Passage III

Nut Harvesting in the Amazon

Brazil nut trees are found not only in Brazil. One of the most productive areas for gathering the tasty, nutritious Brazil nut is in a remote corner of Peru in the Amazon Rain Forest. Enrique Ortiz, a biologist for the National Museum of Natural History, knows the area well. For more than eight years, Ortiz has been studying Brazil nuts.

A single pod of Brazil nuts (which are actually seeds) weighs nearly six pounds, so when it falls from a tree eight stories high, it has the force to cause serious injury. Despite the danger, Ortiz and his fellow scientists are committed to their research project, the team of eight keeps watch over about 1,000 Brazil nut trees. They count every pod that falls and tally them so that castanieros (nut harvesters) can gather the most nuts in the least amount of time.

As Ortiz well knows, the castarieros must time their nut gathering perfectly. The mature pods, each holding up to twenty-five Brazil nuts, fall during Peru's rainy season. If the castanieros arrive too early, they must wait for the pods to fall. If they arrive too late, large rodents called agoutis will have buried the pods to eat later for future meals. (37)

Ortiz has also been studying how the agouti helps the Brazil nut tree to survive. The agouti's strong teeth can open the thick pods to free the seeds that may eventually sprout into future trees. Complicating their goals, Ortiz and his team opened 120 pods, attached a magnetic strip to each seed, and the pods were glued back together. The agoutis rounded up the pods as usual. Six months later, the researchers can be able to track down the sprouted seeds to find out how far the rodents had carried them.

Ortiz's painstaking work provides a clear picture of how the Brazil nut tree, with the help of the agouti, replenish themselves. The survival of the tree is essential to the South American economy, since about annually $44 million worth of Brazil nuts are sold.