I may have found them just now… called compound action diagonal cutters ???
It is that compound action that gives them more leverage… he says they do not require a lot of hand strength… a woman or a child could do this.
They have two pivot points… not just one like our regular pliers. I will get some of those and try them out.
I still prefer my 22-ounce stone mason’s hammer for the nut cracking.
(16 oz is too wimpy).
I’ve used a 2 pound mini sledge hammer to crack nuts. It is too much lifting. IMO, a good nut cracker is a necessity if you plan on working walnut or hickory nuts.
One caution re Fred’s nut cracker. He doesn’t make very many of them. Call and ask if he has one he is willing to part with.
@Fusion_power … I asked my wife if she had ordered one of those yet… and she had not… so we called and I talked to Fred… he had none ready to sell now… sold out… and was into his nut harvest season and very busy with that. He took my name and phone number. Not sure when I will get one but I am on his list.
Splitting the shag and mocker with a knife and hammer… as tnsharpshooter does is quick and easy. It does not crush them at all… you just have two perfect halves… and then you work them with the cutters to get the meat out.
I have been pretty happy working them like that. My big old mocker nuts do not work nearly as good as his shells. Hopefully getting a nicer pair of compound action cutters will help that some.
Just look at the shell thickness on this mocker… that is one that I simply split open with knife and hammer. I had already processed the other half… so just one half left at this point.
From there used my cutters to get these results from that half mocker.
Ok… I guess… but not impressed.
Below is another mocker split in half with knife and hammer…
And here is what I got… using just my old cutters… similar results… not great… but works.
Now this is a young shag bark tree nut… I found it on the natches trace… the nuts are a little small but very good.
Again split it with knife and hammer.
Then used my old cutters to get this.
Shag… even these young smaller shag nuts seem to crack out much better.
Here is a wild hickory tree I have. It produces abundance of nuts. But the nuts crack easily after landing on the ground. I can only find shells, hardly any nuts.
Not sure what I can do to collect the nuts next year.
@RedSun … that looks like a shag or possibly a shell to me.
I would recommend that you check it often first couple weeks in October… here in TN I saw several shag bark hickories dropping nuts like rain… when i was kayak fishing a local river. I think it was first weekend in October when that happened here.
Could vary some for your location… and some trees seem to hold on to their nuts longer than others. The young shag I found on the trace… last i checked it a couple weeks ago still had lots of nuts on the tree.
If you dont get them pretty quick after they start dropping the squirrels may.
Good luck.
I think I get several large hickory trees. The leaves are really large. I was going to pay attention. But apparently I did not until it is late now. It is hard to find any nuts now since animals already got most of them. The rest is very hard to find on the ground.
Yes… a couple weeks ago I was still finding lots… but we had a windy rain and another frost and pretty much all leaves dropped and covered the nuts.
I found a dozen mockernuts this morning… but they were much harder to locate.
Another Hickory tree identification - is this a shagbark? We are zone 5 VT
Doesnt appear to look like pigbark and not sure if southern shagbark is this far north
A compound leaf with 5 leaflets and shaggy bark
looks like with have 3 big trees like this (50-60ft tall?)
thanks
Those look like shagbark hickory to me.
Shag… normally 5-7 leaflets per set.
Shell… 7-9.
Shag normally has wider strips of shaggy bark… Shell… normally more narrow strips of bark.
Either one would be great.
Shells are normally found in areas with rich deep soil, river bottom crop land.
Shags are found in more normal woods. Here in my county… it is rare to find a shag on a ridgetop… they are almost always found in the bottom of the hollow or low on the hillside.
Mockers are also found lower on the hillside…mostly… and those low hillside trees produce some good nuts. They will also grow higher on the hill… but rarely produce good nuts there.
Reds and Pigs will grow on the ridge tops and on hillsides… . Their nuts are not really worth collecting.
Watch out for bitternut hickory… i find them down in river bottoms… you dont want to try those … worse than a very green persimmon.
By the nut…
Shellbark top left
Shagbark top right
Mocker bottom left
Red bottom right
This is a shagbark nut in the hull… it normally separates into 4 pieces when near ripe.
Shagbark nut split in half with knife and hammer.
Nut meat then extracted with a pair of compund diagonal cutting pliers.
If you find this one… most likely in a riverbottom area… bitter nut hickory. Notice how thin the hull and nut shell is… and how the nutmeat is similar to pecan.
If you put that in your mouth… you will regret it.
Appears to be shagbark.
I’ll agree on most of your points re hickory species, but mockernut is a bit more versatile. It normally grows on slopes and ridgetops and can survive and produce a crop even when affected by occasional drought. It is most productive when near a water source.
Nutmeg hickory (C. myristiciformis) is similar to shellbark preferring deep rich bottomland soils but is often found on slopes near where water runs in heavy rain.
Nutmeg, shagbark, shellbark, pignut, pecan, and mockernut are often found near old Indian camp sites. Such is true across the road from my house where an abundance of hickory trees grow. One shagbark is good enough to propagate.
Highest species diversity of hickory is in the southeastern U.S. with pecan centered in northern Mexico. C. myristiciformis is a relict population found in scattered stands across southern states abundant only near Selma Alabama in the Alabama River watershed.
Bitternut is one of the more interesting species given its proclivity for crossing with pecan. Major pecan is technically a hican with a large chunk of chromosome 8 inherited from bitternut.
@Fusion_power … on Mockernut… here on my property there are a few on or near ridge tops… but they produce small nuts… as you go down the hill towards the hollow bottom they increase in number and nutsize.
That may be different if you are in or near river bottom land.
My best producers are just up on the hillside a bit from the hollow botton. Large nuts… but as you know very thick nut shell. They taste great but dont crack as easily or well as shags do.
With shags. I get larger pieces of nut meat out… usually in quarters.
There are no shellbarks in my county… that I know of. Have searched buffalo river bottoms… find nice shags… but no shells.
Are there shellbarks in your area ?
Interesting that the southeastern US is such a center of diversity for these trees. Aren’t that many genera like that, I feel like it’s usually Mexico or China that get all the diversity hotspots for taxa that we share. TIL that they had a hickory species in Anatolia that was presumably a relict species leftover from the European population that got wiped out by the ice ages. The Anatolian species disappeared right around when humans arrived in the area…
Seems they also had their own version of baldcypress which went extinct around the same time. I believe some fairly well-preserved stumps of that species where found in a lignite mine in Bulgaria.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0034666714001791
Yes, some shellbark near Florence near the river. See if Lucky will send you a few shellbark nuts to plant. Garnett is impressive. I need to go back to Selma and gather some nutmeg hickory seed.
I’ve sampled a lot of hickory nuts over the years. One mockernut had the best flavor hands down. I’ve had bland flavorless mockernut too. When I was a kid, I collected burlap bags full of mockernut to crack and eat.
@Fusion_power … in my picture of the various nuts above… the shelbark nuts were some that Lucky provided. Nery nice… large nut meats.
