Cashew-Harvest and storage

Cashew starts giving economic yield from 3 rd year onwards. However, yield stabilization takes place by 8-10 years. It takes 95 to 120 days for the fruit from flowering to reach maturity.

Harvesting stage can be identified by changes in colour of apple. In mature fruits, the apple colour changes from green to yellow or red. The nuts on maturity become hard and ash in colour.

The harvesting season of cashew starts from mid February and extends up to April. The harvesting is done normally by collecting the fallen nuts.

The nuts collected should be dried immediately under sun by spreading in a thin layer. On concrete surface drying for two full days is sufficient. If the surface is of mud, drying for 3 to 4 days is necessary.

While drying, the nuts should be raked quite often. Nuts should not be dried for more than four days since they become brittle and break while processing, causing damage to the kernels. Nuts after drying are stored in gunny bags.