After a couple of hard frosts over the weekend, we began harvesting pecans today (photo above). Although the shucks of all our cultivars have split, only the earliest ripening pecans were dry enough to harvest. Pecans, like all grain crops, should be less than 12% moisture at harvest so that they can be stored without danger of molding. Pecans harvested at a higher moisture content must be dried with forced air to prevent spoilage (again just like grain crops).
Today we harvested Osage, Jayhawk, Shepherd, Norton, Henning, Grotjan, Canton, and USDA 64-11-17. The tree being harvested in the photo above is Osage. All of the cultivars harvested today split their shucks a month ago in late September. The first day of harvest is also a good day to work out potential problems with our harvesting equipment. Thankfully, everything ran smoothly!