- Okay, this is good. I'm having a goggle up, that tells me that it's getting real. (ambient music) So this is my dad and this is his front porch. And what do you see from your front porch? - 18 pecan trees. - [Destin] And why are pecan trees important to our family? - Because that was a punishment that I had after I got caught hot roddin' my daddy's is '62 Ford and he said, "Well, what are you want? Do you want to be grounded or do you want a whippin'?" I said, "I'd rather have the whippin'." And he said, "Let me think about it, I'll get back with you
in a couple of days." So he went to work and asked his friend at work, what he should do... - At NASA?
- At NASA. - And one of those guys says, "You've been wanting
some pecan trees, Fess. I would put that boy in your blue truck, take him down to South Georgia, and I'd get some pecan seedlings, bring them back and I'd make that boy plant
pecan trees in your yard." It took me all summer to do it. A five-foot pecan tree has about a five-foot taproot. So you got to dig a deep hole. - [Destin] So the idea was something that you wouldn't forget. - Yes. And it worked. Every day when I come out and I see these pecan
limbs laying on the ground and you have to have a burn pile, to burn them That punishment goes on after 1967. - [Destin] And Granddaddy's long-gone and you're still getting punished for hot roddin' the Ford. - I am, there's a pecan tree right there. (Destin chuckles) - So, obviously pecan trees have had a special place in the heart of my family for a while, because pecans are awesome. - [Darryl] '96 was a good
year for pecans here. - A pecan from 1996, here we go. (crunching) It's a pecan. Tastes like butter pecan ice cream. - Second one is better than the first one. (both laughing) - Pecans make everything better from pies to cakes to breads to toppings. Seriously, if you haven't tried it yet, your favorite flavor ice
cream is Buttered Pecan. You just don't know it yet. Yes, I grew up in the
shade of those 18 trees my dad planted as punishment but I've never seen how a pecan farm goes about shaking hundreds
of pounds of pecans out of these gigantic trees. So when I got a call, from a local farmer named Frank saying he was gonna be shaking some of his pecan trees
on his 400 tree orchard. It was only appropriate that my dad should join
me on this trip out to the pecan farm. - How's it going? - [Frank] Hey, good. - Nice to meet you.
- Good meeting you. - I wanna make sure I
understand correctly. You literally grab the tree and shake it. - Yes, exactly. We grab the tree... I'm gonna show you the shaker over here. - [Destin] Okay, yeah. - This is a Savage Shaker. This arm slides out, you back up and then squeeze the tree. - [Destin] Oh, look at that. So the tree goes... - Right in between here these rubber cushion. - [Destin] Uh-huh. So it doesn't damage the tree? - It does not damage the tree. You tighten up on a tree, so it's real tight, so it doesn't come loose. And then when you engage the PTO it violently shakes the tree and the nuts come tumbling down. - [Destin] Really? Oh, my goodness. It's a lobe. Is it offset just like the... - [Frank] Yeah, just like the... - [Destin] It looks like
a motor on a cell phone. So I'm seeing a rotating shaft, just like a cell phone vibration motor. - [Frank] okay. - [Destin] But why does
the chain go that way? I don't understand what happens that way. - Well, it goes down to where the gearbox or the PTO is. - [Destin] Okay. Oh, where's the PTO? - Seeds comes in right
down at the bottom here. - [Destin] Oh, okay, so it's driven here. It shakes there... - Yeah, its driven down
here shakes up here. - [Destin] And this whole
thing is mechanically coupled. So this just shakes like that. - Yes.
- Okay. That makes sense. - [Destin] I didn't know this, but there are over 500
different varieties of pecans. Frank grows two different
varieties on his farm. - This is a Pawnee. Ripens usually the end of September, 1st week of October. And this is a Kiowa, and it ripens the first
week of November, usually. The Pawnee is richer;
it's got more oil in it. So it's a more buttery flavor. The Kiowa is bigger, so if you want to make a
pie with big nuts on top, this is the ones you want to put on top. But if you want in the meat of the pie, you want to put Pawnee because it's rich. It's like the butter you put in the crust. - Can try the buttery flavor? - That's not the buttery flavor, this is the buttery flavor. - Okay, so this is a Kiowa. - It's a drier... - And this is the Pawnee.
- Yes. - Way higher qu... Yeah, the quality is way better. - It is. - [Destin] Weird! - Pecans are all so different. I mean, every pecan. So whether you have Elias, or Schley or Pawnee or Kiowas, there's so many different varieties. - [Destin] Can I eat that? - Yeah.
- it was really good. - Yeah, of course! (Destin chuckles) - You grow up knowing something and then you learn something and you get an understanding. So we're moving from
knowledge to understanding when it comes to pecans. This is awesome. So it was time to see
this thing in action. Frank opened the jaws of the shaker wide so it would fit around
the trunk of the tree. He backs in and then
tightened the jaws snug around the tree so it won't
hurt the bark of the tree when he engages the shaker. (shaker rattling) (sticks and pecans falling all around) - Oh, shoot! You were right. (Laughing) (shaker revving, leaves fluttering) (LOUD MECHANICAL VIBRATION) okay, that's amazing. Did a lot come out? - A lot of leaves came out. I don't know about pecans - [Destin] Well, one donked
me right on the noggin man. All right, so post-shake, let's look at what we got. So one left that hull, I still got one in this one. So like right at the base of the pecan, where it goes into the hull,
there's a connected point, - Right. - [Destin] Does that have to dry out in order for this to work? - The husk has to be open
for them to fall out. - [Destin] Okay. - And this year they have
not been acting as normal. The husks have not opened on time. I don't know why. they were ripe. They just didn't open up. And then I couldn't shake them. Everything is about three weeks late. - So dad's going to be the
tripod on the tracker today. We're going to use the high
speed camera like this. And the idea is maybe we can get up in the tops of the trees and wherever we need to get. So I'm so excited about a high-speed camera mounted on a tractor. This was admittedly a redneck move, but it worked like a charm. It was super convenient. What you're about to
see is without a doubt, one of the most chaotic and complicated mechanical systems I have ever seen, I was astounded at the complexity. (Sweet happy music by "A Shell In The Pit") (Song name "Still Some Light Left") - So this all about like
mechanical vibration. - It is mechanical vibration. - So I have another question then. - Sure. - So it seems to me that if you were to shake the tree in this axis, it would behave differently than if you were to turn 90 degrees and shake in this axis. - We have never done that. Shaking them from different
sides, not normally, but that's an idea that might give you a better results if you took the time to go to every tree, multiple directions. - [Destin] But when you're
going, you're just going, you don't care about that. - We want to get as many... We want to get nuts on the ground so I can harvest them. And then we've got, usually
have a crew standing by to start processing it. - [Destin] So what effect
would shaking a tree from two different angles actually have? I wanted to see what would
happen way up in the top of the tree, so I locked in
on a branch way far up there, and then we vibrated it at
90 degrees out of phase, in two different shakes down at the trunk. Here, you can see the side by side motion of what happens at the top. It's pretty obvious here. These two limbs are moving
in a very similar pattern, even though they're
being shaken differently down at the trunk. This is fascinating. And I'm pretty sure a PhD
student could easily write a thesis on simulating the
complexity of a tree. When modeled as a vibratory system. One thing I feel pretty
confident in saying though, is that it's probably not worth doing a second shake at 90 degrees, as it's clear, almost no
additional nuts end up falling from the tree. One thing that surprised me is you can clearly see
the weight being released from the tree during shaking. It's almost like you can
see the limbs climb up towards the sky as the burden is lifted from the branches and the nuts fall to the ground. It's time to harvest. So this is the Harvester. Huh? - This is the harvester. - Okay. - See those round fingers. - Oh yeah. - Those sit down and they roll, they're a street sweeper kind of thing. And they sweep up the nuts. Fingers throw the leaves, throw the stuff up here. They get on this belt and they go out the back. And the nuts will go into a hopper and there's a big screw feed in here that feeds them up into that hopper. So the screw feed them up to the hopper. - [Destin ] So, somehow
the nuts end up here. - Yeah, they will get... they get dropped off into this, see this, - Oh the basket! - In that basket. And then there's a screw feed. They come across it into here and then they get scooped up. - Farmers like Augers don't they? So the first thing Frank seems to do is pick up all the sticks
in front of the harvester, because it's my understanding that the harvester can be
affected negatively by sticks, rolling up into these
rubber fingers right here. So the path has to be
completely clear of sticks. (Rad music with fun vocals) (Waaaa...waaaaa...wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa) - Okay, what is this Frank? What are we doing? - We are taking nuts that
we collected in the field in this trailer that you saw as load into. And we're moving them from there into the hopper of this Southern Nut and Tree pecan cleaner. And it cleans the debris, leaves, husks... off the nuts. - [Destin] So Frank explained to me that the nuts are shoveled into a bin where they're fed onto a conveyor belt that makes its way up
and then drops them down into a machine. Inside this machine. There are bigger rubber fingers, which separate the leaves
from the husk, from the nuts. And then everything passes
through a massive blast of air. All the leaves in the bad nuts, get blown up and out of the machine into a big pile of baddies. The bad nuts are lighter
than the good nuts, because they've already been cracked and they've started to dry out. The good ones dropped down
onto another conveyor belt where humans further identify and separate out the bad ones. They're looking for mold or
nuts with cracks in them, which means the inside could
be compromised or holes. What is this? - A pecan weevil. - So that's the enemy. - That's the enemy. He bores in the holes in the husk, right into the husk right into here and then he'll live in
here as a little worm. - [Destin] So you have to be very adamant about looking for those guys. - You have to watch out for them. - [Destin] So the final
step is cracking the nut and I've got to say, this machine is AWESOME. - So this is our cracker. It's a Quantz Rotary Cracker. Nuts go into this hopper. They go up this belt into the machine where... - [Destin] Is it grabbing
one nut at a time, - One nut goes into this
little stations on the belt, - Really? - And what happens is
they'll get pushed off here. And then there's a little wire that pushes them over so that they get kicked out. So there's only one per stage... - Oh it indexes, it's just a single, single at one time. Okay. - So then this pneumatic machine, we run compressed air
into the machine here. - [Destin] Oh, so you have
to finely tune this thing. - So what happens is nut's get picked up. They'll be held mechanically
by a stainless steel cylinder and it's stressed, is under pressure. And then there is a pneumatic disc that is propelled again... When it's under pressure
propelled against the end that shatters the shell and that shell is... - [Destin] I figured something out. So the reason you're using air pressure is you can have constant force instead of like a spring. You....like displacement. It's a function of displacement, but with air pressure, you get constant for force. - And we can adjust for
variety of sizes of nuts because it just squeezes
whatever size nut comes through. So if you go to a Meyer's Cracker down at the co-op those crackers are set for a fixed space of cracking. So if the net is this big, and they've got a set for a nut this size, it will still smash it down to this small. And you will have a smashed half. That's hardly worth... - [Destin] This is force constant instead of displacement constant. - Right. - [Destin] That's AMAZING. Okay. I would have never
thought about that. Okay. - So here's the outside of the machine. You've seen the controls. This is what the inside looks like. I'm open it up here so you can see it. - [Destin] Oh okay. - And what happens is, and you see all the debris, the nuts gets picked up right here - [Destin] No way, can you run it like this? - Yeah, we can. - Okay. This is good. I'm having a Goggle up that
tells me that it's getting real. Okay, goggle up, pecans
crackin's about to happen, here we go. - Yeah, it happens really fast. We'll run it for just a minute, so you can see it... - And then we're cutting out. - Some of these stations
work better than others. We've had some problems and
we do some major work with, here we go, you ready? - [Destin] I'm ready. (MOTOR WHIRRING) BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG WHAT!? BANG-BANG-CRACK-BANG-POP-BANG-BANG THAT'S AMAZING! That's awesome. (Machine Stops) Okay, and they come out here. - The real product,
comes out on this station and discharge chute. And this person sorts that material out, looking for bad nuts and nuts that haven't cracked. This is overflow where the machine is a bit out of tune. And so stuff comes out
the back that shouldn't - Got it, - And these are all cracked. And then we take them from here and move them manually to her station where she does the final checks. Got it. (MACHINE WORKING LOUDLY) Look at the controls... you can see when we're workin' - Crack changes. Stress. Feed is pretty constant, Eject pretty constant and then Reset. BANG BANG BANG And here it keeps picking up the nuts BANG BANG BANG Picking them up [Destin] And it's kicking them out... If it's two on there, [Frank] Yeah, there's a wire that pushes them out and it indexes properly. BANG BANG BANG CLICK BANG - [Destin] How are they going in there? - It's just gravity. - Got it. -Gravity just feeds them in to the bottom - That's a finely tuned
mechanical device. Isn't it? [Destin] So this is
the final product here. - Yes. - [Destin] Okay. And what is the normal quantity that you sell these things in. - Three pound bags for $20. - [Destin] Okay. So this isn't like an
industrial operation. - No, this is a mom and pop small farm operation. You're not making tons of money. If the IRS ever comes and audits us, they're gonna say, "You're doing this for what? (both chuckling) - [Destin] So why don't you do it? - You know, because satisfaction is when you take Pecans to people and they say, "These are the best
pecans, I've ever had." That makes it worthwhile. - This episode of Smarter Every Day is sponsored by KiwiCo. And if you've been
following Smarter Every Day, for any length of time, you know, that I originally reached out to KiwiCo because we love their products. When this little girl
was a whole lot younger than she is now. In past episodes on Smarter Every Day, I've told you about like the Tinker Crate and the Doodle Crate and all these other lines that KiwiCO has. But today we finally have
access to the Eureka crate and the Maker crate. The Eureka crate has
to do with engineering and design and the Maker crate is all about art and design. These are awesome. And they're geared more
towards older kids. - I want to try this bottom one, macrame planters. - So here's the deal. If you want to support Smarter Every Day, you can do so by getting a really cool kit delivered to your house for your kid. And I have a new promo code this time because I wanted to include the Eureka crate and the Maker crate in the deal. They're a little bit bigger. They're a little bit more complicated. You can see you actually
get tools with them. So if you would go to KiwiCo.com/smarter50. that gets you 50% off your first crate. You get to pick whatever you want. And I really wanted the Eureka crate and the maker crate to be a part of this. So this is macrame. Did you know how to do that? - I do now. - If you have younger kids, by all means that Tinker
crate is my favorite, but there's also like the Atlas crate, the Doodle crate. There's all different
things you can choose from. And it's tailored
specifically for your kid, wherever they're at in life. Anyway, big thanks to you for supporting sponsor because when you do that and that supports Smarter Every Day and lets me make videos
about things like pecans things I find interesting. So KiwiCo.com/SMARTER50, get a gift for someone
you love... or yourself. - So you're putting two pecans in your hand. - And just crack them, - [Destin] Crack them together. You make them do the work. - Yeah. You have to have two. - All right. So we need to talk about something, Frank. - Yes. - You're saying PEE-KAHN and it's everybody knows it's PUH-KAHN or PEE-CAN - You know, I've heard is
pronounced three different ways in the two counties. Yeah. PEE-CAN, P'-KAHN P-CAN you hear 'em all. - Okay so I'm going to
bow to your authority. It's P'-KAHN in my mind, but I don't own a pecan shaker. - P'-KAHN is fine. - I'm okay. Good. Okay. I'm okay. We're okay. Dad, - When we shake them, I don't want to leave
them nuts on the ground. Cause they'll get moldy - And squirrels. - No...no... There's no squirrels here. - Oh, you a good rifle shot? [Silence from Frank] [Destin Laughing, Frank's still quiet] He doesn't say, I bet, you're pretty good with a 22. (Destin chuckles) - We don't want to leave nuts on the ground. - Okay.
I appreciate that even though most of us are subbed on YT, and any one of us could post his videos here for karma, Destin drops in to do it.
I love the interactivity.
Also, Go Rocket City Trash Pandas!
Sucks that the Youtube compression destroys those beautiful shots.
Every time I see one of those tree shakers I am reminded of the old Steve Miller song: βThe Jokerβ
β... really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree...β
https://youtu.be/F5N7qNid79s
Did anyone else think Frank looked like Tim Cook, and had a similar level of excitement about presenting his product?
Perhaps he should start a electronic device company named βPecanβ
What's Frank's orchard's name? He got a website I can order pecans from?
The name of the city in Parks and Recreation make a whole bunch more sense now.
Funny enough, I was just thinking how Destin's sooo big now, that it'd be hard to constantly pump out all these amazing big business/idea vids with the multi million views and that more niche things would get pushed aside for them.
Then he uploads this (relatively) small time guy and his awesome machine systems and straight up says he won't be doing the former. It's fantastic. (I do wish he slomo'd the nut crushing part at the end, though).
I enjoyed the pronunciation discussion at the end. We pronounce it similarly to Frank here in the UK, but with more of a neutral vowel on the last syllable, so pee'kΙn (eg).
As much as this video invoked nostalgia for my childhood in the deep south finding and eating pecans under the trees during recess, the acknowledgement of the different pronunciations at the end was a nice surprise.
I grew up pronouncing it like Destin does, "pick-AHN" before moving to a place where they pronounced it "pee-KAHN," before moving to a place they pronounced it "PEE-kahn" before moving to a place they pronounced it "PEE-can."
I spent a lot of time wondering how to actually say the word bc what I thought was different from what I remembered was also different from what people around me would say.....but it isn't exactly that common of a word.
Then I found this map and I realized I just happened to bounce between the 4 different pronunciations, 2 of which are pretty fucking specific.
I'm still going with "pecan"