FOLEY, Ala. — It’s an “on” year, according to Jake Stewart of Foley.

“On” means the pecan crop in Baldwin County looks good. That also means the Shock Wave Shaker will be doing plenty of what it does, namely, shaking down thousands of pounds of pecans from area trees.

Jake is the latest son to operate the Shock Wave Shaker — also known as the all-hydraulic 3-wheel Mono-Boom Tree Shaker — and run Custom Pecan Shaking, a business his father, Glenn, started nearly 50 years ago.

“We do pecan harvesting — shaking and actual picking of pecans,” Jake said this week as he worked a pecan orchard at Ala. Highway 59 and Underwood Road.

A season for Custom Pecan Shaking typically runs from the second week in October into December, Jake said. The pecan harvesting that Jake does employs a number of pieces of machinery.

There is a harvester that actually gathers the nuts that have fallen (along with sticks and leaves) and a cleaner that blows the debris away. Sometimes the human hand has to be used in the cleaning process.

But the eye-catching piece of machinery — the gizmo that looks like fun to the layman — is the Shock Wave Shaker, a piece of machinery that has been around since 1961.

Glenn said the Shock Wave Shaker, built by a company in Yuba City, Calif., cost $35,000 35 years ago. It costs $125,000 today.

“We had the first one of these they built,” Glenn said, noting a “fellow” pulled that particular Shock Wave Shaker with a pickup all the way from Yuba City to the Foley area. According to Glenn, that first machine is in Georgia “still being run.” The model Jake uses today is a 1978 model.

The 50-acre pecan orchard Jake is working this week has approximately 300 trees in it. It will take him over a week to shake, harvest and clean the nuts, he said.

There are certain vital numbers to keep in mind.

According to Jake, a “young tree” (20 to 25 years old) will typically produce 50 to 60 pounds of pecans in a “on” year. A “mature tree” (approximately 70 years old) will produce a “couple of hundred pounds easily.”

Where the young pecan trees are concerned, Jake said if the operator can run the Shock Wave Shaker fast enough it is capable of shaking five trees a minute. He said you don’t want to shake a young tree more than a second or so. An older tree gets a three second shake. If you shake it any longer you can damage the tree and the Shaker, Jake said.

“You hardly feel any shake in there,” Jake said of operating the Shock Wave Shaker. Rubber bushings take most of the shock out, and the shaking is limited primarily to the arm or boom.

While the Shock Wave Shaker has a cage built over the driver for protection, Jake has been hit numerous times in the face and chest with falling debris.

“It can be dangerous,” he said.

Jake has a picture of himself as a child — just a few years old — sitting in the seat of that prototype Shaker his family had years ago. Before the Shaker came along, people would cut down old one-ton pickups and mount a boom with a shaker on it to harvest pecans, Jake said.

Has pecan harvesting changed over the years in Baldwin County? Jake said yes.

“People are buying land and putting houses in the pecan groves,” he said. He and his father agree that the price of land has impacted the pecan industry too.

Glenn remembers the old days. For example, standing in the grove where his son is working, he remembers that Bill Underwood and his father grew the trees that Jake is harvesting on this day. And he remembers a year somewhere around 1968 in “Mr. Harvey Underwood’s grove” where they harvested an average of 300 pounds of nuts per tree on 100 trees.

“When they’re a buck a pound, that’s money,” Glenn said.

But the tree of all trees for Glenn Stewart was one in Citronelle, Ala.

“The tree must have been 80-feet tall,” Glenn said, noting it was a “seedling tree.”

Twelve hundred pounds of pecans came off that one tree.

To contact Jake Stewart, call 965-7777.