Title

Pea Viners at the Walter Schultz Farm

Creation Date

1960s

Description

Pea Viners at the Walter Schultz Farm. B/W photo of Green Giant Company pea viners north of Nicollet on section 34 of the Walter Schultz farm in New Sweden Township in the 1960s This process was in operation until 1965. ED1385 shows trucks unloading pea vines at the fronts of the viners.

Peas, a cool weather crop, were raised in Nicollet County to be harvested in late June and early July. In the mid-1950s, the crop was cut and the vines elevated to a truck driving alongside the harvester. The vines were then transported to viners north of Nicollet, where the vines were forked into the viner, which shucked the peas from their pods. The peas rolled into a bin on the side of the viner, and were taken to the canning plant. The vines were elevated out the back of the viner. This process is now obsolete, and the entire process is done in the field with a harvester pulled by a tractor. The vines were piled to form a large stack of pea vines. This was done with a small Ford tractor with long steel tines (around a dozen about an inch in diameter with sharply pointed ends) mounted on a hydraulically operated bar at the back of the tractor. Dick Muesing and Dave Zins did this job in the summer of 1958. One person operated the tractor, backing into piles of vines coming from the 5 or 6 viners, and then placing the vines to form a large stack. A second person used a pitch fork to smooth the pile and the sides to form successive layers of the vines during the harvesting season. The pile of vines fermented for several months to form silage that area farmers used to feed to cattle.