Is anyone out there in the pecan harvesting business? We have a native pecan orchard and would like to share ideas about the best ways to manage pecan orchards and harvest pecans.
Southernman, you didn't say how big that orchard is, how many trees, what kind of shape it's in right now, etc. I only had a dozen pecan trees on my own place, although the adjoining property had a lot more and the owner told me I was welcome to them because he didn't mess with them at all. So I only sold a few that I picked up by hand. However, there was also a retired airline pilot in the neighborhood who had an orchard of about 8,000 trees (several different varieties), so he had his own tree shaker, a big machine that looked like a street sweeper with a really big hopper to pick them up, conveyor belts and shakers to clean, sort, bag, etc., and some hired hands of course, and told me once that he sprays 5 times a year. Another friend, who had about 50 trees, found someone in the business with the machinery and they would come harvest them on the halves. Several years ago an uncle in Oklahoma, handled his the really easy way. There are (or were) folks in the business who would come out early in the year, inspect the trees while the pecans were still green, and pay him in advance for what they thought they would be able to get. Then they came back in the Fall and harvested the pecans with their machinery. Now the guy I know with the 8,000 trees just lets them grow to whatever natural size they want to, and he does no artificial irrigation, while I know of another huge commercial orchard where they keep all the trees pruned to a uniform size, and have a sprinkler system that runs for 24 hours once a week for irrigation. In other words, there are lots of alternatives, and my suggestion would be to contact your county extension agent, both for information on how to care for your place, and for information about people to contact who are in the business.
<font color="blue"> a big machine that looked like a street sweeper with a really big hopper to pick them up. </font color>
That sounds a little different than the shakers they use for Cherries. Do I take it the pecans fall to the ground and are swept up? On the cherry shakers, there is a metal frame that goes around the tree and holds a canvas that catches the fruit before it hits the ground. The canvas is tilted and the cherries roll off into containers.
Steve, I've heard of, but not seen, using a canvas to spread on the ground around a pecan tree to catch them when they fell. But yes, the machine I was talking about has a big rotary broom and sweeps the pecans up off the ground, along with lots of leaves, small twigs, dust, etc. It's then dumped onto a "conveyor" (actually not a belt, but a noisy metal conveyor) and I can't think of a way to describe it, but it doesn't run smooth, it shakes or vibrates, and it's got lots of holes for dust to fall through and guys standing beside it pick out the twigs and stuff that doesn't fall through the conveyor. And by some method I don't understand at all, it even sorts out bad pecans (something to do with their weight I think) and dumps them on a huge pile just outside the building. Then finally a series of conveyors with different sized holes sort and drop them into burlap bags hanging underneath. I only visited there twice; once when the conveyors were running; terribly noisy and I didn't stay long.
Never seen any cherry pickin' 'cept for the few I've picked myself just by hand.
Bird: Thanks for the information. An 8000 tree orchard is a huge orchard.
We have about 1200 native pecan trees in our orchard. The orchard is part of a row crop and cattle operation my wife manages for her mother. First you shake the trees with a pto driven shaker. Then you pick up the big sticks that fall from the trees. We have a pto driven harvester that I pull with a Mahindra 4110 tractor to pick up the pecans (and whatever else is on the ground). Tha harvester is about 5 feet wide and has rubber fingers that rotate on a drum and sweep up whatever is on the ground. We use an 18 h.p. cleaning machine to remove most of the trash and bag the pecans. Picking up the sticks after shaking the trees can be very labor intensive. I'd like to know if others in the business are using large or small stick rakes to pick up sticks after the trees are shaken.
Aaah, OK, you're already well into a good sized operation. Like I said, I only visited that big operation briefly on two occasions; both times with a neighbor who knew the owner. The first time we went was because the neighbor wanted to show me the tree shaker the guy made himself out the remains of an International pickup truck. It "looked" impressive, but I never saw it in operation. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] And I know about the sticks that fall from pecan trees 'cause I spent enough time picking them up from under my own trees. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] But I don't know what the commercial operations do about that.
Each year in Navarro County, the county agent, along with a local supermarket, put on a "pecan grading" school, exhibition, or whatever you want to call it. I never went to it, but read about it in the newspaper every year. I did pick up some literature from the county agent on pecan production in Texas, and that's the reason I thought your county agent would be a good place to get information.
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