Some Facts about Walnuts

• Modern high yielding varieties can bear walnuts in their first year.
• The first commercial mechanical harvest is expected around year 4 or 5.
• A walnut tree grown in the open can reach a height of 25 metres.
• A walnut tree, given the right conditions, can live for up to 200 years.
• Walnuts have long been a part of the human diet with older civilisations believing that, as the walnut kernel looks like a miniature brain, it is believed to symbolise intelligence.
• A number of studies done in the USA on a group of people over many years and published in the New England Journal of Medicine have proven that eating walnuts significantly lowers cholesterol in human blood.
• The leaves and the green skin or husks around the walnut can be used as a dye for wool, paper and other fabric.
• Pickled walnuts are a delicacy the world over (see recipe).
• Walnuts are a great source of protein, vitamins and minerals including Vitamin A, potassium and magnesium.
• It is difficult to find Australian grown walnuts in the market.  The demand is strong and the supply is limited.
• Walnut kernels can be crushed and cold-pressed to produce walnut oil for cooking and a salad dressing.
• Walnuts are the most commonly used nut in the baking industry.
• The botanical name for the English walnut is Juglans regia.
• Walnuts are one of the oldest foods known to man.  They are believed to have originated in Persia, now Iran - in fact, the English walnut was once called the Persian walnut.
• Explorers like Marco Polo are credited with the dissemination of the walnut through eastern Asia.
• California has about 90,000 hectares of walnut orchards producing up to 300,000 tonnes of in-shell walnuts per year.  China produces about the same quantity annually, mainly from many seedling trees scattered over a huge area.