Shaking

The first process of walnut harvesting is removing the nuts from the trees. Nuts fall naturally but over an extended period. To ensure the highest walnut quality, nuts are mechanically shaken from the trees when the hull is ready to split open and kernel is mature.

Shaking is done with a mechanical tree shaker. The shaker arm extends out to clamp the trunk of the tree, once the tree is clamped a vibration is started that quickly shakes the nuts from the tree. Each wheel of the shaker has sweepers in front of them to ensure nuts are not run over by the machine. About 12 trees can be shaken every minute.