SHARE
In part one, we discussed many of the new features of the 42″ PRO Harvester. Now we’ll discuss the importance of pulling the harvester on the side of a vehicle, the volume of nuts it can harvest, and what the maintenance entails.
You may be wondering what is so special about the side pull configuration. Once harvesters move up to a size that requires a vehicle to move them, you run the risk of crushing nuts with the vehicle’s tires. Obviously, we want to avoid losing your precious nuts because that means less profit. When Silas was trying to figure out how to solve this problem, his first thought was to get a harvester mounted in front of the vehicle. A lot of problems arose with this method, such as steering issues, connecting to different vehicles, and the width the harvester actually needs to stay in front of the tires in a turn. In realizing this, it was discovered if the harvester was positioned on the side of a vehicle, the goal of not crushing nuts could be achieved by using a few simple devices. A triangle side bar or a 4×4 post allowed for the versatility of using different vehicles. “That’s a big deal because now if you own a riding mower, side by side, or tractor, you can easily attach a 42″ PRO to it and harvest without losing any nuts to the tires of your vehicle.”
If you follow a simple harvesting pattern technique, you’ll be able to achieve the perfect side pull harvest. First, blow off the area you’re about to harvest. Start at the outside of that area with the harvester positioned on the inside of your vehicle or the side toward the center of the harvest area. Begin to lap that area getting narrower and narrower with each lap. If you do it this way, the harvester always gets to the nuts before the vehicle’s tires do. The vehicle is running over the area the harvester was on the lap before.
So how much can you expect to harvest with the 42″ PRO? There are a lot of variables that can affect harvest rates from year to year, but It’s very realistic to harvest 2,000 pounds in a day. Make sure to follow Bag-A-Nut’s best practices and recommended harvest patterns. This includes mowing the orchard, picking up limbs, blowing away the leaves, and using the harvesting pattern technique discussed above.
Maintaining your harvester is an important step that we try to keep as simple as possible. We recommend you store it out of the sun, hose or blow it off when you’re finished harvesting, keep the nuts and bolts snug, and periodically grease the four fittings. If issues do arise, everything on the unit can be taken apart with common wrenches and your hands. We understand many of our customers aren’t full time pecan growers, they don’t want clunky equipment sitting around their property, and they certainly don’t want the maintenance nightmares that come with it.
Hopefully you now have a great deal of information about this new harvester. If you want to see all this in action, please check out Silas’ video interview.
