Pecan Harvesting

We are nearing the end of harvest and I've managed to get a few photos and videos for those of you who are curious.  If you want to see some good photos of the Planting and Growing of the trees, you can go to my post here: http://mcnaughts.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/planting-and-growing.html.  Not much has changed about that :). 

Many of you may not know that there are different kinds of pecans.  I know I didn't!  I don't think they tell you which types you are buying at the shops either.  The just label everything Pecans.  But then I don't buy them at the shops any more so I could be wrong.  If you wanted a little game to learn or see the different types Kaye and David grow you can go here: http://mcnaughts.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/guess-that-pecan.html

The harvesting itself changed just a bet the more automated we go and the bigger the trees and farm gets.  The majority of the manual labour is done in the paddock of course.  David drives a tractor that has a shaker on it.  He shakes the trees and the nuts fall down.  The trees get 2-3 shakes about 3 weeks apart.  If it's dry enough and the trees have enough nuts, we use tarps to catch the nuts.  Here is a video. Dragging Tarps for Harvest

Once the tarps get too full and heavy, we bin the nuts to take them back to the shed for sorting.

Binning the nuts after pulling tarps

If the ground is too wet, or if the trees have only a few nuts on them (like on the 3rd shake) then we pick them up manually. Picking up Nuts manually

Here is a video of the sorting machine.  They stopped the nuts flowing through halfway but I think you will get the picture.  We start by pouring all the binned nuts into a larger bin, then the nuts go up a conveyor belt and drop down to be separated, the rubbish from the nuts.  The nuts are heavier so they drop down one side and the rubbish, being lighter, goes the other way. We still need to watch each side as a few slip in both ways. The Pecan Sorting machine

The person on the pecan side of the sorter also has to watch for pecans that are cracked, sprouting, too small, etc.  Check out this post for a fun game to see if you would be good at Quality Control. http://mcnaughts.blogspot.com.au/2009/05/sorting-fun-guessing-game.html

Once the sorting is done we always sweep and clean up after each sort.  On a good day, we sort in the morning while the dew is drying, then shake until lunch.  Then sort in the shade during the hot part of the day, the shake again come late afternoon.  I will have another post later about what happens after they are sorted, but I'll leave you with some photos.