Walnut Harvest

Pictured is a de-sticking machine that removes sticks from the rows of nuts. It replaces laborers who would use the rakes standing in front of it.

Walnut harvest has come early this year. With our son and daughter not able to help with harvest this year and not much success in hiring reliable workers this past summer we looked into buying another piece of equipment to get rid of the need for so much handwork.

We are now the owners of a de-sticking machine. For about the price of a new car we can now remove the sticks out of the rows of walnuts by machine instead of using labors with rakes.

The harvest process starts by shaking the nuts out of the trees with a machine that grabs onto the limbs and shakes the nuts loose. Nuts then fall to the ground with sticks, limbs and sometimes small branches, especially from the older trees. Next someone comes along the rows with a sweeper. It has a large head with a rotating drum fitted with fingers to scoot the nuts into rows. It usually takes three or four passes per row to end up with a row of nuts narrow enough to be picked up.

The next thing to do would usually be workers with rakes coming along and removing all the sticks and putting them into piles between the trees to be picked up later. But now, our new machine is next to go down the rows pulled by a tractor. It straddles the nut rows as the de-sticker picks the sticks out and dumps them into the bin at the back. When the bin is full it is taken to the burn pile where it dumps out like a regular dump truck would. This also saves from going back and picking up the piles of sticks later.

After the sticks are removed from the rows the pickup machine goes down each row picking up the nuts and dumping them into a cart pulled behind it. When the cart is full another worker is waiting to change the cart with an empty one and takes the full one to be unloaded onto an elevator that dumps them into a large truck.

When the truck is full it is taken to a huller to have any hulls still on the nuts removed and then they also dry the nuts. We do not have a huller or dryer so we have them done for us. From there they are trucked to our packer who sizes and grades the nuts, then sells them for us. Most of our nuts are sold in-shell to the overseas market. Those that do not make the grade go to a shelling plant to be shelled, packed and shipped to buyers.

That may be the end of harvest but the work for the walnut farmer is never done. Winter time is for pruning the trees and repairing equipment. Springtime brings the need for fertilizer and spraying for blight. Summertime we watch for and spray bugs, irrigate and mow weeds. Before we know it harvest time comes again. No time to be lazy here!