Salvaged/Post-Agricultural

Fruit and nut tree orchards are another source for logs that that would go to waste if they were not salvaged for timber. A prime example is our Orchard Walnut.

The wood used in this product is sourced from commercial Walnut orchards located in the Central Valley of California. Here, approximately 200,000 acres of perpetual Walnut orchards, maintained by hundreds of small growers, produce 98% of the U.S. nut production. When the Walnut orchards age, (approximately forty years), they lose nutting productivity. They are then cut down and replanted to start the orchard cycle again, with the first nuts produced in only four years.

The non-productive Walnut is mostly chipped for use as biomass fuel in generating electricity. Some Walnut burls and crotches are saved and become fancy figured burl veneer found in Mercedes dashboards and the crotch figure in the finest gunstocks.

The Walnut found in most flooring and furniture in North America comes from the American Black Walnut (juglans nigra) which grows in the Eastern part of the US. The nut from this tree yields very little “meat” and hence is not harvested commercially.

The Walnut used to produce the nuts grown in the orchards of California, commonly referred to as English Walnut (juglans regia), is actually a native to the Caspian area of Central Europe.

Over the centuries, orchardists learned the most vigorous nut production occurred when English Walnut was grafted onto the rootstock of either American Black Walnut (juglans nigra) or California’s native Walnut (juglans hindsii), also known as Claro Walnut.

The grafting practice is common with nut and fruit growers utilizing local species which are hardy and disease resistant for the orchard locale, and then grafting onto them better fruiting non-local varieties in order to maximize both hardiness and fruit production.

Grafting is performed when the Walnut is a young sapling and quickly the two different grafted varieties bond together and grow as one. But even fifty years later one can always see the dark line of the graft itself and also see that the wood on either side of the graft is different. This is our mark of Orchard authenticity! In most cases, the upper section of English Walnut is a lighter color while the Claro Walnut root stock is much darker with more character.