I’ve used a Hunt cracker several times. They work very well if properly bench mounted.
Gerald Gardner had an original model that was a good cracker then he improved it with a hardened aluminum frame and a hardened handle with a heat shrink grip. For hand cracking, it works very well.
I picked up walnuts for a few hours today. Varieties harvested were Ridgeway, Thomas, Sauber #1 (from Bill Lane), s147, Hay Seedling (originally from Archie Sparks), Neel #1, Kwik Krop, Redneck, and Schreiber. Here are some variety notes.
Ridgeway - This tree produced a moderate crop of walnuts nearly as large as a softball. It has a very thick husk with a fairly large nut inside. Nuts have relatively low percent kernel. This tree IMO won’t make it commercially due to moderate production.
Thomas - This is consistently the most productive variety I have. I routinely pick up 6 or 7 buckets of walnuts per tree. It is relatively late to mature. About half the crop is still on the trees. I got 3 buckets today from 2 trees. Percent kernel is low in the 22 to 25 percent range. Thomas is lateral branching which basically means it produces many more terminals and therefore more female flowers to make nuts. Thomas is a very vigorous growing tree. Nuts are very well sealed and tend to drop clean from the husk - a very valuable trait. I grafted on southern rootstock which normally can keep up with anything grafted on top. One Thomas is over-growing the rootstock. Given a choice of varieties, Thomas would be my first and foremost choice for nut production. Seedlings tend to carry most of the parent traits with vigorous growth and often nuts comparable to the parent. The only weakness with Thomas is the slightly late maturity which limits where it can be grown. It originated in King of Prussia Pennsylvania about 140 years ago. Commercial potential is high.
I have two different trees identified as Sauber #1. The nuts I picked up today were grafted with scionwood from Bill Lane. These trees are very productive and tend to mature about a week earlier than Thomas. While this year was a heavy on year, these trees can have off years like most black walnuts.
I picked up 2 nuts from S147. This is a very “pear” shaped walnut with a thick woody spike from the nut up through the neck of the pear shape. Cracking is decent, but total nut production is low to moderate. A few more nuts will fall in about a week.
Neel #1 is a relatively good producer and cracks out excellent kernels if properly and promptly harvested. It matures about the same time as Thomas. I have 4 trees of which 2 produced nuts this year. About half the crop is still on the trees so I will have to make another visit to finish harvest. Neel #1 is arguably one of the three varieties that produce enough nuts with good enough quality to justify planting commercially.
Hay Seedling was originally ID’d as S129 by Fred Blankenship who sent me scionwood. I spoke with Fred a few years ago and he said some of the nuts had been evaluated in Nebraska and determined not to be S129. I have 5 or 6 trees. The nuts are large and crack easily. It tends to be an alternate bearer. IMO, production is not good enough to make it commercially.
Kwik Krop is a walnut that has been around a lot of years. It has been propagated under 2 or 3 names over the years. I won’t comment much other than to say it makes nice flavored walnuts that crack fairly easily, but it is not productive enough to make it commercially.
Schreiber is an older variety that is uniquely able to be propagated by greenwood buds. It makes a moderately large nut with a very rough texture to the husk. Cracking and kernel traits are decent. It does not produce enough nuts to make it commercially.
Redneck is a walnut that I found growing on the side of the road near Moulton AL about 32 years ago. I collected scionwood and grafted a few trees at my parent’s house. One tree survives with the others having been accidentally cut down when my brothers were cleaning up around the house. This walnut has the unique ability to produce up to 6 nuts per cluster. It is also the best walnut I have found for a rootstock. The original tree was growing in a red clay bank beside highway 157. It was thriving in very poor soil for walnuts. Seedlings grow rapidly and easily accept most grafts. The nuts are good flavored with golden brown pellicle but not above 20% kernel. This one is not good enough for commercial nut production, but it has excellent potential as rootstock.
McGinnis is a variety from Nebraska that produces an abundant crop of small but very good flavored “buttery” kernels. The major flaw with these trees is that they tend to be alternate bearing. I have 4 McGinnis trees which all produced an abundant crop last year with the ground literally covered with walnuts. They did not bear any nuts this year. This tree is arguably one of the best producers for northern states with very early maturity (1st of September here) and very high production. As stated, the only serious flaw is biennial production.
There are several more trees that produced a crop that is not yet on the ground. I will make another trip next weekend to harvest some more walnuts. Give me a few weeks to get nuts dried and I’ll see if I can make a video showing how each of these cracks.
I planted these trees between 1998 and 2002 and grafted them between 2000 and 2005. They are on 20 foot centers in a triangle planting pattern. This is much too close for nut producing trees. I thinned and removed about 1/4 of the trees 4 years ago. I need to remove at least 1/3 of the remaining trees now. The canopy in one area has completely closed which severely limits nut production. Two of the Neel #1 trees for example are in the closed canopy area and did not produce any walnuts this year.