As I walk the walnuts - 7

As I walk the walnuts, !st January 2009, -18ºC, I think about the year to come and how much farther we will get. First, though, Happy New Year to all my collaborators, from the tree end to the machinery end. None of this would work without you. To warm you up on a cold winter’s day, I have chosen a summer photo.

Then a swing past the barn, where, a short six weeks ago, I was finishing up the wet processing of the 2008 harvest. My rapid departure to warmer climes for a couple of work weeks is evident: the final pile of hulls is still there, along with the mess made by three squirrels I have recently managed to move out. The final nuts are still on the dryer, though the remainder are bagged up and labeled ready for weighing.

In the fields, the range scoring tape is evident, splashes of colour on the naked trees. How much that system has helped me to understand what is going on at the tree end. The tape will come off at pruning time to avoid confusing next summer’s work, when the trees will be re-scored.

Still to do is the nut report, which entails cracking and measuring the kernel and shell fractions of the ‘3’ trees. That will happen sometime in February. Observation of the samples suggested some surprising things to come, but I will wait for the hard data before saying anything more.

So, 2009 will be the year of ‘nutmastery’ and a separate blog to deal solely with that end of things – machinery, markets, etc., while this one may slowly wind down. We’ll see.