Begin , alan@holmes-
g4crw.freeserve.co.uk quote...

I've never seen this happen before, but whilst the nuts are still on the
tree, the husks are splitting and letting the nuts fall to the ground.

In the past I've had to collect the nuts whilst still in the husks and r
emove the husks to get at the nuts.

Is this common, and why haven't I noticed it before?

We've had a very dry September (at least in Leicester and afaict much of
middle England) . I would guess that they are drying out too much on the
tree due to lack of moisture. Is the tree in a particularly well
draining area? Has it rained there in the last fortnight more than the
tiniest drizzles we've seen? At this time of year, you would expect some
bigger rain storms that'd help in the final build up of the nut with a
bit of dry later to ripen them off.

If this is the case, I would suspect that you may be able to rescue some
of the crop with a deep soak, running a hose over the estimated root
area for several hours to get some moisture back into the ground.

Warwick