Pecan harvest started on Sat. Nov. 7, but harvested pecans must be cleaned and dried for 7 to 10 days before cracking. My husband Bill is now very busy harvesting our 2026 pecan crop. Each morning he uses our mechanical trunk shaker to shake the nuts from a tree row to the ground, then each afternoon he uses our mechanical harvester to scoop up the nuts with rubber fingers.
Each evening he runs the harvested pecans through our field cleaner, then our stationary cleaner in our pecan building, to remove debris. Bill loads the cleaned pecans into burlap sacks holding 65 to 70 pounds each, and lets them dry for 7 to 10 days. Then he cracks them using our pecan cracking machine, which removes 2/3 of the loose shell fragments.
We'll have harvested, cracked pecans for sale starting about Nov. 18. There will be fewer nuts to harvest this year, so pecans may