Black Walnut in Oregon - Unique Hybrids

Unique Hybrids:

Rather than utilizing eastern black walnut (Juglans nigra), strains recommended by the Oregon Chapter of the Walnut Council for farm planting in the Northwest are hybrid crosses of eastern black walnut and California black walnut (J. hindsii). Originally developed as rootstocks for English walnut, these interspecific hybrids are well adapted to the Willamette Valley of Oregon. There the hybrids grow almost twice as fast as eastern black walnut, according to Gary Goby, and produce better quality timber than the California black walnut. Some of the larger trees planted by early settlers exceeded 5 ft. in diameter at harvest, he said, and yielded high grade lumber in large dimensions.

Favorable growing conditions in western Oregon, mineral content of the soil, and the absence of damaging storms as in the Midwest, contribute to special colors and grain patterns in the wood. Gary Goby frequently finds orange tones in the wood he processes, along with black highlights. His wood inventory contains examples of a wide variety of decorative figures, particularly desirable for furniture, gunstocks and musical instrument making. Local trees are capable of producing much larger timbers than are commonly available from Eastern sources; Goby has produced top quality “clears” exceeding 8/4 (2 inch thick) X 10 ft. long X 28 inches wide. He has observed the beginning of heartwood formation after 18-20 years in the Oregon crosses, compared to only 9-10 years in eastern black walnut. Furthermore, Goby does not steam sapwood to sell as heartwood, a common practice among eastern sawmills.

Custom Milling:

Goby travels throughout western Oregon and Washington, buying trees offered to him by private landowners. After the logs are first processed on contract by a sawmill near Lacomb west of the Cascade Mountains, he drys and resaws the rough lumber at his own custom drying and milling operation near Albany. Goby Walnut Products offers a variety of products, including kiln dried lumber in 4/4 to 8/4 (1-2 inch) thicknesses, air-dried 10/4 to 16/4 (2-4 inch) lumber, gunstock blanks, musical instrument stock, resawn veneers and turning stock. Milling about 30,000 BF (board feet) of timber per year, the company sells to both national and international markets.

Although the black walnut trees harvested today come from rural homesteads and suburban homes, Goby sees increasing interest among rural landowners in planting black walnut woodlots specifically for timber. This is a difficult, long-term decision for many, he said, since 50-80 years are typically required to grow trees of sufficient size (at least 28 inch diameter) for maximum return on their investment. While commercial veneer manufacturers are not interested in black walnut at present because of concerns about saw-damaging metal objects hidden inside old farmstead trees, Goby foresees a valuable veneer market developing for plantation-grown trees in future.

Planting black walnut for timber is “not for selfish people,” Goby believes. “This is stewardship in its most basic definition.” Nevertheless, for landowners (and their families) able to initially invest about $1000 per acre to establish a black walnut plantation, and to wait 50-80 years for final harvest, the potential rewards are attractive. Goby pays a higher rate of sawlog stumpage to the landowner, at least $1 per BF, than in the eastern US, where the going rate for stumpage is closer to 35 cents per BF. In the future, he believes the price of carefully grown black walnut timber can only increase. “Young men plant radishes,” he says, “old men plant trees.”

A study comparing the costs and returns of black walnut to Douglas Fir, the Northwest’s most common timber species, as farm tree crops was prepared in 1992 by a private forester. Based on a 100 acre plantation of each species, the estimated value for walnut harvested at age 80 years was projected to be $10 million compared to only $1.5 million for fir, even including a pre-commercial thinning for the fir.