The Pecan Farming Process
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Tree Spraying
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Spraying trees throughout the year is one of the most important parts of the pecan growing process. Spraying is used to deliver nutrients such as zinc and nitrogen to the trees.
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Orchard Maintanence
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Maintaining a clean orchard floor is critical for harvesting. This entails removal of sticks, branches and keeping grass and weeds under control.
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Tree Shaking
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A tree shaker is used to remove pecans from the trees when the nuts are fully developed.
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Clean up
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After shaking the trees, dropped sticks have to be removed. All large limbs and sticks are removed by hand.
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Sweeping
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After the large limbs, sticks and other debris are removed, the pecans on the ground are swept into windrows.
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Windrow Maintenance
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After the pecans are swept into a windrow, we run the stick jack over the windrow. The stick jack removes additional sticks, leaves and grass.
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Harvesting
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The most exciting part of the pecan season is running the harvester!
We use a Savage harvester that sweeps the windrows with large rubber fingers like a broom to scoop all the pecans off the ground and into the hopper.
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Transport
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As the pecans are harvested, they are dumped from the harvester into carts or trailers to be moved out of the orchard.
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Cleaning
Once the pecans are gathered, they will be sorted with a field cleaner. The cleaner uses a high speed fan to remove rotten or low quality pecans while heavy pecans will pass through and on to a conveyor belt. There, heavy debris such as sticks or pecans that did not come out of their shuck are removed by hand. From the cleaner, pecans move up an elevator and into super sacks.
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Ready for sale
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After all the harvesting process, the pecans are finally ready to ship out to buyers to be processed.
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