Let Me Impress You With the Caroni Finishing Mower.....

[tcartwri]

They used a hydraulic post hole digger on the front end loader on a small John Deere tractor.

They did good getting them straight in line.

They sure did, it looks great.

 

[Utopia Texas]

They used a hydraulic post hole digger on the front end loader on a small John Deere tractor.

They did good getting them straight in line.

View attachment 419081

View attachment 419082

I like the way you painted your soil to match your barn!

 

[Xfaxman]

I like the way you painted your soil to match your barn!

:laughing: Yep, rocks too!

The rock pile.

 

[Utopia Texas]

:laughing: Yep, rocks too!

View attachment 419087

View attachment 419088

Nice paper mâché rocks! Light enough to pick up by hand....mow...then put back in to place! :cool2:

 

[varmint]

Never had seen a fence like that. Here in Maryland, the "better" fences are 4 board horse fences... locust posts with oak fence boards. Painted white, if you are a gentleman breeder. I imagine your fence installers had a bit of experience doing what they do. Best of all, looks like it will last and last! Curious how you harvest the pecans? Do you "shake" the trees onto canvas cloths??

 

[Xfaxman]

Nice paper mâché rocks! Light enough to pick up by hand....mow...then put back in to place! :cool2:

Yep, this is my rock pick up hand.

 

[Utopia Texas]

Never had seen a fence like that. Here in Maryland, the "better" fences are 4 board horse fences... locust posts with oak fence boards. Painted white, if you are a gentleman breeder. I imagine your fence installers had a bit of experience doing what they do. Best of all, looks like it will last and last! Curious how you harvest the pecans? Do you "shake" the trees onto canvas cloths??

Folks with smaller Pecan trees or "Po Folk" use a long cane pole to thrash the limbs and get the nuts to fall to the ground on a sheet or army surplus parachute. Commercially we use shakers which are large three point hydraulic hands that grab the pecan tree trunk about 4 feet off the ground, clamp on the trunk with a rubber lined hand, and then violently shake/vibrate the tree for about 20 seconds and all the nuts and hundreds of small rotten limbs come down to the ground.
Commercial pecan harvesters are 8 foot wide encased drums run by tractor PTO that have hundreds of 10" long rubber fingers that sweep everything off the ground including Pecans, rocks, sticks, leaves, spent shot gun shells etc. This sweeping action throws everything collected on a 8 foot wide revolving wire conveyor towards the back of the unit. The wire conveyer looks like chain link fence. Anything smaller than the holes such as Pecans, rocks and small sticks fall through the chain mesh to a conveyer and then a hopper. Stuff that does not fall through the holes such as leaves and larger sticks are blown out the back by way of a huge fan. Once the pecans, rocks and small sticks fill the hopper it can be hydraulicly lifted and dumped into a trailer.
After all this, in the covered barn, there is a cleaner that separates the heavier/good pecans from the rocks, sticks, small twigs and empty/lighter Pecans called "pops" and also sprays a light chlorine solution on the Pecan shells to semi sterilize the shells. From cleaning they go through a rotating sizer, then crackers, then shellers and finally into a meat sizer that separates the pecan meat into 1/2's, large pieces and finally small pieces.
Now you know why Pecan meat costs so much due to all of the machinery and I did not even go into the machinery it takes to grow a orchard to plant, mow, maintain, irrigate, spray etc. It is a hugely labor intensive crop commercially even with all the machinery. For example on just one type of machine, we have 50 year old Meyer mechanical crackers using 100 year old technology that can crack 60 pecans per minute and the used/refurbished machines can still be bought for about 5k each. The newer computer/pneumatic Pecan crackers can crack over 10,000 pecans per minute but cost around 250k per unit. There are smaller non computer controlled units but those I have witnessed are not reliable IMO.
PS- Another reason Pecans can be so expensive is that a lot of the U.S. crop goes to China. The grower does not make any more selling to the Chinese but the middle men/paper shufflers do! The Chinese are crazy about Pecans but do not eat them like Americans. They crack the shells and then soak the whole pecans in a extreme brine solution. They are sold to the Chinese public still in shell and the consumer finishes cracking them open to get to the meat. I have tried Pecans this way and the salt content/flavor is so high most Americans would be running for a glass of water after eating just a few !

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Y

Folks with smaller Pecan trees or "Po Folk" use a long cane pole to thrash the limbs and get the nuts to fall to the ground on a sheet or army surplus parachute. Commercially we use shakers which are large three point hydraulic hands that grab the pecan tree trunk about 4 feet off the ground, clamp on the trunk with a rubber lined hand, and then violently shake/vibrate the tree for about 20 seconds and all the nuts and hundreds of small rotten limbs come down to the ground.
Commercial pecan harvesters are 8 foot wide encased drums run by tractor PTO that have hundreds of 10" long rubber fingers that sweep everything off the ground including Pecans, rocks, sticks, leaves, spent shot gun shells etc. This sweeping action throws everything collected on a 8 foot wide revolving wire conveyor towards the back of the unit. The wire conveyer looks like chain link fence. Anything smaller than the holes such as Pecans, rocks and small sticks fall through the chain mesh to a conveyer and then a hopper. Stuff that does not fall through the holes such as leaves and larger sticks are blown out the back by way of a huge fan. Once the pecans, rocks and small sticks fill the hopper it can be hydraulicly lifted and dumped into a trailer.
After all this, in the covered barn, there is a cleaner that separates the heavier/good pecans from the rocks, sticks, small twigs and empty/lighter Pecans called "pops" and also sprays a light chlorine solution on the Pecan shells to semi sterilize the shells. From cleaning they go through a rotating sizer, then crackers, then shellers and finally into a meat sizer that separates the pecan meat into 1/2's, large pieces and finally small pieces.
Now you know why Pecan meat costs so much due to all of the machinery and I did not even go into the machinery it takes to grow a orchard to plant, mow, maintain, irrigate, spray etc. It is a hugely labor intensive crop commercially even with all the machinery. For example on just one type of machine, we have 50 year old Meyer mechanical crackers using 100 year old technology that can crack 60 pecans per minute and the used/refurbished machines can still be bought for about 5k each. The newer computer/pneumatic Pecan crackers can crack over 10,000 pecans per minute but cost around 250k per unit. There are smaller non computer controlled units but those I have witnessed are not reliable IMO.
PS- Another reason Pecans can be so expensive is that a lot of the U.S. crop goes to China. The grower does not make any more selling to the Chinese but the middle men/paper shufflers do! The Chinese are crazy about Pecans but do not eat them like Americans. They crack the shells and then soak the whole pecans in a extreme brine solution. They are sold to the Chinese public still in shell and the consumer finishes cracking them open to get to the meat. I have tried Pecans this way and the salt content/flavor is so high most Americans would be running for a glass of water after eating just a few !

Interesting, do you ever take on shelling other farm's pecans?

After decades of growing peanuts in Lee county, the decades old sheller closed a few years back. Their equipment was very old.

 

[Utopia Texas]

Yes, I processed Pecans from other local orchards for 40 years but am retired now and only use the machinery for my own use. Even with all the machinery including fork lifts in the barn throwing around 150 sacks of Pecans until 2am every morning during harvesting season finally wore me down. Harvesting, cracking and shelling also produces buckets of pecan dust every hour and wearing a filtered mask all the time finally became tiresome. It is grueling, dirty work for younger folks not someone in their 60's !

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Interesting about the native pecans. My buddy has a house that part of it was built in1900. Behind it is the biggest pecan tree I've ever seen. Maybe 4 feet in diameter at the trunk? Anyway, it makes these tiny pecans that are so hard to shell, it's not worth it doing it by hand for the amount of meat you get for a reward. Maybe I can take them to a sheller somewhere for a fee and make some of this native pecan pie that you say is so good.