Hello!
Today we will tell you about the nut, which is popular and loved by the people like no
other nut.
It is called Volosh, and Greek, and stone, and royal acorn, but most of it is known from
childhood as a walnut.
This fruit has many beneficial pharmacological and medicinal properties.
American scientist Dr. Wilson claims that walnuts are ahead of all other types of nuts
in terms of the quality and amount of antioxidants they contain, and all this is presented in
an almost perfect composition with a number of other useful components.
The famous breeder Ivan Michurin believed that walnuts would become “the bread of
the future”.
In this video, we will try to objectively tell interesting facts about this wonderful
fruit, including the history of its appearance, its cultivation and useful properties.
Today, the world production of walnuts is almost 1 million tons per year.
It is included in the menu of astronauts and athletes.
However, some people do not include nuts in their regular diet, because they are afraid
of high calorie content and an allergic reaction, while others - because they simply do not
know about all the benefits of this product.
If you have not met the plant itself in nature, then it will be easy to imagine how a nut
grows.
The principle is similar to the chestnut: first it blooms, then a fruit is formed from
the flower in a thick green rind.
After ripening, the shutters of the fruit open, and a brown stone in a hard shell falls
to the ground.
In this form, the nut is delivered to the consumer.
We eat, in fact, the core of the bone.
But let's tell you everything in order.
Walnut is a long-lived tree.
It belongs to the nut family.
Begins to bear fruit only 12-15 years after planting.
And it has been doing this for about two centuries.
True, after 80 years, fruiting decreases slightly.
The walnut tree has a spreading crown, with a diameter of about 20 m.
The trunk of trees 50-70 years old is thick and powerful, 20-35 meters high, and the diameter
of their trunks in the lower part exceeds 1.5 m.
The bark of the tree is dark gray , thick, covered with cracks.
Large and alternate leaves are pointed on the upper side and are 40-70 mm long.
They bloom at the same time as the flowers.
This happens in the last decade of April.
Stamen inflorescences look like pale green loosely hanging catkins.
Pistillate inflorescences are formed close to the ends of the shoots and in the axils
of leaf petioles; they are sessile and have fused perianths.
Pollination - cross, mainly by wind.
Walnuts do not need steam for successful fruiting, but yield increases with pollinators nearby.
It depends on the type of plant when the nut blooms for the first time.
The tree can be one of the following types: Early, Medium and Late.
Therefore, the first flowering and harvest, depending on the species, may occur in the
second or third year, after 8 or 10 years.
There are two radically different flowering forms.
The reason is the difference in varieties.
Flowering is subdivided into the protandric, where the female flowers bloom first, and
the protaginous form, where the male flowers bloom first.
This prevents the tree from self-pollinating.
During flowering, the tree has an attractive and unusual appearance.
Because of this, walnuts are planted even in parks and along roads in order to green
the city.
Female inflorescences develop at the ends of annual shoots.
They capture pollen with wide moist "lobes" of the stigma.
The homeland of walnuts has not been established for certain, but their benefits were known
even in Ancient Babylon.
According to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, the product was available only to the nobility,
so it was not in vain called "royal".
For ordinary people, nuts were forbidden - the rulers were afraid that the inhabitants of
Babylon would become too smart.
It was in Mesopotamia, which was located on the lands of modern Iraq, that the earliest
written evidence of the consumption of walnuts appeared.
From the Persian lands, walnut trees probably began to spread around the world, although
traces of relict walnut forests of the Tertiary period of paleobotany are found in China,
Turkey, Transcaucasia, in the south of Hungary, and in Bukovina (Ukraine).
It is believed that it was the ancient Greeks who began to cultivate this plant, trying
to bring out the same large fruits that the Persians who traded with the Greeks boasted.
From Greece, the plant came to Rome under the name "walnut", and then spread throughout
France, Switzerland, Germany and Bulgaria.
The walnut was introduced to the American continent only at the beginning of the 19th
century.
The nut came to Ukraine from Moldova and Romania under the name "Voloshsky".
In Russia, acquaintance with walnuts occurs, apparently, in the XII-XIII centuries, when
close contacts were established with Byzantium.
It was from Greece that the nut came to Kievan Rus.
In Latin, the name of a walnut sounds like "royal acorn".
And it was the Greeks who called him "royal".
They did not know this in Kievan Rus.
Therefore, the nuts brought from Greece were called "walnuts".
The name stuck and remained.
Walnut wood is one of the most expensive raw materials of this kind on the market.
It is valued both for its decorative and technical characteristics, and for its relative scarcity,
since the tree grows slowly, and they are reluctant to cut it, because a fruit-bearing
nut is a source of constant income.
In some countries, its harvesting is now prohibited.
For the buyer, first of all, the high decorativeness of wood is important, but its other qualities
are not overlooked.
The wood is well polished, it is dense and viscous, resistant to decay processes, destruction
by wood-boring beetles and insects.
The drawing is beautiful and distinctive.
In the lower part of the trunk and in the butt area, the pattern is enhanced, contrasting
and original.
Since the butt and roots of the tree are deeply buried, the butt is usually carefully dug
out.
On the lower part of old trees, outgrowths are often formed - burrs, which are very much
appreciated by carpenters.
The cut pattern of the burl is beautiful, so the burl is used as a raw material for
the production of furniture, elements of furniture decor, caskets and household items.
The pattern of each section of the burl is unique and distinctive.
Burl outgrowths reach significant sizes, up to one and a half or even two meters in diameter.
Their weight can reach two hundred kilograms.
Walnut is a thermophilic plant species.
Severe frosts in winter with temperatures below 25 degrees, as well as unexpected spring
frosts, lead to the appearance of various damages on the bark, crown, and roots of the
tree.
Under such conditions, the tree disrupts the growth of annual increments (young branches
turn black), harmful frost holes are formed on the trunks, a large number of ovaries die,
and the yield of ripe nuts in such a tree is sharply reduced.
Walnut absolutely cannot stand the shade, so it does not grow in close thickets, but
in open areas.
These conditions ensure that the tree grows strong and yields a good harvest, because
when there is a lack of sun, more male inflorescences form on the tree, which do not form fruit.
Today, plantings of cultivated varieties are found almost all over the world.
There are still preserved relict groves with an area of more than 25 thousand hectares,
in which only walnuts grow - in southern Kyrgyzstan and in the south-west of Turkmenistan.
In the wild, walnuts can also be found in the Transcaucasus and the Talysh Mountains
(Azerbaijan).
Its wild varieties grow freely in the north of India, China, mostly on gentle slopes and
in mountainous gorges.
The nut grows well in China, Greece, Ukraine, USA, Iran, Chile, North India.
There are also good growing conditions in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Moldova,
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
In Russia, walnuts grow in mixed forests of the Krasnodar Territory, Crimea, Rostov Region,
Kabardino-Balkaria, in the south of the Volga region.
Chile is the largest walnut exporter to Russia.
China and Uzbekistan are also major exporters.
The USA is the leader in world exports.
The tree begins to bear fruit approximately 7-10 years after planting, and reaches its
peak fruiting after 20 years.
The walnut fruit is a single-seeded drupe, the surface of which is covered with a green
skin and a spherical bone.
Inside a very hard shell, which has two to five thin partitions inside, there is an edible
walnut kernel.
The weight of one fruit is from 5 to 17 g.
The nut begins to ripen in the first half of autumn, and full ripening of the fruits
occurs by the end of autumn.
When the nut ripens, a crack forms in the skin, which grows larger over time, and it
falls to the ground.
When the fruits are fully ripe, it is the optimal time to harvest the walnuts.
If it is difficult to determine the ripening period, then you should remember that early
harvest is less unprofitable than late harvest.
The time when walnuts are harvested and the quality of their kernels are directly related.
Harvesting early before full maturity will shrink and shrink the edible kernel.
If all the nuts are harvested ahead of time, you can put them in a wooden box for 2-3 weeks
and then dry them.
Harvesting too late is fraught with fruit rotting and pest damage.
To correctly calculate the time when walnuts ripen, you need to be guided primarily by
their variety.
The branches of the trees are shaken with long poles with hooks at the ends.
When knocking walnuts off a tree, care must be taken so as not to damage the fruit-bearing
branches and bark, otherwise this will adversely affect subsequent harvests.
If the fruits do not crumble, but the shell is cracked, you should pick them by hand or
knock them down with a stick.
If the nut is difficult to release from the shell, you can cut it off with a knife.
Another way to easily get rid of the pericarp is to soak the fruits in water.
It is better to pick nuts with gloves, as the green peel leaves persistent brown spots.
Usually nuts are picked 3-4 times selectively.
To obtain good quality fruits with a light shell and a full white kernel, it is necessary
to collect the nuts immediately after shaking off, peel them, rinse and dry.
Nuts must be harvested no later than a day after falling to the ground, and in rainy
weather no later than 12 hours.
Many people try to store fruits that have lain in the ground for several days, but this
cannot be done, since they can be affected by mold.
When these operations are carried out quickly, the mold does not pass through the shell,
does not spoil the shell of the kernel and the kernel itself.
Rinse the nuts in clean or highly salted water.
After harvesting, the nuts must be placed on the fabric in a thin layer and dried, while
it is necessary to turn them over from time to time.
You can dry the nuts in the sun or in special dryers.
Store them in a cool and dry place at a temperature of about 10 ° C. You can store nuts for more
than a year without losing quality at a temperature of 3 ° C. Nuts keep well for 2-4 years in
the refrigerator at 0 ° C.
If the conditions were violated during storage and the fruits dried up, they can be "reanimated".
To do this, you need to boil water, salt it, then put nuts in it and leave to soak for
six days, then dry it and put it in a secluded dry place.
As a product, walnuts are versatile - they can be used in baked goods, in meat or fish
dishes, in salads, and in sauces.
Therefore, recipes with its inclusion are numerous and varied.
Caucasian cuisine is considered one of the record holders for the use of nuts in cooking.
There, the nutty component can even be in soups, which are thickened with the help of
ground kernels.
In particular, this is how, for example, Georgian soup with chicken and walnuts is prepared.
In Turkish, Georgian and Russian cuisines, walnuts are often combined with eggplants.
In the confectionery industry, nuts are used in limited quantities: for caramel fillings
in grated and crushed form, in the form of halves for sweets and flour confectionery
(such as oriental sweets), for decorating cakes.
Walnuts are usually not roasted as they develop an unpleasant aftertaste after roasting.
The change in taste is associated with the formation of melanoidins due to the interaction
of amino acids and carbohydrates with the formation of aldehydes with odor.
Mature walnut kernels contain 73% oil, 20% proteins, 7% carbohydrates, and also contain
vitamins B1, B2, C, coratriterpenoids, quinones, essential oils, fiber, tannins, iron salts,
cobalt.
And walnut oil has a special value, as it contains a lot of vitamins.
In conclusion, a few words about the beneficial properties of the nut.
The beneficial properties of the walnut, due to its chemical composition, are being studied
today in the context of the fight against cancer, Alzheimer's disease, oxidative stress,
the possibility of improving the work of blood vessels and the heart, and normalizing reproductive
function is being studied.
They contain twice as much antioxidants as any other type of nut.
These fruits are characterized by a high iodine content, which is especially useful
for the prevention of thyroid diseases.
With the regular use of small amounts of them, the risk of cardiovascular disease is significantly
reduced.
Walnut kernels increase high density lipoproteins and lower bad cholesterol levels.
Walnuts contain a number of anti-inflammatory substances in
their biological composition that help prevent obesity, lose excess weight and restore bone
health.
It
is better to buy walnuts in the shell.
They should be stored in fabric bags or wooden boxes at a temperature not exceeding 10 degrees.
If you bought peeled kernels, rinse them out of dust before eating.
Divide the serving of
nuts into several meals throughout the day and be sure to chew the product thoroughly.
Only then, in the absence of contraindications, will the walnut benefit you.