LOIS SZYMANSKI
Maryland Correspondent
KEYMAR, Md In Keymar,
Maryland dairy farmer Marlin
Hege, his wife, Martha) and family
are adding to the family income in
what some might say is a very
nutty way. Since October first of
this year the forty-eight year-old
father of nine has shelled more
walnuts then he’ll probably ever
eat in his lifetime, showing just
how resourceful a dairy farmer can
be when it comes to supplementing
the income.
Hammonds Products of Stock
ton, Missouri, provides Hege and
his family with the machine that
removes the outer hull from the
walnut, and sacks to store them in.
The company also pays to run ads
in local publications to solicit wal
nuts. Hege pays ten cents a pound
for the walnuts once they have
been hulled, and the company, in
turn pays him 12 and a half cents a
pound. A truck from Hammonds
picks up the sacks of hulled wal
nuts at the end of the season. Hege
said that about half the weight of
the walnut is hull.
“Someone from the company
had gone through here and npticed
that there were a lot of walnut trees
in this area and they contacted the
man in Shippensburg who had
been doing it for them for a few
years,” said Hege. “He checked
with someone from down here, and
they mentioned my name. So then,
they called me and asked me if I’d
like to do it.”
Hege and his family have hulled
four-to-five-tons of walnuts so far, ,
this season, which isn’t over until
the end of November. Hege said
that he expects to get more nuts in
coming years, as his name
becomes associated with walnuts.
“A lot of the people that have come
have said they will be back next
year, and I guess they will tell other
people,” he said, “so the word will
get around that way.”
“We’ve never really timed how
fast the machine is,” Hege said of
the hulling machine, “but a man on
Saturday brought us nine hundred
and some pounds, (after the hull
was removed), and it took about 15
JComcsteod
Jlotes
V ‘S*'
Marlin Hege runs the machine provided to him by Hammonds Products to hull
walnuts. The sacks contain hulled walnuts which the company will pick up.
Nutty Way For Farmer To Earn Money
minutes to hull them. As fast as we
put them in they go on through!”
When someone comes with a
load of walnuts Hege dumps or
shovels the nuts into the machine’s
hopper. They are carried up the
conveyer and into the machine in
amounts that the machine can han
dle. Twirling chains inside a spiral
shaped cage knock the hull off and
the inside nuts are dropped into the
sacks. Then, Hege weighs the
sacks on a separate scale. The
chopped hulls exit the machine on
the opposite side from the inside
nut, forming a huge pile of minced
walnut hulls.
The Hege family spreads the
minced walnut hulls on their fields
with a manure spreader. “We were
a little concerned about that when
we were contacted by them,”
Hege confides, “because they are
pretty acid, I think. But the compa
ny said that it would be no prob
lem if the sun shines on the hulls
and they dry out. They said the sun
and weather neutralizes the acid.
Hege spoke to a forest ranger
who told him that walnut hulls are
toxic to tomatoes, soy beans, and
other plants, but are good for grass.
“It has worked out very good,”
Hege said. “As long as we can do it
with our other work. We just have
a small dairy here. We figured that
rather than invest money to get big
ger in dairy, we could do a few
things like this to help out with
income. It isn’t something that will
get you rich quick, but, if we could
do about fifty' ton, that would be
about $2,500. I’m sure we won’t do
that this year. But there was no
investment as far as start-up cost, so
there is no risk there for us, just the
time we put into it.”
The Hege’s operate a 96-acre
dairy farm, milking about 32 head
of their 50 Holsteins. He says that,
while it is not a profitable thing yet,
“it makes good use of the resources
that we have.”
“A lot of older, retired people
have come with walnuts and said
that their grandchildren picked up
the nuts for Christmas money,”
Hege says with a smile. “And quite
a few have said they will be back
next year!”
V *
Marlin Hags stands before the pile of walnut hulla the machine has dumped out.
The hulls will be spread on his fields with a manure spreader. The sacks contain
hulled walnuts for Hammonds Products to pick up.
What
About
RUTGERS, N.J. Not only
are black walnuts tough to crack,
the trees can prove tough on plant
growing within their root area.
This is because of a phenomenon
called allelopathy - the toxic
effect of one plant on another.
Black walnut (and butternut)
toxicity is a fairly well-known
problem. An important reference
on vegetable diseases lists and
describes walnut wilt on toma
toes. Many other plants are well
known to be sensitive to juglone,
the toxin present in black walnut:
potato, pea, cabbage, rhododen
dron, white pine, white birch
cotoneaster, blackberry, pear,
apple. The symptoms of walnut
toxicity range from stunting to
partial or total wilting to death.
Susceptible plants may begin
growing well and then, suddenly,
wilt and die. The symptoms on
herbaceous plants may resemble
those of diseases caused by bacte
ria and fungi.
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Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 5, 1994-B5
You Should Know
Black Walnut Trees
The black walnut toxin is pre
sent in most parts of the plant.
Problems arise when roots of sus
ceptible plants contact or are close
to black walnut roots, bark,
'leaves, hulls. The usual cause of a
problem is the presence of walnut
roots in soil where susceptible
plants are being grown. Remem
bering that a tree’s roots extend
well beyond the tree’s branch
spread, susceptible plants may be
affected although they are some
distance from the black walnut.
And, of course, as a tree grows,
the roots extend, and a garden that
had no problems in past years may
begin showing signs of walnut
toxicity. If bark, leaves or roots
are incorporated into soil where
susceptible plants are grown,
problems may occur.
Less well documented than
plants susceptible to walnut toxic
ity are the plants that do grow
within the root area of black wal
nuts. A list of plants, developed
Farm Bureau Kicks
Off Adopt-A-Classroom
Albany, N.Y. Kids, today,
do not know much about life on
the farm. New York Farm Bureau
Women hope to change that with
their new Adopt A Classroom
Program.
According to Onalie Beck
stead, State Chairman of New
York Farm Bureau’s Women’s
Program and a dairy farmer from
St. Lawrence County, “The goal
of the Adopt A Classroom Pro
gram is to increase agricultural
awareness of youth in New York
by an exchange of letters between
a farm family and an elementary
school classroom.” She added,
“With less than onc-half of one
' i 1
by Frank Robinson, director of the
Lewis Ginter Botanic Garden and
published in the Virginia Garden
er from Virginia Cooperative
Extension. The list includes
herbaceous perennials, bulbs,
trees, vines and shrubs, and annu
als.
Among the herbaceous peren
nials listed are: astilbe, bellflower,
sweet woodruff, cranesbill, day lily,
coralbells, hosta, Siberian iris,
bee balm, sensitive fern, cinna
mon fern, summer phlox, polyan
thus primrose, bloodroot, sedum,
lamb’s ear, trillium. Bulbs
include: crocus, winter aconite,
snowdrop, grape hyacinth, narcis
sus cultivars tulip cultivars.
Trees, shrubs and vines include:
Japanese maple, Canadian hem
lock, weeping forsythia, tartarian
honeysuckle, pinxterbloom aza
lea and Exbury azalea cultivars.
Flowering annuals include: bego
nia species, morning glory and
pansy.
Program
percent of the state’s population
living on the farm, today, it is
imperative that we help our stu
dents learn about life on the farm
and to discover where their food
comes from.”
Beckstead says it’s easy for
farmers and teachers to get
involved in Farm Bureau’s Adopt
A Classroom Program. “Farmers
and teachers who are interested in
participating in this special pro
gram only need to fill out an
application. Our State Women’s
Committee will then match a
classroom to a farm family. Both
parties will then bfc sent informa
tion about each other.”