Category: Filberts

Orchard Work Continues

This time of year it sure feels like we spend a whole lot of time out in our hazelnut orchards!  Last week during all the freezing weather, while we were flailing, we were also knocking trees over.  Which may seem strange, but it was time!final-18

Filbert or hazelnut trees need a certain amount of room to grow.  The sun needs to get down into the branches and those branches need to have room to stretch out in order for them to produce to their highest potential.  Our trees have been in a constant cycle of removal for about the past 8 years.  We have done it in cycles mostly because of the windows of opportunities that you get, when we have the labor, and also when we have the time to get this job accomplished.final-19

Well last week we took out the last trees that needed to be removed, and I can thankfully say, while this job isn’t over yet, it’s well on it’s way.  I’ll say here that one of the hardest things about tree removal is all mental.  When the prices are good for nuts you want to leave the trees in, knowing that for the first few years you will have a dramatic decrease in yield until the trees that remain can catch back up.  So more nuts, is more money.  But then when the prices are down you think, “Shoot I can’t take the trees out this year, we need all the nuts we can get because the price is so low.”  You see what I mean…it’s a battle.  So this year while harvesting we noticed that the yields were dropping in the areas we hadn’t thinned, the trees needed the room, it was time (no matter what the price!).  final-21

Here is a video of how the thinning was done.  We planted originally on a square grid of 18′ by 18′.  Then we thinned, or pushed over the trees on a diagonal.  Leaving a diamond pattern of 18′ by 36′.  This will give room for the tree branches to stretch, and the sun to get into the canopy.

Meanwhile we are also out pruning suckers that grow from the base of the tree, and pruning out blight.  Basically from the day we finish harvest in the fall until spring, there isn’t a day that we don’t have someone working out in those trees.

Next step will be pulling those trees out of the orchard, which is another blog post in itself. And hopefully not a too muddy of one. Who knows, maybe more freezing weather will help us get that job done with little mess too!

Flailing in the Freeze

The work around here never really ends, it just changes with the weather.  We always have jobs lined up for “Once the sun comes out”, “Once the rain stops”, “Once the water goes down”, or “Once the ground freezes.” Flailing the orchards was on the list for this week’s freezing weather, currently it’s in the 20’s here.  (And yes I know…that’s basically balmy when compared to the rest of the country).

When the leaves fall in our hazelnut orchards we try to find opportunities to get out there with the flail and break up the leaves.  Unfortunately once the leaves fall, not far behind is usually that famous Oregon rain.  We don’t want to rut up our orchard floors because of the mud, so our opportunity to go out and chop up the leaves is saved for either very dry weather or very cold weather. This year we didn’t get much dry, so we were looking froward to some cold.  And this week we got what we were looking for.final-17

So why bother flailing at all?  Well, flailing up the leaves helps them to break down faster, putting nutrients back into the soil.  It also acts as a mulch for our orchard floors.  It helps us too when we go to push brush out of the orchards from pruning.  If we try to push through all those leaves many times we just pull them out of the orchard with the branches.  When the leaf pieces are smaller they tend to fall back down and stay on the ground.  Good for us, good for the worms, good for the soil!final-14

We don’t always get the chance to do this project, but I can tell you being the one inside a tractor when it’s only 20 degrees is about the best job on the farm right now!final-13

Stay warm out there!! Happy Friday!

 

Hazelnut Harvest & a New Harvester (for a day)

Well we got all our filberts (hazelnuts) in before the monsoon weather hit this past weekend.  It was a good reminder that not all harvests go as smoothly as they have the past three years with only dust to complain about…mud is much worse!  But we got all of our orchards picked up twice, so I’m not complaining one bit!


The process of harvesting is no small task.  You have to first wait for the nuts to fall on the ground naturally (no tree shaking around here).  Once down a sweeper goes up and down each row twice.  It sweeps the nuts into the center of the trees one way and blows the nuts out from under the tree the other way, making a windrow between the trees.  


A harvester pulled by a tractor then strattles that windrow, and using a belt pick up system, the nuts are pulled off the ground into the harvester. 


The nuts are then go over a dirt chain to let dirt fall through the cracks, through a fan that sucks out leaves and blank shells, then finally into a dump cart. 


We then unload the dump cart into totes to be taken to the truck loading area.  

Hazelnut Cart Unloading 2016

The full totes are then lifted into the truck and dumped, using a hyster with rotator forks.  

After they leave our farm the hazelnuts are washed and dried at a processor.  This is done in 8 days or less so as to avoid any mold growing.  Once the nuts are dried, they are preserved and can be bagged for storage.

Like I said, harvest went well for us this year, but it’s always interesting to see what is new out in the world for harvesting equipment.  So when I was asked if we would be interested in trying out a new all in one harvester the answer was simple. 

The next day Pape Machinery brought over a Monchiero Harvester.  We were pretty excited to try it, mostly because it takes the multitude of steps I described above to get the nuts from the field to the truck, and shrinks them into an all in one machine!


This harvester sweeps and harvests, and once we got it all set right, it did an excellent job!

Here are a few photos I took of the machine in action, along with a video.  


Monchiero Harvester 2016


Monchiero Harvester Unloading 2016

One big upside I can see to having a machine like this is the ability to just go and start harvesting.  There is no waiting around for a sweeper to get an orchard prepared, no hesitation about how many rows you should sweep ahead of the harvester, it just takes a lot of the second guessing out of harvest.  If you get a window, it would only take you and one other worker to get the job accomplished.  Today on our farm it’s a 4 man job to get our harvest done, taking valuable time away from other fall work like planting and soil preparations.

A big thank you to Pape Machinery for bringing out such a great machine to help us finish up our harvest!

For more hazelnut harvest photos and videos check out some of my past posts.