AGRICULTURE: WALNUT HARVEST EXPECTED TO BE DOWN

The Larry Gibbons family has made gathering walnuts a profitable family tradition, but the profit margin may be slimmer this year.

Walnut production is a bit of a mystery. Some trees bear a few nuts every year with a major flush of nuts every third or fourth year. Others bear only every second or third year.

This is apparently one of the years of few nuts.

Thousands of harvesters are already on the walnut scene this year, such as the Gibbons family, which over the past four years has used the proceeds to help buy a Go Kart and a golf cart.

"We generally make a picnic of it," said Sandy Gibbons. "We pack a lunch, and have a fun time."

Going along for the fun are Larry and Sandy Gibbons and their daughters -- Christine, 14, Valerie, 11, and Danielle, 7. The daughters became interested in picking walnuts three years ago, when they wanted some extra money.

"I picked up walnuts when I was a young girl," said Mrs. Gibbons, a nurse at St. Vincent's School and Southeast Missouri Hospital Home Health. "My parents used to take me walnut hunting."

Larry Gibbons, a drywall painter, is the official walnut-tree shaker for the family.

Harvesting nuts is not like picking apples. You don't pick nuts from the trees because that would cause too much damage to bearing branches. Instead, you climb the tree and shake the branches up and down. The shaking usually dislodges a heavy rain of nuts.

Lighter year

But the harvest is turning out to be a lot less than last year.

"Last year we bought more than 200,000 pounds of black walnuts," said Michele Shabbing of near Gordonville, Mo. "And we're not a big dealer."

Steve and Michele Shabbing are buyers of black walnuts for Hammons Products Co. of Stockton, Mo. The company is expected to purchase about 10 to 15 million pounds of hulled walnuts this fall.

That is down from 1999, when the company bought about 49 million pounds of walnuts.

The Shabbings purchase walnuts each day after 4 p.m. and on weekends.

Brian Hammons, president of Hammons Co., said the 2000 crop was uncertain because of a dry spring and the large crop last year.

"We anticipate this year's harvest to be smaller than last year's," he said.

Hammons has more than 250 hulling stations, which started buying walnuts Oct. 1. The stations will continue buying through Nov. 10, paying about $10 per hundred pounds of hulled walnuts."

People picking up walnuts take their bags, buckets or truckloads to any hulling station -- there are many in Southeast Missouri. There the outer hull is removed and harvesters will be paid for the hulled "in-shell" weight.

Gerald Pingel, who buys walnuts every day at a walnut huller buying station he runs southeast of Longtown, on Highway 61, doesn't expect the volume he had last year.

"This may be the off year for most trees," said Pingel. "I haven't noticed that many trees with a lot of walnuts on them."

Big business

The nut business is a billion-dollar industry in the United States, and a chunk of that goes to Missouri, Southeast Missouri in particular.

Nut production may be down as much as 25 to 30 percent this year, but the United States Department of Agriculture statistics still reveal a billion-dollar economic boost to the nation's economy.

Walnut are used in everything from edibles to cosmetics. The shells are used to produce an abrasive for polish, a filler for dynamite, for use in soaps, dental cleansers and in the manufacture of paper bags and boxes. The shell is used as lost-circulation material in the oil wall drilling industry.