How to tell if your conker is ready

The age old question of whether your conker is ready for battle is strongly linked to Nature’s Calendar’s quest for the date you see the first ripe conker. I’ll give you my top tips for knowing when a conker is ripe and ready.

When is a conker ready?

Conkers are the seed of the horse chestnut tree. Do not pick them from the tree, they will not be ripe and may still be soft in the middle.

The horse chestnut will drop the conkers to the ground naturally when they are ripe (this is when our recorders tell us they have seen their first ripe conker of the year). You may see the spiny green husk crack open to reveal the shiny precious seed within.

The best time to collect them is when they first fall to the ground for a couple of reasons.

• If you leave them on the ground and they get soggy they might start to rot and go squishy – no good for conker battles.
• If you leave them, someone else will pinch them!

How to prepare your conker for a game?

So the time is right, you have your freshly fallen conkers, all that’s left to do is decide how to prep your conkers for victory. You could try some of the following methods.

• Dry them out for a year. If you are a real forward planner you will already have a batch from last year which have dried out nicely in a cupboard… if not stash a few to dry for next year.
• If you can’t wait that long, bake them on a baking tray in the oven at 120°C for two hours (get help from an adult if you need it). Once they have cooled down they are ready.
• Pickle them in vinegar for a few days. Some people believe in this method.
• If you are extremely dedicated you might even feed them to a pig and collect them again when they emerge from the other end! Take note that conkers are not suitable for human consumption, they contain a chemical poisonous to humans but not to pigs.

Once you are satisfied that your conker is ready, drill a hole through it, lace it onto about 50 cm of string and tie it on, then find yourself a worthy opponent. Take it in turns for one person to hold their conker string at arm’s length and the other to aim their conker at their opponent’s whilst holding onto the other end. Time to find out whose conker will crack under the pressure and whose will remain intact.

Get our top tips on playing a game of conkers.

There are other fun things to do with conkers as well as battling them against each other. Check out our Nature Detective’s conker craft blog for ideas.

Let us know when you find your first ripe conker

If you are regularly out and about looking for conkers, or other wildlife, let us know the date of the first ripe conker you see which has fallen to the ground naturally.

We use your data to study the impacts of climate change. If fruits, such as conkers, ripen early and there are lots of them it suggests spring and summer were warm and sunny causing early flowering and fast ripening. Late and small harvests of conkers would suggest colder conditions delayed flowering and ripening.

Free desktop calendar download

Download your conker calendar to remind you what to look out for this month.