Harvesting & Processing

After shaking, a sweeping machine sweeps the walnuts on the ground into a windrow and at the same time it blows any walnuts off the tree line where they are inaccessible to the sweeper fingers. The windrow of walnuts and other foreign matter (leaves, sticks and stone) is then picked up by the harvester, cleaned to a degree and then conveys the walnuts to a reservoir cart towed by the harvester. The walnuts are then conveyed into a transfer machine which carts the walnuts to and in-field elevator which in turn fills a truck. The truck carts the walnuts to the hulling line. All in-field operations aim to remove as much organic material such as leaves, hulls and sticks in the field as possible.

The truck tips its load at the intake facility and the walnuts are fed through the hulling line which removes the green fleshy hull from around the outside of the shell, washes the outside of the shell, aspirates any light or blown walnuts from the sample, colour sorts the walnuts by removing the black and green walnuts and then elevates the walnuts to the drying bins.