savage newsletter summer 2013 - savage equipment

Volume 4 Summer 2013

866-572-8243 [email protected]

Sorting Through The Land Down UnderBy Jerry Murrack

Our own Jerry Murrack returned from yet another global trek in May. �is time exploring the wilds of Australia to help out some customers and take the pulse of the nut-growing industry in that unique and beautiful country. Here’s what he had to say about the trip. I recently had the opportunity to return to Stahmann Farms in Australia and help with the startup of a Savage model 131 color sorter for a friend of the Stahmann’s and to tune up some existing machines around the country. It was a quick 15-hour nonstop �ight from Dallas to Brisbane, Queensland Australia. I was anxious to get busy sorting because the harvest season was already in full swing. �e three existing machines that we had set up two years ago were doing well, but there were a lot more sticks in the harvest this year and that often calls for

Oklahoma Pecan Showa Big Success!

As this newsletter is going to press, the Oklahoma Pecan Growers Association is holding its annual confer-ence. Attendees were treated to some invaluable lessons by experts in subjects ranging from pecan tree insurance issues to sanitizing in-shell pecans to implications of the Food Safety Modernization Act. �e conference concludes with an orchard tour and equipment demonstrations held at Landgraf Farms, near Madill, Oklahoma.

On the Calendar

Continued on page 2

Jul 14-17: TX Pecan Growers Conf., College Station, TX

Jul 18-20: Intn’l Pecan Symposium, College Station, TX

Sep 5-7: National Pecan Shellers Association meeting, Austin, TX

Sep 12: GA Pecan Growers Fall Field Day, Location TBD

Sep 13: AZ Pecan Growers Annual Mtg., Tucson, AZ

Macadamia man Peter Kirkland and his

well-tuned sorter

All-New SavageWebsite!

If you haven’t found your way to the savageequipment.com web address lately, we’d love for you to visit. Over the past few months, we’ve been working hard to bring you a more attractive, more informative website that’s easier to navigate. See for yourself how well we’ve succeeded, and feel free to let us know. Below is an image of our new home page.

adjustments. Ross Burling, our long time friend, had secured a good sample of pecans to practice on. So straight o� the plane, it was a couple hours drive to Toowoomba where I went and checked into a room, got unpacked and headed to the processing plant to get started. By the following day we had the machines �nely tuned. Ross said it was the best he had ever seen them run. From there we ran down the coast to Tintenbar, New South Wales to another longtime friend of the Savage family, named Bill Moore. I appreciate his hospitality, letting Ross and I stay there for a few days and use his place as our forward command post. He is positioned just 40 minutes away from the next customer we needed to visit in Dunoon. �is, I anticipated, would be the biggest challenge of the trip as we were going to commission a 131S Sorter in a full-blown macadamia plant. I soon discovered, my concern was unfounded. I met with a gentleman, named Peter Kirkland, who had beauti-fully positioned our sorter for success in the processing line, and we had the sorter humming nicely in two hours. Along the way back to Bill’s place, we toured an aban-doned macadamia cleaning plant that was in the middle of a macadamia orchard. As always, it was fascinating to see how things are done in di�erently in another country and industry. We even-tually made it back to Bill’s farm, and he asked me to tune up his smaller sorter which he uses for macadamias. I spent the rest of the day installing new sorting software, which proved successful. �e next morning was Saturday, which I anticipated as another workday (it is harvest season after all). Ross and a

fellow macadamia grower and friend, named Cole, took me on an unexpected �shing trip. Who was I to argue? I

was in the ocean up to my waist with a pole in my hand and catching Brim. I had never wet a hook in the ocean before, so this was a real treat. We caught ten of them. At Cole’s place for lunch, I discovered they eat well too. Back at Bill’s that evening, I took what was left of the �sh and cooked up an Okie-style �sh fry. Amazing.

Sunday morning we headed back to the airport to �y into the nation’s capitol of Canberra. From there we drove four hours to the town of Gri�th to visit some

good folks in the walnut industry. We were curious to see how our sorter would handle walnuts. After an hour meeting we toured the hulling and bagging line. �ey gave us 20 kg (about 44 lbs) to work with, and we headed back to the airport in Canber-ra. Our plan for an earlier �ight back to Brisbane didn’t pan out, so we took advantage of the spare time for a quick

tour of the Australian Parliament building. It was back to Brisbane early the next day, and back to the plant in Toowoomba for a go at the walnuts. Our sorter seemed to

handle them well. All in all, it was a very success-ful journey. �is looks to be a good year for the Australian pecan crop. I was, once again, impressed by the attention to detail that Stahmann Farms puts into every aspect of their business. While it’s always good to successfully meet the challenges of the journey, it sure is nice to get back

home and get the routine going again. As they say in Australia, “Cheers Mate!”

Josh Gaskamp educates attendees on Noble Founda-tion e�orts to mitigate the expanding feral hog menace.

Basil Savage talks pecan trees and this year’s frost damage with Womack Nurs-ery’s Larry Don Womack.

Sorting Through The Land Down UnderBy Jerry Murrack

Our own Jerry Murrack returned from yet another global trek in May. �is time exploring the wilds of Australia to help out some customers and take the pulse of the nut-growing industry in that unique and beautiful country. Here’s what he had to say about the trip. I recently had the opportunity to return to Stahmann Farms in Australia and help with the startup of a Savage model 131 color sorter for a friend of the Stahmann’s and to tune up some existing machines around the country. It was a quick 15-hour nonstop �ight from Dallas to Brisbane, Queensland Australia. I was anxious to get busy sorting because the harvest season was already in full swing. �e three existing machines that we had set up two years ago were doing well, but there were a lot more sticks in the harvest this year and that often calls for

adjustments. Ross Burling, our long time friend, had secured a good sample of pecans to practice on. So straight o� the plane, it was a couple hours drive to Toowoomba where I went and checked into a room, got unpacked and headed to the processing plant to get started. By the following day we had the machines �nely tuned. Ross said it was the best he had ever seen them run. From there we ran down the coast to Tintenbar, New South Wales to another longtime friend of the Savage family, named Bill Moore. I appreciate his hospitality, letting Ross and I stay there for a few days and use his place as our forward command post. He is positioned just 40 minutes away from the next customer we needed to visit in Dunoon. �is, I anticipated, would be the biggest challenge of the trip as we were going to commission a 131S Sorter in a full-blown macadamia plant. I soon discovered, my concern was unfounded. I met with a gentleman, named Peter Kirkland, who had beauti-fully positioned our sorter for success in the processing line, and we had the sorter humming nicely in two hours. Along the way back to Bill’s place, we toured an aban-doned macadamia cleaning plant that was in the middle of a macadamia orchard. As always, it was fascinating to see how things are done in di�erently in another country and industry. We even-tually made it back to Bill’s farm, and he asked me to tune up his smaller sorter which he uses for macadamias. I spent the rest of the day installing new sorting software, which proved successful. �e next morning was Saturday, which I anticipated as another workday (it is harvest season after all). Ross and a

fellow macadamia grower and friend, named Cole, took me on an unexpected �shing trip. Who was I to argue? I

was in the ocean up to my waist with a pole in my hand and catching Brim. I had never wet a hook in the ocean before, so this was a real treat. We caught ten of them. At Cole’s place for lunch, I discovered they eat well too. Back at Bill’s that evening, I took what was left of the �sh and cooked up an Okie-style �sh fry. Amazing.

Sunday morning we headed back to the airport to �y into the nation’s capitol of Canberra. From there we drove four hours to the town of Gri�th to visit some

good folks in the walnut industry. We were curious to see how our sorter would handle walnuts. After an hour meeting we toured the hulling and bagging line. �ey gave us 20 kg (about 44 lbs) to work with, and we headed back to the airport in Canber-ra. Our plan for an earlier �ight back to Brisbane didn’t pan out, so we took advantage of the spare time for a quick

tour of the Australian Parliament building. It was back to Brisbane early the next day, and back to the plant in Toowoomba for a go at the walnuts. Our sorter seemed to

handle them well. All in all, it was a very success-ful journey. �is looks to be a good year for the Australian pecan crop. I was, once again, impressed by the attention to detail that Stahmann Farms puts into every aspect of their business. While it’s always good to successfully meet the challenges of the journey, it sure is nice to get back

home and get the routine going again. As they say in Australia, “Cheers Mate!”

Australia (continued from page 1)

The Tintenbar coastline

Ross Burling & family

Sorting & cleaning is never done.

Nut news around the internet On the westernfarmpress.com website you’ll �nd two recent articles dealing with pecan growing in the arid region of southwestern New Mexico. You’ll �nd them in the “tree nuts” section of the website. �e more recent article (by Greg Northcutt, dated Jun 10) is entitled “Water, sunlight top pecan management priorities”. It lays out the current challenges facing Greg Daviet, operations manager for Dixie Ranch, near Las Cruces, an operation started by his great-grandfather in 1905. It was already going to be an “o� year”, following last year’s 3,200-pounds-per-acre crop, but the series of cold snaps this spring has made for even more di�culties.

His orchards appear to have escaped the worst of the sub-freezing temperatures during bloom that devastated crop prospects this year for other New Mexico pecan growers. “At the time, I didn’t see any frost damage in our blocks,” Daviet says. “But, now I’m seeing some symptoms of injury that could be related to the freeze.”

In addition to a worse than usual year for the pecan nut casebearer, water will likely be a serious issue again this year.

With the drought continuing in this and other areas of the Southwest, he’s expecting the Elephant Butte Irrigation District to deliver only

3 acre-inches of surface water for �ood irrigating his pecan crop this year. �at’s less than 10 percent of a full district allocation. Also, it represents less than 5 percent of the total 66 inches of water that he uses each year to irrigate his �elds. �e rest comes from his wells. As he and other valley growers continue to draw water from the ground, they’re forced to go deeper to get it. Sixty years ago, a 100-foot well was common in the area.“Today, it’s not unusual for a well to go down 300 to 400 feet to get good quality water,” he says. Wells 600 feet deep are not uncommon.

A May 8th article: “Pecan bloom winding down” (also by Greg Northcutt) sounds a more optimistic note from Halsell Farms, near Rincon, New Mexico. In this piece,

Flowers began opening on time in mid-April and bloom is winding down now. “�e trees look good right now and are o� to a very good start,” says the long-time pecan grower.

As with the Las Cruces grower, Bill Halsell’s optimism is tempered by concerns over surface water availability, expecting less than 20% of his normal allocation this year. He will be pumping groundwater to supply what is needed to keep his trees healthy. And �nally, there’s a Feb 25th article that provides a solid explanation for what really happened to pecan prices over the past year: “Surging pecan prices hit sti� resis-tance”. You may want to give it a read.

Coming Soon: Sorting in 3-D!Savage Equipment is proud to announce the coming release of the new gener-

ation of our in-shell sorter. It’ll be a giant leap in sorting technology, with multi-spectral capability that can sort by size, shape and three dimensions of color. We look forward to releasing our new sorter sometime in early autumn.

Bill and Joe Ihle try their luck in Lake Frances

Mmm-mmm--chow time The whole gang

The Fishing DayTradition Lives On

For most of the past two decades, a few pecan industry stalwarts have gathered at the Savage home place (the heart of Pecan Country) to �sh,

feast and renew old friendships. �e small band of pecan men recently renewed the tradition on a brisk April weekend. Undeterred by a little cold and wind, the intrepid �shermen managed to catch quite a few bass. �e story of this year’s event is told in the pictures you see below.

Because �shing can be exhausting, Sonny Paddie & Buddy Adams relax a bit.

Frances, Clay, Basil Jr. & Kim Savage fry up some

Oklahoma cat�sh.

Dennis Pattison hauled in a good stringer and

took top �shing honors.









Continued on page 5

News you can use In the June issue of Pecan South magazine, you’ll �nd a terri�c overview of pecan crop thinning by Dr Bill Go�. �e practice involves shaking nuts out of the trees “between the time of half ovule expansion and full ovule expansion,” typically late July to mid-August in the south-eastern US. Doctor Go� provides an excellent summary of research into pecan crop thinning done by Dr‘s Mike Smith, Bruce Wood and Jim Walworth. Go� also lays out some compelling exam-ples of how this practice can make solid economic sense in certain situations. When it comes to thinning your crop to improve overall nut quality, an important factor is the ability to do it selectively from tree to tree--more shaking, less shaking, or none at all. In one of the more intriguing segments of the article, Dr Go� reveals just how much variation in nut production is evident, even within the same orchard and cultivar.

�e extreme example in Woods’ research showed the best ‘Stuart’ tree, among 21 trees studied, with

Time to Test-runYour Harvester

By Kenny Arnold

Harvest season is just around the corner, and we all know how busy it will be. Before it’s upon us, you’ll want to know your equipment--especial-ly your harvester--is up to the task.

• Clean out any debris that may be obstructing your machine’s components.

• Check �aps, �ngers, and chains for cracks or severe wear.

• Check bearings for cracks and blown seals.• Check that your sprockets are tight and the

teeth are in good condition.• Make sure belts are tight; not cracked or split.

• Check tire pressure and tread life.• Check supplies to avoid costly down time

in the fall. Do you have plenty of spare �ngers, rubber �aps, and bearings?

• Test run your harvester by giving it a good hard working over in the orchard.

If you should happen to need any parts, our parts guys will be glad to help. Call them at 580-795-3394 or email [email protected].

a 6-year average of 328 pounds, compared to an average of only 26 pounds for the worst tree. Some of this variation is attributable to rootstock, which can vary greatly from one tree to the next even when the same seed source was used to grow the trees.

�e article concludes with a prudent warning about irrigation cycles and the possibility of bark slippage during active tree growth. Be careful out there.

Blair Krebs’ article on new plantings in Georgia (p. 28) is another story well worth looking into. She describes the recent and future expansion of pecan tree plantings in the area and how nurseries and equipment manufacturers are responding to the new growth. New growers are getting into the business and experi-enced pecan growers are adding to their orchards. ‘Desirable’, ‘Creek’ and ‘Pawnee’ are three of the more popular varieties occupying new real estate in Georgia. Long-time nurseryman, Lamar Jenkins, “is now working to produce approximately 50,000 trees for 2014 and 100,000 trees for 2015.” Most of them are already sold. Krebs also describes the Savage Equipment facility in Baconton, GA and how it is becoming “a bit of a gather-ing point for growers in the area.” Of course, we at Savage couldn’t be happier serving the historic and thriving pecan community of Georgia.

Fewer pecans = more money?

A Savage Sweepercan make a big di�erence.A Savage 7510 Side Sweeper will increase the

speed and e�ciency of your nut harvest. �is hydraulically driven machine sweeps a wide 10-foot swath through the orchard, moving nuts and debris into a neat, straight row. It’s often used in tandem with Savage’s powerful 5132 3-point blower. Together they can make a real di�erence in the speed of your harvest operations and save wear and tear on your harvester. After the sweeper and

blower do their part, harvesters need only make a single straight pass down each side of a tree row.

Both machines facilitate simple, quick tractor mounting, and can be run on a 55HP tractor. �e sweeper requires a hydraulic system that produces at least 8 gal/min and the blower is available for both 540 and 1000 rpm power take-o�s. �e sweeper features heavy steel tines and rubber �ngers that will reach down into grass and move the nuts along.

You can see these machines in action on our new website www.savageequipment.com or check out the videos on our YouTube page youtube.com/savageequipmentinc .





More nut news around the internet





Continued from page 3

Crescent Roll Pecan Pie Bars

Ingredients:1/2 cup Chopped Pecans1/2 cup Corn Syrup1/2 cup Sugar1 T Butter or Margarine, melted1/2 tsp. Vanilla1 Egg, beaten1 Can of Crescent RollsDirections:Heat oven to 350. Unroll crescent rolls and separate dough into two long rectangles. Press into bottom of ungreased 13x9 pan and 1/2 inch up the sides to form crust. Firmly press perforations to seal. Bake 8 min.; and meanwhile, in medium bowl, mix �lling ingredients. Pour �lling over partially baked crust. Bake 18 to 22 min. more or until golden brown. Cool completely (about 1 hr.) and cut into bars. Store at room temperature in airtight container.

Top Five Reasons to Eat More Pecans

1. Pecans pack a lot of energy and nutrition in a small space, so they make a great traveling snack.

2. �ey’re rich in mono-unsaturated fatty acids like oleic acid and an excellent source of phenolic antioxidants. �ese help decrease total and LDL or “bad cholester-ol” and increase HDL or “good cholesterol.”

3. �ey also have phyto-chemical substances that may contribute even more to their overall antioxidant

Hey, Stuart-- Here are a few wise old sayings with a

slight twist.

One good turn......gets you most of the blanket.

A bird in the hand......will get you dirty soon.

A journey of a thousand miles......begins with a single cash advance.

If at �rst you don’t succeed,......skydiving is not for you.

If you’d like a copy of Pecan Country News delivered to your email address each quarter, simply send an email to [email protected]. If you know of anyone who might like to receive this free

newsletter, please feel free to pass it along.

activity, including polyphenolic antioxidant ellagic acid, vitamin E, beta-carotene, lutein and zea-xanthin. Research studies suggest that these compounds help the body remove toxic oxygen-free radicals; helping protecting us from diseases, cancers and infections.

4. �ey’re an excellent source of vitamin-E, especially gamma-tocopherol, a powerful lipid soluble antioxi-dant, required for maintaining the integrity of cell membranes.

5. �ey taste good--raw, roasted, sweetened, salted, peppered, and in just about any pie, cake, cookie, candy, salad or casserole dish. And, that’s a lot!





Well, that makes sense!I think.





They’ll think you spent half the day on these.

We won’t tell.

savage newsletter summer 2013 - savage equipment

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