The Brazil Nut (Bertholletia excelsa)

Bertholletia excelsa Brazil nuts are wild tree nuts that grow in the tropical rainforest. Castanheiro do Para is the Brazilian name of this tree found in many states of the Amazon, such as Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador. It is most common in Brazilian Mara Hao, Mato Grosso, Acre, Para, Rondia and Amazon. The trees are large and often reach a height of over 160 feet. Fruit is a large spherical wooden capsule or pod with an average diameter of 6 inches and a weight of up to 5 pounds.

Flowers of Brazilian nuts (Bertholletia excelsa) depend on bees for pollination, when they pollinate, fruits containing about 20 kinds of nuts develop and fell to the forest floor 15 months later. If not collected, the only way you can already remove the seeds already on the ground is when a rodent like auuje or agouti opens the fruit. I have lived in the Madre de Dios area for nearly five years and fortunately saw some Castañros in the Tambopata National Reserve where legally permitted sustainable harvest. I especially remember Benigno 'Nino' ​​Herrera and Vilma Herrera Zegarra. Nino keeps in touch with me, and we are good friends today. I know her family and the Tambovata National Reserve Castanet Association (ASCART) to which they belong, but I did not see much of Burma.

Ten years later, while working at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), I was able to visit the forest of Brazil nuts in the Tambo Pata National Reserve. This time I brought my best friend Nino and son of Burma Kenny, and in addition to being Castanero, she took me to his mother's nuts tree in Brazil. Despite the rainy season, we are still blessed with good weather while on our trip. In order to reach the destination, we took a boat trip along the Madre de Dios river for several hours and traced a stream called Palma Real Chico half an hour to the captain of the Kenny family of the Tambopata National Reserve. There, he told us about how to use payana and basket to harvest fruit.

This is actually a perfect example of a useful physical technique called Brazil nuts effect. When opening a container of mixed nut named like this, Brazil nuts (almost nobody likes) always seems to be at the top. The general rule is that when you shake a mixture the largest items are always on top. why? Imagine you are waving a mix nut container. As things go, there are various gaps between the nuts. Small items may fall into large gaps or small gaps, but large items can fall only to large gaps, so small items are more likely to fall, so small items move down steadily as a result It will be. Large items steadily rise above them