I've read with great interest a number of your reader's posts and the excellent, quality answers you provide regarding all things black walnut. I've been researching, reading, and studying just about anything I can get my hands on with respect to growing these trees. I recently put down Bruce Thompson's 'Black Walnut for Profit,' and if I took away one major point, it was that seemingly few things match the importance of proper site selection when looking to begin growing BW trees. So I have the bug, I am dying to get started with som GS Pudue seedlings, but have no idea how to find a 10-20 acre peice of proprty that 'fits the bill' for site selection (soil, drainage, depth, pH, etc)...especially living from Virginia!?

I would appreciate any and all candid advice you could give me as to how I could/should go about identifying the RIGHT piece of land for starting my BW plantation from afar!! I'm focusing on MO, IA, IN and IL. Any thoughts? Can I hire someone to do this? Are there companies that will? Clues to look for?

I'm dying to get started! Please help! Thanks again for your excellent posts.

Chip Virginia

Glad to hear you have the walnut fever! You should also check out the Walnut Council -- a large community of black walnut aficionados:

http://www.walnutcouncil.org

Here are my two pieces of advice: (1) Start looking for suitable land -- I would encourage you to work with timber/recreation land real estate groups such as Mossy Oak Outdoor Properties, AgExhange Farm Real Estate, Whitetail Properties, Cabela's Trophy Properties, etc.; (2) Locate and work with a professional consulting forester or a consulting forestry firm with a strong background in timber or real estate transactions. Every state has a list or website promoting their cadre of professional consulting foresters. For example,

IL Directory of Consulting Foresters: http://web.extension.illinois.edu/forestry/pdf/tfb-nres-202-13.pdf

Use this tool, Web Soil Survey, to help you predict black walnut soil suitability: http://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/HomePage.htm

Intro to Black Walnut Soil Suitability: http://agebb.missouri.edu/agforest/archives/v12n1/gh6.htm