The farm hosts five macadamia nut trees, enough to keep us rolling in nuts. Not enough to rely upon solely for income, but since I have access to hundreds of macnut trees and their nuts (many people around here have a few trees and have no interest in harvesting the nuts), I don't need more trees. My trees are still quite young, but they're producing quite nicely.
Harvesting macnuts are easy. Simply pick them up off the ground. Mature nuts drop of the tree, especially after a rain. But since it's raining almost every day here, I'm seeing a steady nut drop rather than surges of nuts after a rain shower. In order to make finding the nuts will be easier. I keep the grass weedwacked really short under the trees.
This year is going to be a bumper crop. The clusters have lots of nuts. As you can see, the nuts vary in size in the cluster because some are more mature than others. The nuts mature and drop over several months, with the majority dropping during the summer and fall.
The nut is encased in a green husk. That husk is really tough, but nothing compared to the shell that holds the actual nut. That shell is so hard that one needs a special cracker to get it open.......or a vise grip and a strong hand.......or a hammer and something other than one's fingers to hold the nut in place. Ouch! But I'll talk about macnut processing in another post.
There's an opportunity for your creative mind to create a device to make macnut gathering easier or more efficient. I have zip-zero-zilch-nada experience harvesting those tasty things, but if the spread under the tree is not too wide, maybe you devise a way to have the nuts roll away from the trunk, so they'd pile together at one or more points along that perimeter? I could envision something like chicken wire fence material stapled to ohia poles, or more fancifully, to upside-down palm frond stems, tied one to another around the base of the tree.
ReplyDeleteDo you see much vermin damage - or do they chew off the husks? But I digress.
Or go full-on wild, with empty barrels or tubs, positioned to have the nuts bounce off them and land closer to the perimeter, creating a tub-thumping natural drum section for Mother Nature to play (and drive everyone ...nuts!). hee hee!
Macadamia nuts are reason ALONE to move to Hawaii. Are they $8 for a small container there as they are on the mainland?!
ReplyDeleteHi Wynn. I sell my macnuts for $12 a pound. They are deshelled, washed, then dehydrated slowly at low temperature. Thus they qualify as a raw food, which is a selling plus in my area.
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