Fall Harvest Hazelnuts / Jesenska berba lješnjaci

Last week...

It is 6 a.m. on a cool, foggy morning in early November. Unlike most other tree fruits, which are picked off the branch, hazelnuts are harvested only after they fall to the ground. Nuts begin dropping in late summer and continue falling as late as mid-October, depending on the weather.

Large plow-like machines called sweepers maneuver the fallen nuts into windrows, long, heaping mounds running lengthwise through the spaces between trees. A machine called a harvester then travels over each windrow, separating the nuts from any twigs and leaves before collecting them in totes for later processing.

Once those nuts are collected, they still need to be dried, processed, packaged, and distributed.