💲💲I will buy your hickory nuts for up to $5/pound…maybe…💲💲

First, I’m so glad you found value in your hickory nuts. Me too.

I will be starting to purchase hickory nuts in mid- to late-October.

There's not a huge hurry. As long as the nuts are stored properly (see Process) they can last into the following year.

Before you harvest with the intention of selling to me, make sure you can answer “YES” to the three questions below.

Next Steps to Sell Me Your Nuts

1. Answer YES to the three questions below, then
2. Fill out the form below
3. Harvest the hickory nuts,
4. Cure the nuts properly for a few weeks,
5. Sink test them (read below),
6. Grade the nuts into Grade A, Grade B, unsellable
7. Weigh in the nuts
8. Store the nuts somewhere where they can dry (not too warm and not too humid).

2026 Pricing Schedule

The price varies depending on quality of the hickory nuts. The nuts need to be sink tested to determine their quality. Pictures during sink test and during weighing required.

Before we get too far, I have three questions.

💰💰If you can answer “YES” to all three, then fill out the form below! 💰💰

Question 1: Are your nuts edible?

There are many types of edible hickory nuts in the Mid-Atlantic. There are three species that are simple to identify that I will purchase. Don’t harvest too many before you’ve positively identified the tree as one of the following species.

• Shagbark (Carya ovata) – Kinda whiteish 2-3 cm nut. Tree trunks are shaggy. Nuts pop out of the hull. Pics below.
• Shellbark (Carya laciniosa) – Big and lightly tan nut. Tree trunks are shaggy. Nuts pop out of the hull.
• Yellowbud (Bitternut) (Carya cordiformis) – Smaller whiteish nut. Hulls are smaller and hang on tight. Seven leaves. And yes, off the ground, they are disgusting. We make incredible oil out of them.

If you have another type of hickory tree, that doesn’t mean I won’t buy the nuts from you. You just need to identify them. Unfortunately, I can’t spend too much time identifying trees. Do your best research and we’ll chat. Pictures will help.

Also, I should say. Edible also means NOT moldy, rotten, worm infested, etc.

How do you Identify Hickory Nuts?

There are many resources out there to help you identify hickory trees. Here are some resources to help you identify your trees and nuts at least.

• Carya Dichotomous Key
• The Buckeye Botanist: Winter Hickory Identification
• How To Identify 4 Common Hickories (Video – 7:45)

I’m looking for shagbark, yellowbud (bitternut), or shellbark hickory nuts. If the bark of your tree is shaggy then I may buy your nuts! If your trees look like this, with shaggy bark, then I may buy your viable hickory nuts! First, answer…

If your nuts are NOT edible, then I’m sorry I can’t purchase from you.

If your nuts are edible, then move on to grading your nuts (below pics).

Question 2: Can you confidently Grade Your Hickory Nuts?

The Grading section still being drafted as of 8/29/26. Check back for more info.

After you determine the species, next you need to determine the grade. It’s OK if you don’t know how to grade hickory nuts. We can figure it out.

Pictures of the nuts are required. This will save us both a lot of time and possible heartache before you make a long drive and find out I can't buy your nuts. I will probably ask a lot of questions about the size, color, etc.

You can start by throwing away all of the trash. Hulls, rotten nuts, moldy nuts, nuts with weevil larvae holes, etc. I do not purchase these.

Sink Test

The simplest way to separate your nuts into Grades is the Sink Test. Basically just take your nuts and put them in a big container of water.

It's crude. Obviously it's not precise, but it has worked for me.

Grade A

• Very nearly all of the sinkers are good. Call these Grade A.

Grade B

Usually large percentage of the floaters are good. However almost all rotten ones float. So they are mixed together. Grade B is about the percentage of rotten to good floaters.

Take the ones that float and skim them off. Inspect them. When you skim the floaters, do most of them look good? Like if you crack them open are most of them actually food with a few duds? If so, that's Grade B

Grade C

When you skim the floaters, do most of them look off? Do they look off-color or have weevil holes? Are they moldy: If 20% or more are then these would be Grade C. In many cases if most of your floaters are not actually food, then it's not worth reaching out to me.

Also, if almost most of your nuts float (>70%) I've found that these in general aren't worth your time. They are likely undeveloped, have a huge shell to nut ratio, or cracked, or something else. In general, I stop harvesting from trees where most of the nuts float. Of course, try cracking a few. There are always exceptions.

In general,

• GRADE A - Fresh, Sank in "Sink Test". Virtually no defects, no weevil larva holes, no visible rotten nuts, No hulls, clean
• GRADE B - Fresh, <10% defects, weevil larva holes, visible rotten nuts, hulls, dirt
• GRADE C - Fresh, <20% defects, weevil larva holes, visible rotten nuts, hulls, dirt

If your nuts are NOT GRADE A (or lots of Grade B), then I am not able to purchase hickory nuts from you.

If your nuts are GRADE A (or lots of Grade B), then move on to Question 3.

Question 3: Can you get the nuts to at least one (1) hour from me?

Are you willing to…

• Deliver to at least a one-hour drive of Fairfield, PA?

OR

• Deliver to Fairfield, PA (+$1)?

At this time it doesn’t make sense to ship hickory nuts. I will only buy them within reasonable driving distance. The higher quality the nuts are, the more likely I am to drive.  Of course, you can deliver to me (for an extra $1/pound too).

More info below.

How far I am willing to drive is directly related to how many quality nuts you have and how many I harvest from other sources. If you only have five pounds I’m obviously not going to drive two hours; however, if you have two hundred pounds then let’s talk.

If you are NOT able to get within one hour of Fairfield, PA, then I’m sorry I can’t purchase from you.

If you answered “Yes” to the questions above then let’s chat!

Just fill out the form below to get the conversation going!

More info below form.

Pricing

The price varies depending on quality of the hickory nuts. The nuts need to be sink tested to determine their quality. Pictures during sink test and during weighing required.

Just a heads up, I cannot guarantee that I will purchase nuts from you.

Right now I’m prioritizing purchases by,

1. the quality of the nut. The higher the quality, the more likely I am to buy from you.
2. Frankly, how easy it is for me. I have so much interest that I don’t really need to drive far this season. So the closer you bring them to me the more likely I am to buy.

I will try to be as upfront as possible about whether I’m able to buy nuts from you. Right now I can’t get a sense of how it will all pan out. Go ahead and fill out the form below now to get the conversation going. But I will be purchasing after the dust has settled (mid- to late-October).

More Info About the Perfect Nut That I Buy

• I do not pay for hulls for Shagbark and Shellbark. Sorry. Every tree is different. Some fall out of hull in the tree and some never come out of the hull. See my video for more info. Always exceptions, I WILL pay for Yellowbuds in the hull.
• They are a clean nut. They shouldn’t have mud or dirt on them. Some stains from hulls are fine.
• Typically, a Grade A shagbark nut is white. If the nut is dark brown the chances are it’s not a viable nut (although as I say sometimes it’s stained from the hulls). Unless it’s a shellbark or sweet pignut. They are darker and redder even when viable. It sounds confusing, but just crack a few dozen nuts and see what’s inside. Take note of the shells on the good ones and rotten ones. After a little bit you start to get a sense for which nuts are rotten. Send pics if you’re wondering.
• There are no hulls. Sometimes the tree makes a super tight hull or they are the season’s first drops. Nuts that you can’t get out of the hull are no use to me.
• There are no holes (or weevil larvae). If you find a nut with a little hole in it, that means there was a weevil larva. Just throw them out right away. It’s ok. Even weevil larvae need to eat too.

Process

Step 1: Harvest Hickory Nuts

Visit this page about harvesting hickory nuts (opens new tab). I’m constantly working on the How to Harvest page. It may change throughout the season. Sorry if it’s not complete yet. If your grass is shorter, I strongly recommend getting a Nut Weasel to harvest nuts. It will save you so much time and from bending over.

Step 2: Drying (or curing) Hickory Nuts

Curing hickory nuts is an important step. If you don’t properly dry your hickory nuts they can rot or get moldy. This happens pretty fast too

Try cure them to get as much air flow on as much surface area as possible

1. Spread the nuts out.  So big flat mesh shelves or racks are best. With the nuts one or two layers deep. The next best is mesh bags or even a mesh trash can.
2. Get airflow. That’s why the mesh is good. At the very least. Fans are good. Remember air flow.
3. Keep them at below 60% humidity if possible.
4. Keep them at room temp or cooler. It’s OK if they freeze.
5. At the very least keep them dry. Hopefully you won’t have your nuts for too long before I buy them, but you could really help me out by taking care of those nuts!

I recommend letting the nuts cure for a few weeks (up to a month) before moving on to Step 3.

Step 3: Sink Test

I prefer that you sink test your hickory nuts. Sink testing helps separate the Grade A from the Grade B and rejects. Sink testing also affects the price (see table on this page).

You can see more about sink testing above

When to Sink Test

Nuts are natural. Nut weevil larvae love them almost as much as I do!

While the nuts sit, the larvae will bore out of the nut and try to get into the ground.

I recommend that you harvest all season and then do one or two sink tests towards the end of the season. Why? As they sit there for the first few weeks the weevil larvae will bore out of the shell. That automatically disqualifies all of those duds. This automatically helps grade your nuts and saves you time because all the nuts with holes are trash! Many of the nuts that float are good, and you can set them aside as Grade B. However, if you float them right away with weevil larvae and the float and you set them aside, and then they will crawl out and you will have wasted your time separating those nuts. 

How to Sink Test

Suffice it to say, it’s simple to conduct a sink test. Just put the hickory nuts in water. The Grade A nuts will sink. The Grade B nuts will float. At this point, I recommend cracking a few of each grade just to see what you’re dealing with. You can get a pretty good sense for how many Grade B are rotten and how many are viable. I would like to see pictures of the nuts in the water if I can. See my How to Harvest Hickory Nuts page for more info (opens web page).

Step 4: Weigh the Hickory Nuts

After you have graded the nuts with a Sink Test, and let them dry, then you want to weigh them. Separate them by species and grade. 

I suggest you wait until after you sink test and let the nuts dry. Before you get your hopes up on the day you harvested. If you want to get the most accurate estimate of how much money you will make, I recommend waiting until after you sink test to weigh them. As the nuts dry they lose weight. It’s not tons, but it can be noticeable.

I will weigh them when we hand off. I go by the weight at handoff for the purchase price.

I prefer to see pictures of the hickory nuts on the scale before sale. This will save us both a lot of time and heartache.

Step 5: Long-Term Storage of Hickory Nuts?

You can read more about long-term storage on this page. Obviously, if you’re reading this page then you probably don’t plan on storing them long-term. I thought I’d just put this info here in case.