Pecan harvest, processing and retail at Flying G Ranch in Oklahoma

at flying g ranch pecans are our passion from the trees in our eastern Oklahoma orchard to the pecans in our retail shop our dedication to growing and selling delicious pecans of the highest quality never wavers join us as we share our passion and the journey our pecans take as they make their way from harvest to your home our orchard is where our delicious pecans begin their journey you'll find both native and improved varieties of pecan trees in neat rows throughout our property they produce pecans beginning in the spring and by late fall harvest begins we take great care to manage our orchards to ensure our pecans are of the utmost quality throughout the year we work to control pests and other problems this management can mean something as simple as keeping away squirrels with a bit of noise the pecans are high up in the canopy of the trees and when it's harvest time getting them down takes just a little shake a tractor approaches each tree to be shaken a specialized padded shaker gently hugs each tree then the operator engages the power take off and the pecans fall to the ground all it takes is just a few seconds of shaking to release the nuts from the tree waiting below are two tractors that pull pecan harvesters they work in circles under each newly shaken tree picking up the pecans from the ground and putting them into a bin they also pick up bits of leaves and grass as they scour the ground but much of this debris is shot out the back as the harvesters collect the newly fallen pecans the harvesting crew works from tree to tree shaking and picking pecans throughout the orchard our newer trees that are productive are harvested using a slightly different method our catch frame shaker shakes the tree while catching the pecans before they even have a chance to hit the ground the operator pulls up to a tree spreads open the catch frame and shakes the tree the pecans fall into the canvas frame and are taken by conveyor to a storage bin when either the catch frame shaker or the harvester is full of pecans the nuts are transported to a central location in our orchard where they are loaded onto a truck during the loading process sticks and other debris from the orchard are separated from the pecans with a field cleaner before the nuts are put on the truck by a conveyor when the truck is full it leaves the orchard and makes its way to the ranch where the pecans are prepared for bulk distribution and retail sales once at the ranch the pecans are unloaded from the truck and taken by conveyor into our processor still in their shells the pecans pass through a series of cleaners and sorters first the last bits of sticks and orchard debris are removed leaving only the pecans to travel down the conveyor belt a vacuum system removes any nuts that are too light discharging them from the rest of the pecans the delicious nuts then pass through a color sorter which ensures the pecans have a uniform look the color sorter uses an electronic eye to discern the appearance of pecans the last inspection is done by trained and skilled people who make a last visual inspection they check for any nuts that may have slipped past any of the machinery once they pass this inspection the nuts are put into a wash where they are agitated and cleaned before being conveyed into a wagon once the wagon is full it is hooked up to a natural gas dryer which pushes warm air through the pecans gently drying them then the pecans pass through a size sorter here they're placed in sacks according to their size the numbers on each of the bins indicate the size of pecans they catch the smaller nuts are bagged in large super sacks these pecans are sold in bulk and are used in candies cookies and other products that allow for the use of smaller pecans the larger pecans get put in smaller bags they are tagged and labeled according to their size once they leave the sorter the pecans are stored in our warehouse the pecans and super sacks are loaded out on trucks and purchased by companies for baking and processing these super sacks are each weighed before leaving our warehouse the smaller bags of pecans are stored separately it is from these bags that we choose the pecans that we sell in our retail shop affectionately dubbed the nut shop our retail store provides a selection of cracked and packaged pecans alongside other gift items the nuts that we feature in our shop are first cracked with a pneumatic aircraft once nuts are loaded into the cracker air powered equipment cracks the ship from here the crack nuts with some shell fragments are conveyed into our automated scale that precisely weighs packages of cracked nuts we also have a scale that precisely weighs sorted nuts for our special Oklahoma gift boxes we vacuum seal the contents ensuring optimal freshness and quality before packages hit our shells they each receive a custom label printed in house once our pecans have a label they're ready for the nut shop and for anyone who enjoys pecans from our orchard to our retail shop we pride ourselves on having a great selection of the highest quality pecans we hope you'll visit us sometime to see and taste what we're passionate about you you you

Channel: Mike Spradling

Views: 44,717

Rating: 4.9074073 out of 5

Keywords: pecan, pecans, oklahoma, harvest, tractor, food, nuts, trees, orchard

Id: OdkY01_CaWc

Length: 8min 46sec (526 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 07 2012