WALNUT HARVEST NOT CRACKING UP GROWERS

The company that processes most of the nation's Eastern black walnuts, the Hammons Products Co., is looking to buy a lot of walnuts this fall. But it appears the local area won't be much help.

Gerald Pingel, who runs a walnut huller for Hammons southeast of Longtown, expects the local area's yield supplied by people who gather the wild nuts to be light and the average nut to be smaller.

"I haven't noticed many trees with nuts on them. This may be the off year for most trees," said Pingel, a Hammons huller now for about seven years.

This past spring didn't have a late frost that would have killed the walnut tree blossoms, he said, so that's not a factor in why the yield is light this year.

"The spring weather was reasonable. (But) it's been fairly dry in most places this summer," explained Pingel.

Up in Fredericktown the story is different. Another Hammons huller, Charley Skaggs, says he figures there will be an average walnut crop this year, which translates into possibly 150,000 to 200,000 pounds of walnuts for him.

Skaggs said he is basing his projection on his own observations of walnut trees and discussions with people who gather the nuts. Skaggs has worked as a walnut buyer for Hammons for 25-30 years, he said. The most walnuts he bought in one season, Skaggs said, ran as high as 700,000 pounds.

Pingel said he'll start hulling walnuts Sept. 30 and continue until mid-November. The hulling is done at the truck body manufacturing company of Pingel Inc. on Highway 61.

Skaggs hulls at Paul Skaggs and Sons Food Store, at 400 North Main in Fredericktown, where he is a part-owner. He'll start hulling around the end of September or early October and continue until Hammons tells him to stop, he said.

The going rate for the hulled walnut, as it has been for the last 4 years now, is 8 cents a pound, said Pingel.

An official at Hammons, located at Stockton in southwest Missouri, said Saturday that field surveys have shown that southern Missouri and northern Arkansas would probably produce a "mediocre" Eastern black walnut crop this year.

The official, who declined to provide his name, said the company's black walnut crop came up short last year and, because of the shortage, Hammons had to quit processing the nuts.

"We quit processing in February I believe, but we have plenty for sale." In contrast, the walnut crop of 1989 was heavy, he said.

Pingel said usually the company keeps enough walnuts on hand to last throughout the year.

Eastern black walnuts grow primarily in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio and Arkansas. The walnuts have a number of uses, aside from their nut meat. Their processed shell particles are used in dental cleansers, as filler for dynamite, and as a cleansing agent for jet engines.

Hammons is looking to buy as many walnuts as it can this year, said Pingel, adding that walnuts should begin dropping off trees in the area in a couple of weeks after the first frost.

Minus a frost, Pingel said, the walnuts will need a good windstorm to be brought down. Best of all would be both a frost and a windstorm, he said.

"That's what we need is a good windstorm or a heavy frost to bring the nuts down and then enough folks to bend over and pick them up."

Last year, Pingel said, he had a good year with the walnuts, but he said Hammons stopped him from hulling after 10 days. In contrast to the company official's statement, Pingel said Hammons had said last year that it was swamped with a bumber crop of walnuts.

"Last year even though we only hulled 10 days we hulled about 45,000 pounds." The year before, he said, they had hulled right at 200,000 pounds.

At Fredericktown last year, those who picked up the nuts said there just weren't any nuts out there, Skaggs said. Typically, the trees bear heavier on alternate years. But that doesn't necessarily mean this year could be a heavy year.

"The frost got them dudes last year," Skaggs said. "We bought every nut there was. There just wasn't any to bring in."

Last year, Skaggs said he bought the smallest amount of walnuts ever.

Some years people just don't pick up the nuts, he said. He doesn't foresee that happening this year.

"This year I suspect they'll pick most of them up for economic reasons," he said.

Skaggs said the Fredericktown and Perryville areas could differ in walnut production due to weather differences, or "a lot of things."

"Walnuts they're like peaches and apples, etc," remarked Skaggs. "The weather affects them. They're not quite as sensitive, but it does (affect them)."