I read that they contain a poison that damages the grass, but ... so far, I haven't seen it. OTOH, I used to get 20, maybe 40 black walnuts in my yard and I'd often throw them into the woods. Never noticed any grass damage.
This year, and I think it's the first time, I got hundreds of them. So many it's unpleasant to walk in the yard, becuase I'm allatime stepping on these 2" sphreres. Or if they've opened already, they're full of black gunk.
And now they come from two trees, but strangely the second tree, which I didn't even notice had them before, now has twice as many as the first tree.
(they're outside my yard and I have no desire to cut them down anyhow. If they are really going to hurt my grass I may try to come up with a more efficuent way to collect and remove them, throw them into the woods. I can't keep bending down hundreds of times. )
Juglans nigra - no Micky .. it's not a reference to your treasured National Geographic issues .. :-)
They are edible, once dried sufficiently. .. but hard as a rock to crack ! The few people that I know who have tried harvesting them tend to give-up-on-them after once or twice - not worth the bother. The dark stain from the husks has been used as dye by the pioneers and even by today's crafters. In my neighbourhood the tree-rats love them - they will bury them and dig them up again over & over - not for any special squirrel reason - but just to piss me off.
The lumber does make nice furniture - but so does cherry and butternut.
An old-timer once told me that the tap-root - - for a wee little sapling - - looks ~ like the sapling - going downward .
The wiki page is a pretty good resource :
formatting link
ps : lawns are passe - the planet is burning. John T.
Black walnut is my favorite wood. When I was growing up my neighbor had a black walnut tree, would carefully gather the nuts, put them in net bags, and hang them on the porch to crack when he got around to it. He died first.
A single jack and anvil works well to crack them but then you have to carefully pick the meat out of the litter.
Black walnut and butternut produce the largest quantity of juglone and can cause toxic reactions with a number of other plant species that grow in their vicinity. ... Symptoms of walnut toxicity range from stunting of growth, to partial or total wilting, to death of the affected plant.
Juglone, also called 5-hydroxy-1,4-naphthalenedione is an organic compound with the molecular formula C10H6O3. In the food industry, juglone is also known as C.I. Natural Brown 7 and C.I. 75500. It is insoluble in benzene but soluble in dioxane
Juglone occurs naturally in the leaves, roots, husks, fruit (the epicarp), and bark of plants in the Juglandaceae family, particularly the black walnut (Juglans nigra), and is toxic or growth-stunting to many types of plants.[1] It is sometimes used as an herbicide, as a dye for cloth and inks, and as a coloring agent for foods and cosmetics
The harmful effects of walnut trees on other plants have been observed for at least two millennia. The ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome used the walnut for its cytotoxic properties as did residents of the American South for easily gathering fish when they threw cut husks into the water with the fish.[2] However, juglone was not isolated until the 1850s. Two men, A. Vogel Jr. and C. Reischauer, were able to isolate the compound from the walnut tree in 1851. The compound was known as nucin at that time. Juglone was then synthesized and characterized for the first time in 1887 by A. Bernthsen and A. Semper.
While at the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station in 1921, M.T. Cook found that tomato plants in the vicinity of Juglans nigra were negatively affected, most notably by their wilted leaves.[3] Schneiderhan found that Juglans nigra and Juglans cinerea were damaging apple trees in Virginia. The trees that were within an average of 11.9 meters from the walnut trees were found dead. All damaged trees in their vicinity average about 14.3 meters away. In addition, he found that certain local variations of the apple trees tended to be more resistant to the walnuts.[4]
A.B. Massey observed that the walnut trees in alfalfa fields caused the alfalfa to die away in place of grass. After several other experiments, Massey concluded that the toxic compound found in walnut trees was not easily soluble in water, so the compound in the roots and bark must change chemically after it leaves the tree.[5] It was not until 1928 the compound was identified and confirmed to be toxic to other plants by E.F. Davis.[6]
After the scientific news of the harm walnut trees caused certain crops and trees, there was backlash from the scientific community to refute these findings. On one account, A.G. Miller claimed that the trees that Schneiderhan observed to be harming the apple trees in Virginia were not in fact walnut trees.[7]
By 1942, B.I. Brown showed that tomato and alfalfa germination and seedling growth was slowed down by being in contact with pieces of walnut roots, adding further scientific evidence to the biological damage of juglone
YOu've done a lot of research for me. I appreciate it.
My yard is not in great shape, more than one kind of grass, but it doesnt' seem related to where the walnuts land. We'll see next spring after this years bountiful walnut crop.
Wow. I used to keep a dog for a week or two when the "owners" went out of town. I let her run around the fenced-in yard. But I don't remember it being walnut season, and there were far, far fewer then anyhow.
One of the thigns I read suggested drivign over the walnuts to get them out of their shells, but that was only the start of the process. I like walnuts but I think it's easier to buy them at the store.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.