Content

• Steps
• Tips
• Warnings
• What do you need

Pecan is a nut tree native to the Mississippi River Valley. Pecans are widespread in the Southwestern United States and lower Texas and northern Mexico — wherever there is fertile soil, hot summers, and cold winters.Pecan nuts are a favorite product of bakers and confectioners, especially during the fall and holidays.

Collecting nuts after they have fallen to the ground is quite tedious, tedious, but with a little preparation and using the right tools, you can enjoy manually picking them, especially on a cool autumn day.

Steps

1. 1 "Watching when the pecan is about to fall." Pecans can start falling early in September to November. Harvesting preparations should be done shortly before the nuts begin to fall, given the weather conditions.
2. 2 Find out that the nuts of the intended tree are worth the effort you are going to put into it. Some trees may be of poor quality nuts or due to out of season, insufficient fertile soil and nutrients, or poor genetics of this particular product. Here are examples of reasons that affect the quality of a nut:
   • Uncrossed trees produce seedlings that are usually no larger than oak acorns with very hard shells making it too difficult to reach the kernel. Even hybrid trees with a poor gene pool can have bad genetics.
   • Poor growing conditions result from dry springs and summer, which does not give a good harvest, especially when no irrigation is carried out and the soil is not sufficiently moistened.
   • Low levels of essential nutrients in the soil, especially nitrogen, as well as trace elements such as zinc, iron, manganese, can significantly reduce the quality of nuts.
   • Insect infestation, such as various types of caterpillars that build spider webs, budworm caterpillars, and so on, pecan weevils can seriously harm the health of trees and the nut itself.
   • Late frost or frost can damage the flowers and buds of the pecan tree by reducing the number of nuts during or after the flowering period.
3. 3 "Check the tree for signs of yield, quality and quantity." In late summer, the pecans reach their full size, including the rind. You should know what size the nut will be when the skin is dry and peeled off. Keep in mind that the peel represents about 25-30% of the nut's total mass, so the nut is much larger while it is peeled than after the peel has fallen off.
4. 4 "Watch out for the beginning of the peeling." When a significant part of the nut skin is cracked and peeled off, it's time to peel it under the tree. Clear debris under the tree to the ground and preferably level the ground. This is all that is needed for this stage. And for trees among the lawn or grass and even weeds, it will take more work.
5. 5 “Walk the lawn mower on the lawn under the tree”, walking around it as close to the tree trunk as possible, but so that the clippings do not fly towards it. This way the lawnmower can throw weeds and other debris away from the tree. Continue mowing for at least another 10-15 feet outside the crown of the tree so that you can see the nuts falling off the edge while harvesting. Strong winds can blow off fallen nuts quite far from the tree.
6. 6 “Collect pecans when they start to fall, as wet weather harms the nuts, and if not harvested in time, wild animals, birds, rodents or insects prowling for food can get ahead of you. Pecans are especially fond of crows and squirrels, as well as deer and others.
7. 7 “Pile or blow off the leaves,” use a blower if possible, as it will be extremely difficult to find nuts among a pile of leaves of the same color.
8. 8 Harvest using the method that suits your conditions.
   
   
   • "Bend over and collect" the nuts. If the first few nuts don't require a more advanced pick, you can simply bend over and pick the individual nuts under the tree. Use a container for nuts, such as an empty 5 gallon plastic bucket. This is a very effective nut picking technique for the strong and energetic. Many people think that crawling on their knees is enough for picking nuts.
   • Use a pecan picker if crawling or bending is too difficult for you. There are several options for short handle devices, but most are a wire spring structure with a small container to hold the nuts. The spring presses on the nut, and it, in turn, pushes the spring rings and passes between them, falling into the container. To prevent the nuts from spilling onto the ground, periodically empty the nut container into a bucket or other container.
   • Use a hand-held rotary nut picker. These are simple devices that act like a reel-type lawnmower, holding the nuts between flexible rollers or “feelers” and placing them in a container. Most of these inventions, along with this, pick up a lot of unnecessary garbage, therefore, in order to avoid unnecessary work on separating the nuts from the garbage, it is important that everything under the tree is cleaned first.
   • Hire a nut picker for harvesting in large areas of the garden. The pickers work on tractor-driven vehicles that literally clear the gardens. It will be even less energy intensive and more efficient when used in conjunction with a hydraulic tree shaker, but that is not the main topic of this article.
9. 9 "Select deformed or damaged nuts" after you have finished picking. If you are not going to chop and peel the pecans yourself, you can hire someone to process these nuts. If you are going to sell nuts because of substandard and damaged nuts, the buyer may understate the price. It is especially felt when you sell to a wholesaler who carefully sorts the purchased product, ensuring its quality. External signs that help determine the quality of pecans are as follows:
   • Colour. Good nuts should have the same color. Some species, such as Stewart and Donaldson, have stripes near the end, and a strong difference between the stripe color (usually black) and shell (light brown) is a sign of a good nut.
   • Shell shape. Pecans have the inner part of the shell, through which nutrients enter the veins, then go through the soft shell from the eye to the tip. If dry weather, depletion of soil resources, or infestation of insects stops the feeding process, the nut tapers towards the tip, which means that the kernel stops growing.
   • Sound. It may sound unusual, but pecans, when piled in a pile, make a distinctive sound. Empty sounding means that the nut is not full enough, while good, full nuts make a solid sound, even if they are knocked against each other in the hand. When picking pecans, shake them, crack a few suspicious-sounding ones, and over time you will develop an experience of hearing good, full-bodied nuts.
   • Weight. Although individual nuts weigh very little, an experienced picker, especially a picker by hand, will quickly notice the particular weight difference between full nuts and lower quality ones.
10. 10 "Put pecans in storage bags." Typically, pecans can be stored in loose bags in a cool place for several weeks after harvest. The quality of the nuts will even improve, especially those harvested early, helping them to ripen. Don't skip the ripening stage. Unripe nuts are difficult to chop and peel. Freezing stops the ripening process, so make sure the nuts are ripe before freezing. Freezing allows you to store nuts for much longer with virtually no harm to their quality. Remember, nature has provided nuts with a solid shell, an almost perfect storage tank.
11. 11 Shell the nuts. If you are fortunate enough to have a nut processing equipment, chop the nuts in it. You can inquire about the availability of similar equipment on local farms, as many farms have it. This service costs about 25 to 40 cents per pound (half a kilo). If you want to chop nuts yourself, you can buy a nut cracker for this.

Tips

• Enjoy the process. Try not to work alone and to the point of exhaustion.Of course, the faster and more efficiently you finish collecting, the better, but why not also enjoy the fresh autumn air while you work.
• Watch when the nuts begin to fall. It often happens that some branches give more yield, or fall off a little at a different time. It may be better to focus your efforts on specific areas under the tree.
• An early harvest usually pays off if you are going to sell it. Most of the pecans sold in the US wholesale markets are bought for holiday baked goods, and the early market prices are the best of the year.
• Keep nuts separate from different trees, especially nuts that are very different in size, to make them easier to clean and sell. Peeling machines or manual peels are set to a specific size of nuts, so larger and coarser nuts may not be split correctly.
• Keeping the ground under the tree clean is one of the most important steps in making harvesting a pleasure. Thorns, weeds, and other grasses make it difficult to find and collect carefully camouflaged nuts.
• In the past, aprons were used to collect nuts, some even made a kangaroo-like bag out of them, where they put the nuts until they were full and then dumped the nuts in a bucket or sack.

Warnings

• Judge correctly when to start harvesting. Prolonged tilting while picking nuts can lead to back pain.
• Watch out for insects while collecting. Fire ants are annoying pests that feed on fallen and split animal nuts. When starting to pick nuts in the garden, be careful if you are allergic to fire ants or bees.

What do you need

• Container for collecting nuts
• Pecan Harvesting Tool
• Comfortable durable clothing