Photo: Robert H. Mohlenbrock @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / USDA SCS. 1991. Southern wetland flora: Field office guide to plant species. South National Technical Center, Fort Worth. http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CAGL8 — Public domain · source
Survives zone 4 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Pignut hickory nut quality is genuinely inconsistent — some trees produce sweet, pleasant nuts while others are bitter and astringent, and overall the species is considered inferior eating to shagbark or shellbark hickory. The nut is also small with a thick shell relative to the little kernel inside, so many foragers leave the crop for wildlife; a coastal variant (var. megacarpa) is reported to have a notably sweeter, better nut than the typical inland form.
- Hardiness
- Zone 4–9
- Habit
- Tree
- Edible part
- Nut
- Ripens
- Sept–Oct
- Mature size
- Large tree 20–30 m — not containerable
- Light
- Full sun
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.5 (near-neutral; lime-tolerant)
- Environment
- Temperate
- Native range
- Eastern North America — from southern Ontario and Massachusetts south to Florida and west to Texas and Illinois, typically on dry upland woods and slopes rather than bottomland.
- Status
- Wild
- Years to fruit
- 6–10 yrs
- Growth speed
- Slow-growing, reaching roughly 30 m tall by 20 m wide at maturity.
- Spacing
- 2000 cm (787 in) apart — about 400 m² (4306 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Pinnately compound, with 5 (occasionally 7) oblong-lanceolate to obovate leaflets with finely serrate margins; the terminal leaflet is noticeably larger than the lower pairs.
- Root system
- Strongly tap-rooted, sending a root down like a carrot rather than spreading laterally near the surface, which anchors the tree deeply but complicates transplanting.
- Fruit description
- A small, thin-husked, pear-shaped to nearly round nut with a very thick shell enclosing a small amount of kernel; flavor is unpredictable, ranging from sweet to bitter and astringent even between trees of the same population.
- Propagation
- Grown from seed, which needs cold stratification — three months of cold, moist stratification gave 91% germination in trials. It forms a strong taproot very early, so seed is best sown in deep pots or directly in situ, with seedlings moved to their permanent position in their first summer before the root becomes hard to move.
- Pollination
- DICHOGAMOUS — needs Type I + Type II cultivars (pecan); hickories benefit from a 2nd tree
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Succeeds in poorer, drier soils than most hickories and tolerates sandy, loamy or clay soils across a mildly acid to mildly alkaline pH range. It does not need routine feeding; a deep, moisture-retentive loam gives the best growth but is not essential.
How it spreads. A single-trunked, non-suckering tree that spreads only by seed, not by root suckers or clonal colonies.
Growing tips. Like all hickories, pignut hickory's deep taproot makes it very difficult to transplant successfully except when very young — seedlings should go into their final position early. Trees are slow to bear, typically taking 25–30 years to fruit with peak production around 80 years old, and are self-fertile but crop better with a second, genetically distinct tree nearby. Carya species hybridize readily where their ranges overlap, and pignut hickory is one of the more frequent parents of such wild hybrids.
Grow journal
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