Texas Pecan Board Sponsoring Holiday Recipe Contest

For the second consecutive year, the Texas Pecan Board is sponsoring Texas Co-Op Power magazine’s annual holiday recipe contest. Winners will receive $5,000 in total prizes and their recipes will be published in the December 2011 issue of that publication. This year’s competition invited entries in two different categories — savory and sweet, with the grand prize…

‘Lipan’ is a new pecan [Carya illinoinensis (Wangenh.) K. Koch] variety released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS). The Lipan are a Native American Apache tribe (Hodge, 1975). During various periods of the 18th and 19th centuries they roamed from the lower Rio Grande in New Mexico and Mexico eastward through…

This has been one of those years to top all years for Texas agriculture. Most commodities are enjoying a time of all-time-high prices but here in Texas few producers are able to take full advantage of the increased value. Unseasonably high temperatures throughout the spring and summer combined with the lingering effects of drought and…

The Alabama Pecan Growers Association will host its 51st annual conference on Sept. 15 at the Gulf Coast Research and Extension Center in Fairhope, Alabama. A block of hotel rooms has been reserved for attendees at the Holiday Inn Express in Fairhope. Group rate is $89. Call the hotel at 251-928-9191 for reservations. The evening prior…

With the above average temperatures, extreme drought and light crop, to say that 2011 has been a difficult year would be a gross understatement. In addition to these environmental problems, we have also seen several entomological challenges and changes —such as pecan nut casebearer being very early this spring, an almost complete absence of fall…

I like numbers. Some people hate numbers. And don’t forget, numbers can be wrong, or they simply lie. Here are a few Texas Pecan Numbers, maybe right, probably wrong. There are 600,000 to 1,000,000 acres of native pecan trees in Texas, and the number of managed natives is unknown. The finest native groves average less…

It is hard to believe that it is mid-July and time to start getting ready for pecan weevils. I feel that, with the drought conditions across the state, this looks to be a year when producers will really need to pay attention to the potential for drought-delayed adult emergence. I have published this article several…

At the end of June, growers came together in Bartlesville, Oklahoma for the Oklahoma Pecan Growers Annual Conference. Educational topics and grower chatter displayed feelings about the industry — feelings of change, uncertainty and optimism. Growers and industry speakers alike know that changes have been popping up in sectors of the pecan industry. To update…

While Texas pecan growers were generally less than enthusiastic about their crop potential for the 2011 season, the overall sentiment that seemed to prevail at the 90th Annual Texas Pecan Growers Conference in Frisco was that the national industry faces a bright future as long as pecan-producing states cooperatively tackle upcoming hurdles. The need for cooperation…

Pecan growing as an industry is evolving significantly and rapidly with the continued introduction of early harvest varieties (EHVs). The USDA Pecan Breeding Program deserves accolades for making controlled crosses that have combined traits of large nut size, excellent kernel quality and early harvest, which has both expanded the industry’s growing range to the north…

On July 9, in the Albany, Georgia Herald newspaper an extensive article on the pecan business was printed. It was a good article that covered many parts of the business and interviewed people that participate in different areas of the business. Growing, academics, sales and processing were all covered. What really struck me though was a single…

Out here in the middle of the country, we’ve been under a dome of high pressure for weeks. Daily temperatures soar above 100 degrees and the sun is baking the field dry. It is even starting to get dry in our native pecan groves. At this point, even atheists are praying for rain. As most…

Regarding Bill Goff’s article, “Can we predict which cultivars will scab?”, published in the June 2011 issue of Pecan South — when I looked at the photograph in Fig. 1, my first impression was that the scabby leaflet was from a seedling pecan. Regardless of whether it is a seedling or a cultivar, the leaflet does not have…

Last month my wife, partner and I had the opportunity to visit a new (to me) country and observe a fledgling pecan industry getting its legs under it. We spent 5 days traveling the northeastern part of Argentina with our gracious hosts, Miguel and Karen Blanchard, and Alejandro and Carmen Llanos. While pecans have been…

Dear Editor, The article by Richard Haller in the June issue, “Grower attributes orchard decline to climate change,” cries out for a word of rebuttal. Mr. Haller makes a very good case for the unpredictable Texas weather and the risky nature of Texas agriculture due to the harsh climate. No one could argue with the…

If there was ever a year in Georgia to stretch out fungicide sprays, 2011 has been the year, at least through early June. So far this year, we have learned a little about what its like to grow pecans in the desert. As I write this in early June, we have had 4 days of…

The Texas pecan crop for 2011 appears to be in a nose dive. I understand there are some orchards throughout the state with a good crop. I do not know the crop situation in far West Texas. I do know the south-central river region from Waco to the Gulf is in bad shape. Some growers…

Two flat-bed trailers would not hold all the attendees who showed up for the Louisiana Pecan Growers Association’s tour of the LSU Ag Station in Shreveport, which kicked off the annual Tri-State Pecan Conference June 16-17. Mississippi and Arkansas pecan growers sponsor the conference as well. The morning tour was followed by educational sessions and…

ATLANTA – Who snacks on pecans in the U.S.?  Hint: think Steel Magnolias. The profile of a typical pecan snacker is a 52-year-old, educated, affluent, married, white Southern woman, according to a leading market research firm.  The National Pecan Shellers Association (NPSA) recently obtained data from GfK MRI to better understand the American pecan consumer. …

Today’s society is based on a world economy with goods and commodities being shipped to and from countries around the world — which is a good thing and we (pecan growers) are seeing that now with increased sales to China. World trade is great, but all of this commerce can have negative consequences, one of…

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the drought is the center of attention in Texas. To make matters worse we just went through May which is typically the wettest month of the year, and as luck would have it, it turned out to be the third driest month on record in many…

If you search on the internet for pecan pollination, you will generally find that pecan is referred to as a wind-pollinated, monoecious crop exhibiting heterodichogamy. What does that mean? Simply that pecan trees produce separate male and female flowers that mature at different times. When pollen is shed before the female flowers are receptive, the…

Pecans, like people, are moving to the Southwest. According to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, New Mexico and Arizona accounted for a mere 4 percent of U.S. pecan production in the mid-1970s. As a result of steady growth in production, the percentage had blossomed to more than 28 percent a third of a century…

The U.S. Pecans effort to promote the export of pecans was focused on China May 18-20 when 4 representatives manned a booth at the large annual SIAL China trade show in Shanghai. Cindy Wise of the Texas Pecan Growers Association, Bob Whaley of Whaley Pecan Co. in Alabama, grower Mike Spradling of Oklahoma and grower/sheller…