25 or 30 miles away from the area I mentioned. 
3340 Zetor with Allied Loader & Fransguard Winch, Woodmizer LT27T,

thecfarm

BAR,just about that far. I noted the Anson Valley.
Not a Glenwood,but a Home Clarion.



 
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

DeerMeadowFarm

Here is the tree we are talking about. I didn't even know we had any but now that we've mowed this brush it appears that we have a bunch around the property. This one is the only one that seems to have produced any nuts though...?

 

beenthere

Any pics of the nuts at this stage? 

Do they "fall" to the ground ??   ;D
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

g_man

I love that stove Ray. I had one in the work shop attached to the barn 45 years ago. Wish I had kept it.

mesquite buckeye

Quote from: DeerMeadowFarm on September 13, 2015, 07:23:34 PM
Here is the tree we are talking about. I didn't even know we had any but now that we've mowed this brush it appears that we have a bunch around the property. This one is the only one that seems to have produced any nuts though...?

 

Man, that is some rough country.  ;D  How do those trees grow like that?
Do you just wait at the bottom of the cliff and wait for the nuts to fall off?

I am funny. ;D 8) 8) 8) :snowball:
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

DeerMeadowFarm

WTH? Why is my picture rotated 90 degrees? It looked correct when I posted it from my phone last night...?

jrose1970

I think you have some valuable trees. I'm planting walnuts, but there is an invasive that is going to eventually get walnuts. I'm not sure if it will get butternuts or not. Any experts that could weigh in?
I wanted to share how my mother, who passed away in May, cracked walnuts. :)  You sit down at a picnic table. Find two bricks with holes in them. Place the walnut on the hole on the bottom brick.  Hold the other brick in your right hand and come down on the walnut nested in the lower brick. That will do it. (Don't forget to say "Aaahhh" with a short "A" sound like a true southern lady. LOL   Daddy always said to remove the hulls, pour them in a gravel driveway for about a week.  I hope I wasn't too far off topic DearMeadowFarm.
HFE-36; International 424-37HP; McCullogh Pro 10-10

beenthere

Quote from: DeerMeadowFarm on September 14, 2015, 01:16:23 PM
WTH? Why is my picture rotated 90 degrees? It looked correct when I posted it from my phone last night...?

The phones and iPads seem to know what is up and what is sideways on pics, but the PC computer doesn't know.
The iphone file must have an imprint of some kind to tell another iphone how to orient the pic.
Maybe someday that imprint will be available for PC's to take into account. ... someday...
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

CJennings

Quote from: jrose1970 on September 14, 2015, 01:55:34 PM
I think you have some valuable trees. I'm planting walnuts, but there is an invasive that is going to eventually get walnuts. I'm not sure if it will get butternuts or not. Any experts that could weigh in?

The walnut twig beetle combined with a fungus are responsible for the thousand cankers disease. Both are native to the southwest but have found their way east, and the black walnut and butternut tree have little to no resistance. The beetle can't survive extreme cold so the northern fringes of the butternut range may be okay but that's not something I'm going to count on. Hopefully it spreads slow enough a solution is found before it's as bad as the EAB.

mesquite buckeye

Arizona walnut is resistant. Juglans major. Apparently it has been around here for a very long time.
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

jrose1970

That's good. I hope the cold gets it. The fire ant keeps invading the Cumberland Plateau, but it keeps getting set back. :) I think I'm going to plant some butternuts.
HFE-36; International 424-37HP; McCullogh Pro 10-10

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