Got walnuts?

   / Got walnuts?
  • Thread Starter
#71  
Thanks Mossroad....but the closest place I can find to me is so far away it would cost me at least half my earnings in fuel even if I loaded my 2500 pound capacity utility trailer to the limit...appreciate your information though.
 
   / Got walnuts? #72  
Sorry to hear that. There are at least a dozen places near me that collect for them. I think there was an article in our local paper about them a couple years ago. Seems if you have one or two trees its hardly worth it, but if you have a couple truck loads and an easy way to gather them you can make some quick cash for little input.

Driving around in the country with my wife we noticed the roads just plain stained by all the walnuts this year. Seems to be a bumper crop. Wonder if it will drive the price down.
 
   / Got walnuts? #73  
From the Hammonds website: "In order to encourage local harvesters to pick them up, the starting price has been set at an all-time high level -- $13.00 per hundred pounds (after hulling) across the entire buying region."

Hmmmmm..... I have a bunch of walnut trees. Conservative estimate time: If I can pick up 15 per minute, that's 900 per hour. If it takes 2000 walnuts to get 100 lbs hulled, then in one hour that 900 count is ~45 pounds. If they pay $13 for 100 lbs, you'd only be making $6/hr, without any overhead or transportation costs. dangit.... nevermind.

Depends what % of the walnut weight is in the husk, I guess. If it's half (the assumption I used) then that's no good. If it's only 20%, things look a lot better.
 
   / Got walnuts?
  • Thread Starter
#74  
From the Hammonds website: "In order to encourage local harvesters to pick them up, the starting price has been set at an all-time high level -- $13.00 per hundred pounds (after hulling) across the entire buying region."

Hmmmmm..... I have a bunch of walnut trees. Conservative estimate time: If I can pick up 15 per minute, that's 900 per hour. If it takes 2000 walnuts to get 100 lbs hulled, then in one hour that 900 count is ~45 pounds. If they pay $13 for 100 lbs, you'd only be making $6/hr, without any overhead or transportation costs. dangit.... nevermind.

Depends what % of the walnut weight is in the husk, I guess. If it's half (the assumption I used) then that's no good. If it's only 20%, things look a lot better.

$13 per hundred pounds after hulling....WOW....anybody priced a pound of black walnuts at the store recently? No doubt the middlemen are the ones REALLY making the profit on black walnuts. Why am I not surprised?
 
   / Got walnuts? #75  
Hmmmmm..... I have a bunch of walnut trees. Conservative estimate time: If I can pick up 15 per minute, that's 900 per hour. If it takes 2000 walnuts to get 100 lbs hulled, then in one hour that 900 count is ~45 pounds. If they pay $13 for 100 lbs, you'd only be making $6/hr, without any overhead or transportation costs. dangit.... nevermind.
If you have a rock bucket (such as: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...833-ideas-rock-picker-lg_skel_rock_bucket.jpg) and a side delivery rake, you could pick them up much faster.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you have a lawn sweeper, that could get them as well.
Depends what % of the walnut weight is in the husk, I guess. If it's half (the assumption I used) then that's no good. If it's only 20%, things look a lot better.
The ones my parents had were probably 50/50 when the hulls were green.


Aaron Z
 
   / Got walnuts? #76  
From the Hammonds website: "In order to encourage local harvesters to pick them up, the starting price has been set at an all-time high level -- $13.00 per hundred pounds (after hulling) across the entire buying region."

Hmmmmm..... I have a bunch of walnut trees. Conservative estimate time: If I can pick up 15 per minute, that's 900 per hour. If it takes 2000 walnuts to get 100 lbs hulled, then in one hour that 900 count is ~45 pounds. If they pay $13 for 100 lbs, you'd only be making $6/hr, without any overhead or transportation costs. dangit.... nevermind.

Depends what % of the walnut weight is in the husk, I guess. If it's half (the assumption I used) then that's no good. If it's only 20%, things look a lot better.

Uh, when we pick walnuts we grab two at a time in each hand. Probably close to 120 per minute. That's 7200 per hour. Let's say 7000. That's 350 pounds hulled. That's 45.50 per hour. Take your wife and two kids. That's 180.00 per hour. Two 6 hour days could reap you two grand. :thumbsup:
 
   / Got walnuts? #77  
A lady on our local email list advertised free walnuts.....

Just come and pick them out of the lawn. :D:D:D

Later,
Dan
 
   / Got walnuts? #78  
Uh, when we pick walnuts we grab two at a time in each hand. Probably close to 120 per minute. That's 7200 per hour. Let's say 7000. That's 350 pounds hulled. That's 45.50 per hour. Take your wife and two kids. That's 180.00 per hour. Two 6 hour days could reap you two grand. :thumbsup:

Ok, so I could probably pick them up a bit faster (my trees are in the woods though, not in a lawn), but $2000 worth of walnuts is 30,000 lbs with hulls. I wouldn't be able to take more than 4000 lbs at a time with the truck and trailer I have, which is only $260 worth. Still not bad for a days work, but, whole different scale.

Too bad my closest hulling station is nearly 2 hours away, per the hammonds website location tool.
 
   / Got walnuts?
  • Thread Starter
#79  
I think it was last year that I related in another thread about black walnuts (which I started) about the time I put several old 5-gallon pails of the nuts by the roadfront with a sign marked "FREE" and somebody stopped to dump the nuts out and took the pails....:laughing: it's so funny whenever I recall that even now...:laughing:
 
   / Got walnuts? #80  
I subscribed to forestry news letter and this morning he had a couple of good articles about Black Walnuts. What the tree likes, dislikes, and general information. He also had a second article about harvesting the nuts which had quite a bit of good information including when to harvest, how to husk and what to use to get out the meat.

Harvesting a Black Walnut Crop for Seeds and Nuts

Later,
Dan
 
 
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