And so it begins

Started yesterday shaking my earliest varietie pecan trees. Didn’t do a heavy shake on them and left a lot up in the trees that were not shuck split yet. Only hit 26 trees out of 110 and after ran through the cleaner ended up with 845#. Hope bye next weekend they will all be ready to hit the ground. Got to go back on squirrel and crow patrol till then. Moisture on these running about 14%. Need to dry em down to 5-6% before I run them through the sheller.

That's a lot of pecans. How many pounds of pecans will you harvest?

Keith

Think I’ve got another 4000# pounds hanging in my trees yet. Maybe a little more or a little less. Pretty good crop this year. Lost the top third of 4 trees this year due to the crop load and 50 mph wind storms. Will still end up with a nickel or two of fun money.

Saw some of the shellers in action at Duke's. Got my curiosity peaked on how they work. They all looked to be pretty old. Know of any sites where a guy can learn how they work?

Drifter, I’m running Savage equipment out of Madill Oklahoma. There are some you tube videos out there that shows the whole process, shaking,harvesting,cleaning and cracking. I’m running pretty small equipment compared to the big boys who have hundreds of acres of trees. They be farming for a living unlike me who is just piddling. The better variety’s do bring good money at 5-7 dollars a pound. Most farmers can’t survive the 10-15 years of nothing coming in and input’s continue to go out to get established.

There is a small old time hardware store in Batesville runs the same crackers. Have seen em run as many as 4 at a time and buys direct from Dukes in the BIG bags we used to get 2000 lbs of corn starch in when worked at US Gypsum. They run compressed air in these cracker/shellers and each nut fits into a moving slot. I have a habit of tearing things apart to see what makes them work LOL

Great 88. We use to buy them from a family in Summer Mo when we finished our goose hunt at Swan Lake. Those were the days

Those cracker/ shellers are pretty complex and had issues with the O-rings when they first came out. I imagine they have address that issue by now. I started with a cracker like everyone else used around here and it would drive you to drink. Had to change pocket’s in them all the time to fit the size of the nut. Top speed on them was 35 nuts a minute and that was just cracked. Customer still had to dig the meat out of the shell. I soon sold that and bought a new sheller on the market that didn’t care what size pecan you poured into it and would shell over 200 per minute, plus blow the shell off. It runs off a 110 moter. I have had to disassemble it and reweld and beef up some of the factory parts after a few years though. They do not like an occasional rock run through it with the pecans your pouring in.

LOL can see how a rock would be a real problem.

How trees/acre if I can ask?

I’m running 25 trees to the acre which is crowded. Gonna have to take some out in the next 5 or so years.