I have a couple walnut trees that will be dropping nuts soon. I want to get them to grow in a hedge row that I have that has lost many of its trees to the ash borer and also would like to get them going in my woodlot. I know they grow like weeds in areas that we don't really want them.

Does anyone know the best way to handle the seed? When the nuts drop do I need to get the outside husk off? Can I just bury it with the husk? Would it be better to burry them this fall or would it be better to wait till spring? I know they need to go though a winter hardening process, so I know not to keep them in a heated area. Has anyone here done this before?

Don't know if this will help you or not. Around here squirrels bury walnuts in the fall, without the husk on them. I regularly find sprouted nuts sending up shoots in the spring time. So from that I'd say, take husk off and bury them with about 2" of dirt over them and hope squirrels don't find them and eat them before they sprout.

If you take the husks off, freshly dropped walnuts will germinate well if immediately planted about 2 inches deep, in fairly wet areas, as long as they aren't dug up and consumed before Spring.

If you are planting them where you want the walnuts to grow, to protect them you can put wire cages over them. Leave the cage over the tree until it is well developed because rodents will eat the just sprouted shoots. Otherwise just plant a lot of extras. Sometimes you can just step on the walnuts and push them into the ground.

Anoher option is to plant the walnuts in a protected bed for the Winter and then dig them up in the Spring and place them where you want them to grow.

A third option is to buy some long, tree seedling pots and plant the walnuts in them after they drop. Bury the pots under leaves for the Winter with wire over the top. In the Spring remove the leaves. Let the seedlings grow until they go dormant in the Fall and then plant them where you want them.

Keith

Are you talking Black walnuts or English walnuts?
Both are good eating , but the English are easier to process.
I've only tried the English as the black seem to be everywhere.
They grow easily , I just left them in my truck over winter , and soaked them in water for two days before planting 6 of them.
All sprouted , but chipmunks or squirrels dug up 4 of them.
Put the last two in a cage trap to keep them safe.
It takes around 8 years before they produce.
I like the English better.
Ate a lot of the black as a kid though.

Good information , because if you leave them in pots they freeze out in the winter.
In ground they will grow.

Problem here is NOT getting them to grow. We have a renewable market crop here. My son can manage and harvest for yrs to come.

I plant them like a squirrel. husk and all. Kick a divot with my heel, drop the nut in, cover with duff and press down with my heel. been working for me. Some future squirrel hunter homesteader
will enjoy them I hope.

Can do what I did with Chestnuts, Google was my reference, although good suggestions posted above
Peel the husk off put the nut portion in a covered container of moist peat moss.
Put container in refrigerator for 3 months..( I went from late Oct to early Apr)
Remove from container and check for root sprouts.
If sprouted place the start in flower/tree pot, ( those black plastic ones) filled with peat moss.
When chance of last hard freeze is past move outside

Started with 50 nuts going into the reefer ended up with 45 starts put 5 in the yard, much to wife's dislike and still have a bunch in the plastic pot taking up room in the garden

This is what happened when I stuck an onion bag full of black walnuts (with husks on) into a small gravel pile about 35 years ago to get ready for spring planting. kind of forgot about them and now it's a grove of about 7 trees all stuck together. The mother tree that they were collected from was a timber variety notorious for having purple heartwood.

Two neighbors about a mile from me each have walnut groves they started with the nuts. One is about 1 acre in size. His are in a plantation format that look to be about 12 by 12 foot apart between rows and in the rows. He has very often pruned to get clean trunks with one canopy. I don't know how many he had to replant. He planted those about 30 years ago.
The neighbor across the road has started, black walnuts, shagbark hickory and butternut hickory from nuts as well as oaks from acorns. The black walnut patch is about 1-2 acres in curved rows following along a hillside. He started his trees in a smaller protected area and transplanted at two years. Black walnuts doing the best, hickorys doing ok and really struggling to keep the oaks from being browsed deer and bark eaters. He started his forest patches about 35 years ago. He also prunes the walnuts to grow straighter and with clean trunks and fewer knots etc. It has been a long time so I don't recall the early protection methods these two used. The walnuts are in the lower but not wet or saturated area of his patches. He has a cattail marsh I trap and 15 years ago some people plugged some tile lines and his cattail marsh double in size and took out a lot of the lower rows of trees.

Bryce

Bryce, it was always a thought of mine to plant out a plantation of black walnuts with a timber variety and after getting a 8-12 straight bole to graft on nut varieties on top so that you would have the best of two worlds workin for you.

Our friends that live in southern WI have a 30 acre piece in southwestern WI that they planted 15 acres to walnuts in the 1960s and early 70s. They are looking very good. They have thinned 3 times and pruned etc. They planted closer together to start with, but wound up having a lot better survival then they thought they would. The father in-law planted those as an estate for his then 11 children. Only two wanted to do the work so they own it now.

Bryce

Good luck Dana. You'll enjoy the progress.

I wish I could give you every black walnut on my place . Just a big weed to me !

This.

Thanks everyone, I think I will try to put a couple hundred in the ground this fall and maybe save some to put out in the spring to see if one way is superior to the other.

These are black walnuts but I really don't give a flip about the nuts. (I hate walnuts). I just want the trees to replace some of the ash and wet to get something other than hemlock started in our one woodlot that is almost clear hemlock.

I wouldn't want a walnut tree in my yard either.

Squirrels got in moms camper once. It sat under a walnut tree. They had it slammed full of walnuts. I went to take it deer hunting and it turned into an all day project cleaning it out. They had walnuts in every drawer and cupboard and cubby. Everything on the left side of the camper had the hull, and everything on the right of the camper was just the nut no hull. They store them both ways and keep them separate. I always thought that was interesting.

What a mess, oh my. They can stain too.

I suppose you folks are gathering black walnuts now

Clean the hulls off of them and clean them up good. Dust them heavy with a fungicide like Captan, or Banrot. Then store them in the bottom drawer of your refrigerator until Spring. If you put them in ziplock bags or something like that, then punch the bag full of holes so that the seeds can get some air. Dust them with fungicide again and plant them after everything thaws in the Spring.

I wouldn't use fungicides for this project.

[ The mother tree that they were collected from was a timber variety notorious for having purple heartwood.
[/quote]
In my experience all walnuts have purple heartwood when green, and dry's to the familiar rich brown color.