Every year through the months of January and March our pine trees get shaken until they let their pine cones fall to the ground for us to collect by hand, put into trucks, and send off to a factory that, through a long process that will be explained in another update, produces the lovely white pine nuts that everyone loves for making pesto, fancying up a salad, or decorating the tops of pastries.

Everything about pine nut collection will eventually be shared on this page. For the time being we are going to introduce it through what we call the "Macchinona", which is the pine tree shaker. Before this year we were not allowed to use it because the entity of the park believed that it would damage the trees over the years. Research has shown otherwise. In fact research has shown that shaking the tree helps air its roots (which extend horizontally near the surface) so that the tree can continually stabilize itself preventing it from toppling over when the wind picks up and there's been little rain.

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The Tree Shaker:

This beautiful 13 ton machine belongs to Signor Ciofi who is our pine nut man. It functions using oil pressure to maneuver the pincer, which grabs the tree near the base. Then, when the pincer is securely clamping the tree, by applying gas the tree gets shaken. The tree must be shaken slowly at first and then be given a faster shake twice for five to ten seconds. Then that's enough. What doesn't fall from the tree is left without insisting further.

In this process it is essential not to damage the pine tree. The way the machine is constructed prevents any kind of damage to the tree (for example stripping of bark or cracking of healthy branches). The pistons in the arms of the machine, as mentioned above, work using oil pressure. The piston itself is made up of two cylinders, one smaller and fitted inside the other, that create an airtight space. When raising the arms oil enters below the smaller cylinder forcing the cylinder to move upward. When lowering the arms oil stops entering below the piston and starts entering above. The pincer function using the same technique. The size of the cylinders is crucial because if they are too small the pincer can't close tightly enough to securely shake the tree, and if they are too large then the pincers could easy squeeze the tree so tightly that the tree would snap at the base. The pincer is shaped like a U. At the base of this U, which you can see from the pictures is parallel to the ground, there are two small cylindrical tubes (one above and one directly below) that are perpendicular to the ground. Each cylinder holds a weight. The circular movement of the weights is what shakes the tree. The weights move in opposite directions because otherwise the vibration applied to the tree would be damaging. Branches would crack and fall off instead of just pinecones falling. The last element of the machine that protects the tree is a cushioning device. On the inside of the pincer there is a double rubber padding with a layer of grease in between so that when the tree is shaken it is comfortably hugged by a layer of rubber that moves with the tree instead of with the machine preventing any unwanted scaring on the trunk of the tree.










 
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