The other nuts

CRACKING THE CASE OF VIRGINIA’S ‘OTHER’ NUTS

BY ADAM CULLER

Standing at attention, centuryold pecan trees line the backyard of Donald and Diane Horsley’s home at Land of Promise Farms in Virginia Beach.

Diane Horsley isn’t sure who planted the trees, but she knows the trees were already mature by the time her parents, Ralph and Irene Frost, purchased the farm in 1959. Growing up under their shade, she says she used to harvest the pecans as a chore.

Now the chore belongs to the people, and guests arrive from all corners of Virginia to pick pecans each fall. Producing up to 1,000 pounds a year, the pecan trees at Land of Promise Farms offer a rare Virginia-grown alternative in a snacking industry dominated by peanuts.

“You’d be surprised at the number of people who see we have pecans and call wanting to be sure they can get in,” Horsley said. “Some people like the larger, hard-shell Stuart pecans, and other people like the medium papershell pecans they can just crack in their hands. We have both varieties.”

Peanuts nudge out specialty nuts

A product of peanuts’ prevalence in Southeast Virginia, specialty nuts like pecans aren’t widely produced in the Old Dominion. While the heat of Southeast Virginia provides a suitable climate for growing nuts like almonds, pecans and pistachios, peanuts have laid claim on the land since the 1840s. Peanuts are legumes that grow underground, but thrive in the same soils as tree nuts.

Instead of commercial production, most nuts in Virginia grow naturally.

Land of Promise Farms Virginia Beach

CHESTNUTS

Virginia Chestnuts LLC Nelson County

ADAM CULLER

ADAM CULLER

ADAM CULLER

American-Chinese hybrid chestnut trees line 3 acres of Seamans’ Orchard in Nelson County, where farmers are growing a blight-resistant variety. Chestnuts start as furry strands called catkins and mature into protective sharp husks that cover the nuts.

ADAM CULLER

Native species like black walnut, hickory, American hazelnut and Allegheny chinquapin trees all produce edible nuts, but there’s little evidence to support any are grown specifically for their nut output.

“Typically, we have wild-type stock growing in Virginia that some years produce a good crop and some years not,” said Dr. John Munsell, a professor and Virginia Cooperative Extension forest management specialist at Virginia Tech. “Oftentimes, [the nuts] are just left on the ground. Some people might come in and glean, but there’s not a lot of intentionality of nut production.”

Because black walnuts can produce a bitter taste, the trees are valued for their timber. Various types of hickory nuts, including shagbark, mockernut, bitternut and pignut, have received renewed interest from specialty producers who mill the nuts into flour. American hazelnuts and chinquapins, Munsell says, are rare in Virginia’s forests.

Native chestnuts reemerging

Once native to Virginia’s forestland before being wiped out by blight in the early 1900s, chestnuts are reemerging in the mountains of Nelson County thanks to local farmers.

Producing an American-Chinese hybrid resistant to blight, Breidablik Farm, Bryant Farm and Nursery, Helbert Orchard, Hopkins Orchard and Seamans’ Orchard Inc. collectively grow and market their chestnuts as Virginia Chestnuts LLC.

Together, the five farms produced 11,000 pounds of chestnuts in 2019. With little to disturb the trees in their native environment, growers are anticipating greater output as the chestnuts continue to mature and flourish.

“Chestnuts are natural up and down the East Coast,” said Carter Parr, Seamans’ manager. “One hundred years ago, that’s what most parts of forests were—chestnuts.”