How pistachios grow and why they are harvested only at night (4 photos)

Pistachio nuts are not really nuts - they are drupes, but in In everyday terms, for simplicity, they are called nuts. Pistachios grow on trees, the height of which sometimes reaches 10 meters, and pistachios are harvested only at night.





Walking through a pistachio garden might be more dangerous than walk Ellie and her friends through the poppy field. The pistachios themselves are harvested in late summer and early autumn, but there is often information that this process has one unique feature - you can collect them only at night.

No mysticism, of course - just tree leaves in the sun secrete essential oils, the smell of which makes people dizzy and nausea. However, to find numerous evidence that the harvest it is also collected during daylight hours - it is not difficult. It is believed that the main thing is that the sun does not "roast" too much, so you can choose to work morning and evening.



By the way, the main suppliers of pistachios to the world market are the USA. (mainly California), Turkey and Iran, although they are actively developing this industry and in other countries where there are appropriate conditions. The thing is that the pistachio tree is a desert plant, that is, it does not like too much lots of moisture.

At the same time, trees grow singly or, if together, then far away. from each other. In the wild, this plant clearly fought for water - an unusual root system has, as it were, two tiers, lower and upper. One is for collecting water from the depths of the earth, the other is for surface when there is light rainfall.





As a result, the roots of the pistachio tree can stretch in different directions. its sides by ten or more meters, competing in this area with other "brothers". Therefore, they also say that pistachios cannot stand shadows - they need to be in the sun all the time, without interfering with each other.

And the pistachio tree grows for a very long time - to to get a full harvest, sometimes you have to wait 6-10 years, or even more. AT in the case of such a "young" tree, we are talking about a harvest of about 5 kg of pistachios per year, but as trees grow, they begin to produce more high yield.



At the same time, the tree itself can live for a very long time - according to different estimated at least 300 years old, and maybe several times more. Let's say in Crimea has pistachio trees whose age is estimated to be greater than 1 thousand years, and in Iran at least 1.5 thousand years.

UPD.

A small addition : pistachios are most often are sold ajar (as in the last photo above), because they specially fried - as a result, they "burst" (which is convenient, because it’s not so easy to open them), they are better stored, and if they are during frying salt, the taste becomes brighter. But on sale can be found in including peeled and unsalted pistachios that have not been subjected to heat treatment.