Progress report for ONE24-463
Project Information
This project will broaden and strengthen the genetic base of Juglandacae family trees (walnut, hickory, pecan) in the Northeast long-term. This will be accomplished by identifying preferred seed trees in the Juglandacae family on Yates County, NY area farmsteads and providing a path through which host farm families can route seeds from their superior trees directly into the regional seed supply.
At least 25 farm families will be engaged, at least 40 trees will be evaluated using defined field protocols and at least 10 trees will be prioritized for seed collection. Seed will be collected and processed and the resulting seeds shall enter the regional seed supply. Summarized tree data collected, seed selection approach, source tree locations and local growing conditions will be documented and detailed in the project report. Protocols for mutually beneficial annually recurring seed gathering will be established with farm families whose land hosts prioritized trees. Because there are a lot of tree varieties in the Juglandaceae family, if a few species must be prioritized, the project will prioritize black walnut, butternut, shagbark hickory, bitternut hickory and shellbark hickory, if found. Shellbark hickory may not be present in the project area.
Nut tree genetic heritage developed on old farmsteads over past centuries is being lost right when we need it to launch the next generation of trees. At present, we are pushing new agricultural approaches forward while continuing to push the existing system to deliver everything it delivered previously and more. The economics of conventional farming incentivizes farmers to bring online as many productive acres as possible, including land that may currently host old mast-bearing trees. At the same time, implementation of agroforestry and afforestation is ramping up, increasing demand for mast-bearing tree seed and seedlings. In order to ensure that the broad range of genetic diversity embedded in the population of old, healthy nut trees left standing is passed down to the next generation of trees, we must continue to identify and preserve key seed trees and route seeds from those trees into the general seed and seedling supply along with detailed information regarding seed source.
The project will focus on Juglandacae family trees (walnut, hickory, pecan) growing on farms in or near Yates County, NY. The Juglandacae family has been selected because there are wild trees in this family whose genetics merit conservation and replication without the need for a dedicated breeding program. Juglandaceae family trees are in general shade intolerant or only moderately shade tolerant and tend to cluster in the areas historically occupied by people. They are much more likely to be found on sites where the canopy has been disturbed, like farms, than areas that have long been covered with forest. For this reason, a greater fraction of the genetic heritage of these species resides on private, not public land, and is likely weighted towards historic farmsteads as farm families generations ago would have intentionally planted some of these trees with intent to use the nuts grown for personal or livestock consumption.
This project positively impacts almost every aspect of sustainable agriculture. Because nut trees are perennial plants, growing nut trees improves soil conservation and soil health because there is no need for annual soil disturbance. Wild walnut, hickory and pecan trees require zero or minimal chemical inputs to thrive, reducing long-term chemical exposure risks for both people and planet. If farm families can realize some income from nut trees which hadn’t been previously utilized for such purposes, a boost to farm family income is created and that boost will be independent of their primary income stream(s). In terms of quality of life, everyone loves a beautiful, healthy tree but a great tree can be loved even more if the family that owns it is aware that their tree is an important contributor to regional tree population genetics. A tree that a family is proud to own will be cared for and left standing.
Cooperators
Research
Collecting data from individual trees with the intent to use this data to prioritize some trees for seed collection is foundational to this project. This Tree Assessment Form was developed by the project and used to collect data from each tree assessed.
In addition to the information about each tree collected using this form, the age of each tree was estimated using the following methodology:
Step 1: Figure out the diameter of the tree at about four and a half feet above the ground.
Step 2: Validate the tree type (black walnut, red oak, shagbark hickory, etc).
Step 3: Estimate the age of the tree by multiplying the diameter by the growth factor for that type of tree (see below).
GROWTH FACTORS
4.0: Red Oak*
4.5: Black Walnut (including butternut, heartnut)
7.0: Hickories (shagbark, shellbark)
*Is your red oak a pin oak? Pin oaks grow a little faster and so use a growth factor of 3.0.
Note that in 2025, it was determined that a growth factor of 4.5 was inappropriate for butternut. The correct growth factor is unknown and a growth factor of 4.5 is likely to overestimate butternut tree age. Butternut tree age estimates based on trunk diameter have been disregarded.
Assessing nut quality is also a key aspect of this project. This Black Walnut Taste Test Form was developed so that volunteer tasters could provide feedback on the taste of walnuts from specific trees from which seed was collected in 2024 in a standard manner. Tasters were provided with only a sample number for nuts from each tree and not any information about the tree owner, location or characteristics. This intent was that this tasting exercise would yield a qualitative ranking, not quantitative.
This is an interim report for an ongoing project. 33 trees have been assessed using the tree assessment form developed for this project. Because many project participants had many trees, those participants will be able to qualitatively assess some of their other trees by comparison to the tree(s) that was assessed. A map of assessed trees will be included in the project’s final report. Two sets of lab analyses were commissioned. The first set was germination rate testing, conducted by the USDA Forest Service, National Seed Laboratory in Dry Branch, GA. Germination rate testing was conducted for black walnuts and butternuts, as these were determined to be the two tree species that farmers could most easily collect and self-market. Butternut tree leaf samples were collected in the summer of 2025 for genetic testing. Genetic testing will reveal the degree to which each tree is hybrid (vs. pure butternut). Most butternut trees on the landscape which appear healthy, and therefore are most likely to be resistant to butternut canker, are wild hybrids, typically butternut / Japanese walnut hybrids. The degree to which trees are hybridized affects the desirability of the seed and this cannot be determined from visual inspection.
Project conclusions and how these conclusions were reached will be part of this project's final report. With the exception of the lab testing, this project's methodology can be replicated by anyone at any time although certain questions cannot be answered if the tree's autumn leaves have already fallen. In this way, trees that were not assessed by this project can be compared to trees that were assessed by this project.
This is an interim project report with some lab testing results still outstanding. Results and discussion will be included in the project's final report.
This is an interim project report with some lab testing results still outstanding. Results and discussion will be included in the project's final report.
Education & outreach activities and participation summary
Participation summary:
On May 20, 2025, in cooperation with Yates and Schuyler County Farm Bureau, an expert-led on-farm silvopasture tour featuring working trees was held at Angus Glen Farms in Watkins Glen, NY, a guided walk led by farmer Brett Chezdoy. There were 56 attendees. Brett and his family maintain a large cow-calf grass-fed herd on 500 acres of rotationally grazed pasture and silvopasture (pastures with well-spaced trees) to improve the soil, forest and forage health while protecting the world-famous watershed of the Watkins Glen State Park gorge and Seneca Lake. In winter months, cows “bale graze” across the farm for nutrient management and animal welfare benefits. In summer, cattle are strategically grazed through silvopasture areas for shade and comfort. The demonstration showed how incorporating working trees on the farm, including nut trees, could not only bring environmental benefit to the landscape but also benefit the farm operation overall, in terms of improved animal health that leads to lower medical bills, lower feed bills and lower energy costs.
On Dec 2-4, 2025, interim project results were shared with the agricultural community at the New York Farm Bureau (NYFB) State Annual Convention, "Navigating Your Ag Future", held at Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, NY. An Exhibitor's booth was staffed for 14 hours (8:00 am - 6:00 pm, Dec 3 and 8:00 am - 12 pm, Dec 4) and visited frequently by attendees. Over 300 people attended the conference and 30 individuals intentionally sought out the booth and engaged in direct conversation about the project. Most were farmers and some were agricultural service providers. Interim project results were presented and farmer feedback was collected on a working version of online tool that this project developed to help to connect nut tree growers with nut tree collectors and buyers. The poster of interim project results and the information pack which provided an overview of the online tool is linked below.
ONE24-463 Interim project results (poster)
Project outreach will continue after the project concludes and will focus on addressing identified barriers to increased utilization of on-farm nuts. Accordingly, an interactive website is being developed which will include three key elements. The first element is the creation of an online marketplace to connect nut tree growers with nut tree collectors and buyers, designed to address a key study conclusion which is that there is a lack of seed market transparency regarding seed pricing. The beta version of this tool was trialed with farmers at the Dec 2-5, 2025 New York Farm Bureau (NYFB) State Annual Convention. If enough nut growers use this tool, it will make regional supply transparent and therefore more accessible to potential buyers who could then set pricing. The second element is a handbook detailing to can gather and process nuts, specifically the steps required to turn nuts on the ground into nuts to ready to use, whether ready to use means ready to plant or ready to crack. This technical information will help farmers understand how to prepare nuts to use or sell and addresses another key study conclusion, which is a lack of transparency regarding seed buyer requirements (both regulatory and practical). This technical information will help farmers understand the requirements for getting their nuts ready to self-use or ready to sell. The third element will continue the search for visually canker-resistant on-farm butternut trees and connect trees identified to ongoing disease-resistance research efforts. This addresses the key study conclusion that butternut was identified as the seed with the highest value but that high seed value is conditional on the likelihood trees grown from the seed will have resistance to butternut canker. Because most canker-resistant butternut trees are wild hybrids of butternut and Japanese walnut, only genetic testing can determine the degree to which trees have hybridized. In keeping with the previous observation that there is at least a lack of transparency, and possibly a lack of standards, relating to tree seed buyer requirements, there is no generally agreed definition of “canker-resistant butternut”. Through a collaboration initiated through this project, that question is under ongoing discussion with leading butternut-canker researchers.
Learning Outcomes
In 2024, the project engaged 20 tree owners, 16 of which were farm families, predominantly but not exclusively farming in Yates County, NY. Of these farm families, one participant identifies as a beginning / woman farmer and the project benefited from engagement with 7 Mennonite family farms. 25 trees were assessed and more trees were nominated and visited than were assessed. In this case, assessment means that information about specific trees was collected and saved. In 2025, given that butternut is the earliest-falling native nut in the walnut family and that the collection season for butternut was mostly missed in 2024 due to the timing of project kickoff, project engagement specifically focused on butternut trees. This led to the project directly engaging 5 additional tree owners, 4 of which were farmers. 8 additional trees were assessed.
In general, farm families do not consider the nuts grown by nut trees like black walnut, butternut, or hickory to be an asset to the farm. If Juglandaceae family trees are growing on a farm, they are typically yard trees, field edge trees or woodlot trees. For areas that aren’t maintained (ex: woodlots), they are typically seen as a wildlife benefit but not a contributor to farm operations and in areas that are maintained, they are typically seen as a nuisance. While many families were aware that nuts from these trees are edible, the nuts from only two trees assessed was typically consumed and the idea of having nuts from these trees serve as seed was a new idea. The possibility that value could be created from nuts from these trees was seen as an interesting and worth further discussion across the board. Many farm families were surprised and impressed by the age of some of their trees. Many trees over 200 years old were identified. Given that Yates County just celebrated its bicentennial, these trees pre-date the founding of the County.
Project Outcomes
In 2024, the project collected 1306 lbs of raw seed (427 lbs after the seeds were hulled and the bad ones discarded). Species collected include black walnut, butternut, shagbark hickory, shellbark hickory, pignut hickory and red oak. An additional 115 lbs of butternut (hulled weight) was collected in 2025.
Nine farm families adopted a new practice, which is a plan to continue to gather nuts from their trees on an ongoing basis. The degree to which these farmers want to be involved in post-gathering nut processing varies greatly. Some farmers prefer to give a third party access to the trees and let that third party gather nuts. Some farmers prefer to gather their own nuts but require that a third party pick up and transport gathered nuts. Some farmers are willing to both gather and deliver nuts but don't want to be involved in post-gathering processing. One farmer who participated in this project purchased a huller and, going forward, intends to gather, hull and cure the nuts from her four acres of black walnuts and sell them all as a ready-to-crack product (food, not seed), a major change to her annual routine. These four acres of trees were not being tended, and in 2025 she cleared the acreage of vines and underbrush and began mowing. Through her efforts, four acres of mature black walnut trees have been reclaimed to serve as agricultural trees.
More farmers would adopt the practice if systemic barriers were addressed. The biggest barrier is market related, specifically the lack of seed market transparency regarding seed pricing and seed buyer requirements (both regulatory and practical). Farmers don’t know what their tree seeds are worth and they aren’t sure they can deliver what buyers want. The second barrier is grower confidence gaps regarding tree identification, best practices for nut collection, handling, processing, storage, testing, packaging, and seed certification or labeling requirements. At this time, due to the opaque nature of the tree seed market, farmers need an intermediary that can channel their nuts to an end market or a buyer willing to invest in supply chain development. Black Squirrel Farms is currently as that intermediary for the nine farm families who adopted a new practice and plans to continue serving as that intermediary while the regional market for tree nuts matures, creating additional options.
Four working collaborations were explored and two were established. The first collaboration explored was with the National Collection of Genetic Resources for Pecans, maintained by the USDA National Plant Germplasm System, Pecan Breeding & Genetics Program. The project contributed hickory seed to the National Collection and these seeds were integrated into their conservation research program. This was a successful partnership and likely also limited in scope because how to collaborate on an ongoing basis once this project closes is not clear. Additionally, this project explored collaborating with a North Central SARE-supported project that also relied on native tree seed collection, a project focused on developing acorn flour processing capability. In 2024, this project collected 50 lbs of red oak acorns to support the North Central SARE-supported project and would have collaborated in 2025 to collect additional acorns but the 2025 acorn crop in Yates County, NY did not materialize. This partnership explored collaboration with Dr. Aziz Ebrahimi, a post-doctoral fellow at Purdue University doing butternut tree research. The Purdue lab is currently conducting genetic testing of butternut tree leaves collected by this project in the summer 2025, an exercise which led to discussion of further collaboration and which ultimately led to the co-development of a 2026 NE SARE Research and Education which would facilitate demonstration plantings of canker-resistent butternut on New York State farms. This proposal is currently under review and is a working collaboration because, if the proposal is funded, a collaborative future project is well defined. The second working collaboration was established by chance. Two of the farmers engaged by this project at New York Farm Bureau State Annual Convention are mushroom farmers, interested in testing whether certain kinds of mushrooms will grow well on a nutshell substrate and they are testing this concept now with nutshells provided by Black Squirrel Farms. While this collaboration will not impact farmers using on-farm nuts for tree seed, their success could grow future demand for native tree nuts and testing is ongoing.
The grant received that builds upon this project will result in the propagation of the 2025 butternut seeds collected. Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County (CCE Tompkins) has implemented an agroforestry apprenticeship program in collaboration with Wellspring Forest Farm and Interlace Commons. Apprentices will learn the basics of agroforestry and gain on-the-job training in two possible career paths essential to scaling agroforestry efforts: tree nursery production, and tree planting and management. One apprentice in this program will construct air-pruned raised beds and grow the butternut seed collected in 2025 by this project in those beds as their hands-on learning project associated with this CCE Tompkins-led program.
This project achieved its primary objective, which was to validate the idea that there is significant undiscovered nut tree species richness on Northeast farms. Through farmer engagement and interaction, this project also demonstrated considerable farmer interest in realizing non-timber value from these trees as well as systematic barriers that would need to be addressed in order to make realizing value from these trees generally achievable and pragmatic. Therefore, the methodology suggestions below are not aimed at refining the approach taken by this project but rather suggestions that could be leveraged by future initiatives aimed at increased utilization of nuts from on-farm trees.
Farms appear to be an underutilized source of nut tree genetics and the best way to locate new, interesting trees on farms is to talk to farmers. While this may seem intuitive, an effort to find new trees often starts with a landscape analysis exercise which predicts the habitat most likely to support a target species. The location and condition of on-farm trees, where human intervention was likely to have influenced planting, don’t conform as closely to this kind of predictive modeling results as trees in more natural landscapes do. Therefore, a combined approach is recommended. Use the best scientific data to predict the region where target species would be expected to grow. Use on-the-ground farmer knowledge to locate new, on-farm trees within that region.
“Ease of gathering” is the most practical way to rank the probability that nuts from any particular tree will be gathered. This implies that prioritizing future on-farm tree assessment work according to the following ranking 1) Yard trees (highest priority), 2) Field edge and/or hedgerow trees, 3) Woodlot trees (lowest priority) would be a pragmatic approach.
If feasible, a seed gathering strategy which prioritizes gathering from the healthy offspring of remarkably old, still-healthy trees would be preferred over gathering directly from the remarkably old trees themselves. For black walnut, the quality of seed from very old trees (average age ~175 yrs, some old enough to have been standing since before Yates County was founded in 1823) was found to be inferior to the quality of seed from intermediate-age trees, implying an age-related decline in reproductive capacity, a surprising result. It is assumed that the same pattern would hold for other Juglandaceae family trees. An example of an ancient tree surrounded by healthy apparent offspring was found in Yates County agriculturalist Brian Cunningham’s woods, where a 200+ yr old healthy black walnut tree was surrounded by many younger black walnut trees in a growing pattern suggestive of squirrel dispersal of nuts from the ancient tree.
All the regular rules just don’t apply to butternut. The project was based on the assumption that tree resilience is tied to longevity and while that is true for most Juglandaceae family tree species, tree resiliency for butternut trees is tied to canker resistance capability. Butternut is a native nut tree species under existential threat from butternut canker and PA/NY/Massachusetts is where this species is making its last stand. Butternut is a faster-growing tree than other walnut family native trees and drops seed earlier in the season. The degree of canker resistance that a butternut tree has cannot be determined by a visual inspection of tree health, even though it can be inferred that a healthy-looking older tree is more likely to have some degree of canker resistance. Known disease-resistance capability combined with a mostly-pure (vs. hybridized) butternut genome will realistically define a "premium seed". Near-term future plantings are expected to focus on proving disease management is achievable, not improved nut yield or quality, so how to high-grade seed from this species is not comparable to how to high-grade seed from other Juglandaceae family trees.
A handbook is being developed. Applied information that farmers can use to answer the question of how to gather, high-grade, process and/or store their nuts in a way that preserves their quality for either planting or cracking is fragmented. This project provided such information to farmers through 1:1 engagement, an approach which makes sense at a small scale but which is not practical on a larger scale. This information will be gathered and compiled into a handbook which future projects can use as a resource. This is an interim project report and work on the handbook is ongoing.