Rural Greenfield man starts walnut husking station

Chase Green is quite serious about a new hobby he has picked up that he hopes will save himself and others a few bucks here and there.

Green, who lives southeast of Greenfield, has obtained a walnut husking machine so that he can do something with the black walnuts that fall from the 15 walnut trees on his farm instead of either running them through his mower, causing unwanted wear and tear, or picking them up and burning them.

An upcoming period of Oct. 7-20 is when Green will be able to collect, weigh and pay walnut collectors for their treasures.

“Every year I mow my lawn, so I’m smacking these walnuts around. It’s bad on the mower and frustrating,” Green said. “Several years ago, my dad got us a walnut wizard, which is a little basket you roll and it pinches the walnuts and collects them inside the basket. Once you fill the basket you go dump it. It’s really fast at picking up walnuts.”

Green said the last three or four years, he’s been collecting the walnuts and burning them. He’s been burning mounds of them at a time. In an average season, he estimates he could collect 700 pounds of walnuts, figuring about 50 pounds per tree. The current going rate is 12 cents per pound.

“I wondered if there’s a way we can sell walnuts. People sell corn, people sell beans, why can’t we sell walnuts? The next fall, when I started collecting walnuts, I started looking around and doing research,” Green said. “I found out that there were places all over Missouri, and a few locations in Iowa, where there are husking stations. You take your walnuts to the husking station. They take the whole walnut into this machine. It beats it down until you get to the interior nut. You weigh that nut and they give you a certain amount of money per pound. I said that’s what I want to do.”

Green learned the closest husking stations to Greenfield were in Ames or Corydon. Trips to either of those places would negate the draw of making a few bucks, but Green did visit the husking station in Corydon to see how it works. A load containing 360 pounds of husked walnuts brought him about $60. He took the money, paid about $40 in gas and took his wife out for lunch using the other $20.

Additionally, Green found out there was a lack of any husking stations west of Interstate 35. Most of the stations in Missouri are a considerable distance from southwest Iowa.

He talked with Hammons Product Company, who agreed to bring Green on as a husking station in their network. They supply Green with everything, and all he has to do is operate. Hammons will pay him a commission. Green hopes to have some walnut wizards on hand for purchase if people in this area are struggling to collect walnuts.

“I’m thinking that if there are people out there looking for money for mowing lawns, if they collected the nuts from their walnut tree, they could probably get enough money to pay for a portion of their gas demands to mow,” Green said. “I think that if I can make between $2,000 and $3,000 as a commissioned representative, it’s a nice little income. It’s a hobby thing. Down the road, if I get good at it, people know who I am and we have a bumper year, maybe it could be something I make a substantial income from. Right now I’m not worried about the income, I just hate to burn them and have the waste.”