History of Nuts

Table of Contents:
The History of the Almond Tree
The History of the Black Walnut Tree
The History of the Brazil nut Tree Coming SOON!
The History of the Cashew Tree
The History of the Hazelnut  Coming SOON!

The History of the Macadamia Tree Coming SOON!
The History of the Pecan Tree
The History of the Pistachio Tree
The History of the Walnut Tree

Come back and visit often as we add the more histories of your favorite nuts along with their nutritional content.

The History of the Almond Tree

An Almond Tree with ripening Almonds

The History of the Black Walnut

The Black Walnut Tree

 












The History of the Cashew nut Tree

The Cashew Tree

 










The History of the Pecan Tree

History of the Pecan
The pecan, Carya illinoinensis, "Illinois nut", is the only one of the 8 major tree nuts of the world that is native to the United States. It’s native range was from southern Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana, west into New Mexico, east to western Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and western Tennessee, south through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas into Florida.
Pecans are also native to Mexico and were found from Coahuila south to Jalisco and to Veracruz.
Spanish explorers were the first Europeans to write about pecans in historical documents. In
1533, Lope de Oviedo observed the pecans along rivers in what is now Texas and wrote in his journal that "there were on the banks of this river many nuts, which the Indians ate."
The Spaniards first brought the pecan into Europe, Asia, and Africa beginning in the 16th century. Pecans were favored by early European settlers, and natives too, because pecan trees grew in abundance along waterways; which were the highways of their day. Native pecans were also easier to shell than other North American nuts and they had a good flavor.

The native Indians used the pecan as survival food in the fall and winter, using the ground
pecans as flour extenders and eating them as us modern people do, right out of the shell;
natures perfect storage container.
Native Americans also used Pecans medicinally for dermatitis and as a remedy for
tuberculosis.It is even thought that the highly intoxicating native Indian drink "Powcohicora" was made using pecans. The English word hickory comes from that native word Powco-hicora.

French and Spanish colonists settling along the Gulf of Mexico in the late 18th century
started raising pecans for export, with New Orleans as the major center for exporting pecans to the rest of the USA and the world. In 1805 advertisements in London periodicals were stating that the pecan was; "...a tree meriting attention as a cultivated crop."
Thomas Jefferson planted pecan trees, "Carya illinoinensis,” Illinois nuts, in his nut orchard at his home Monticello, in the state of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson then gave his neighbor George Washington at Mount Vernon, a gift of pecan trees, "Illinois nuts", which George Washington wrote about in his journal in 1775.

A native pecan tree grown from seed will have different characteristics then it’s parent
tree. In the earliest attempts to commercially grow pecans, this meant that an orchard of
100 native trees, each grown from a pecan nut, could produce 100 different types and
quantities of pecan from each of the 100 pecan trees. This characteristic of the pecan tree
kept early pecan production low until a discovery by Abner Landrum of South Carolina in 1822. Landrum discovered a pecan budding technique, which grafted pecan trees derived from superior wild native varieties to pecan seedlings. Landrum’s discovery was lost to pecan growing until 1876, when a gardener from Louisiana named Antoine, rediscovered Landrum’s technique. By the 1880’s, Antoine’s discovery was practiced by Louisiana and Texas nurserymen who began improved variety pecan propagation on a commercial level.
The propagation of the improved variety pecan began the start of the modern pecan growing and shelling industry that we know today.

Today in the year 2011, the U.S.A. is the world’s largest producer of pecans growing more
then 80% of the worlds pecans. Pecans are grown commercially in14 states. Georgia is number one (1) in pecan production, followed by Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Arizona.Other US states such as California and Missouri also grow pecans as a commercial crop.
Through trade, the pecan has spread around the world and is grown commercially in Mexico,Australia, Brazil, Peru, Israel, and South Africa.
Organic pecans are grown mainly in the states of Texas and New Mexico.

About the Pecan
The name "pecan" is a American Indian word of Algonquin origin that was used to describe "all nuts requiring a stone to crack.”
Pecan is pronounced in various parts of the US as pi-KAHN, pi-KAN, PEE-kahn, or PEE-kan.
Pecans are a warm weather crop, requiring some winter chilling, limiting U.S. growing areas to the US southern states and the US southwest.
Pecans can be grown from USDA hardiness zones 5 to 9, provided that summers are hot.
Pecan trees may live and bear edible nuts for more than three hundred (300) years.
Pecan trees are wind pollinated and pollen from a tree miles away can pollinate another Pecan tree.
Pecan nut harvest in the USA is typically around mid-October.
Native pecan trees are severely alternate bearing, and are occasionally not harvested at all in “off” years. Alternate bearing means a large nut harvest in one year, and a small nut
harvest in the following year.
Through grafting what are known as improved varieties, the modern pecan industry grew to what it is today. Over the years, more than 1,000 pecan seedlings have been named and grafted as varieties, but only a few of these become established as outstanding commercial producing varieties.

The History of the Pistachio tree

The pistachio is a small tree native to mountainous regions of Greece, Syria, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkey and western Afghanistan. It was first cultivated in what is now Iran and then by trade, was introduced to the Greek and Roman Mediterranean world. It was mentioned in a 6th century European Food Book as a culinary nut.



The tree was introduced into the United Sates in 1904 in the state of California and became a commercial crop in 1929.

The Pistachio tree grows up to 30 feet (10 meters) tall. It is a deciduous tree that sheds its leaves in winter.
The Pistachio tree is a desert plant that is fairly hardy in the right conditions, and can survive temperature ranges between 14°F in winter to 104°F in summer. They need a sunny position and well-drained soil. Pistachio trees do poorly in conditions of high humidity, and are susceptible to root rot in winter if they get too much water and the soil is not sufficiently free draining. Long hot summers are required for proper ripening of the fruit, which signal they are ripe by the outer shell splitting open with an audible pop!
To pollinate the Pistachio requires separate male and female trees. Pollination is by wind, not by bees or insects as is the Almond tree. One male tree produces enough pollen for eight to twelve nut-bearing female trees.
Each tree will produce about 110 pounds of pistachios a year.

The number one producer of Pistachios in the world is currently Iran, with the United States in second place rapidly moving to become the number one producer of Pistachios.The US states growing Pistachios are California, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada.
Organic Pistachio production is growing as consumers of Pistachios demand pesticide and chemical free foods. 

The History of the Walnut Tree
(Picture Credit- California Walnut Board)

 English Walnuts, Juglans regia, are deciduous trees, about 30–130 feet tall, with 7–35 inch pinnate leaves. Walnuts are very drought resistant.

There are 21 known species of Walnuts that range across the northern temperate latitudes of Europe through the Eur-asian continent east to Japan. In the western hemisphere the walnut grows from southeast Canada west to California and south to Argentina. The modern Latin name, Juglans, derives from Jupiter glans, "Jupiter's acorn" which means a nut fit for a god. Regia means literally "Royal, regal or of a king". Walnut lovers throughout history will agree with that definition.


Another early Latin name for the walnut was nux Gallica, "Gallic nut" or the nut from Gaul; Southern France and Northern Italy.
The English word walnut derives from Old English word; wealhhnutu, literally "foreign nut", wealh meaning "foreign" and hnutu meaning nut. This old English meaning gives weight to the theory that walnuts originated in the middle east region. For it is in the middle east country of Iran that one of the worlds largest orchards of walnuts is located.and in the neighboring country of Kyrgyzstan Walnuts are the dominant forest tree.Through early ancient Mediterranean trade the walnut eventually spread through out the world.  
The walnut is also called the common walnut, Persian, English, or Carpathian walnut.

Walnuts bear male and female reproductive organs on separate flowers on the same tree and are pollinated by wind blowing the pollen from the male to the female flowers.


There is the American native walnut; the Black walnut or Juglans nigra.
It is a slightly bitter tasting walnut with a very hard oval shell that grows throughout the USA. It is prized more for its wood for furniture than for its nuts.

Walnuts are produced commercially in 48 countries on 1.6 million acres.
Chandler and Hartley are the most prevalent varieties of English walnuts grown in the USA , with more than 90% of all USA commercial production occurring in the state of California on more than 200,000 acres The USA is the second largest producer of Walnuts in the world after China. Iran is the third largest producer.(data as of year 2004) Organic walnuts are a very small percentage of the 3.3 Billion pounds produced every year world wide.