The nuts are larger, abundant, and have a thick shell. The kernels are sweet, but difficult to crack out in large pieces. The Mocknut Hickory has the largest tree and produces the largest nuts with the thickest shells. Though the quality of the meats is excellent, they are seldom marketed due to the difficult extraction and low cracking percentage. Many nuts are either void, poorly filled during growing, or have other faults.
Yield is low.
Pignut Hickory Commonly called the oval pignut hickory, red hickory, redheart hickory, and sweet pignut, this nut falls from a lower 90 foot tall tree and is the most commonly found hickory in the Appalachian forest. The seeds are very light and it takes over 200 to make a pound. The hulls do not normally split from the nut, there fore dehulling is a separate operation not usually needed in other hickory varieties. The trees, however, are extremely prolific producers and large quantities of the nut can be raked up and cracked. They will produce until the tree is 175 years old.