Autumnal Reflections on Drought, Water, and Tree Stress
Ah, fall. At times, it can be the best time of the year, with cooler weather and more optimum working conditions, often after a brutal summer. This year did not disappoint as far as summer heat goes, as we have had a record number of 100-degree days along with minimal rainfall. Of course, the other...
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More Heat, More Tree Stress
The heat has been brutal in Texas for the last month or so, but then again, it is summer and supposed to be hot! Typically, pecan trees can take the heat if they have enough water. But now we see signs of stress even on 300-year-old native pecan trees. Most native pecans grow on great,...
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Managing Crop Load in the New Growing Season
It goes without saying—hope springs eternal as we watch buds burst forth with catkins and shoots. No doubt, we ponder hard as to what lies ahead in 2023 in more ways than one. However, we need to concentrate on what we can control, which is not all that much, but at least if we do...
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Let the Sunshine in This Growing Season
As we ponder the 2023 growing season, some serious concerns come to mind. Still, having said that, it is really nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to agriculture and the risks farmers take every year. Many times you have to wonder why they would do it. Reckon it is just something that gets...
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What Happened to My Pecans?
Harvest is typically the culmination of a long, hard, strenuous growing season, and this year is no exception, as it was a brutally tough summer for many. Lack of rain and extreme temperatures, followed by an extensive outbreak of yellow aphids, was the norm in many areas. So, what should be an exciting moment in...
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It’s More Than a Lack of Water
We’ve made it through August, and the state of Texas is still immersed in a terrible drought. Typically, the quickest way out of such a situation is to talk about it, but we have been talking about it for months, and little has happened! Perhaps by the time you read this, the situation will have...
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Water woes and tree removal go hand in hand
Like it or not, a new pecan “growing” year is well in hand, despite the continued numerous challenges faced by growers, including rising production costs and labor. Of utmost concern in my mind, though, is the ongoing drought. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, this drought engulfs about 89.5% of Texas and 44.38% of the...
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Thoughts for the 2022 crop and growing season
Hard to believe that another growing season is upon us, with spring right around the corner. For some, the coming growing season represents a chance at redemption after a miserable 2021 from the standpoint of a crop or management. One of the greatest challenges that growers face in the upcoming year is the skyrocketing costs...
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Remembering Dr. Josiah (Jody) Worthington
As has happened all too often in the last few years, another one of our premiere horticulturists has been called in for his next assignment. Apparently, the Good Lord was looking for help to rejuvenate the vast fruit gardens of heaven, and our own Dr. Josiah Wistar (Jody) Worthington was indeed the man for the...
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Remembering Mr. Bill Perry
One of the few constants in life is death—something never easy to discuss, especially when it is a treasured family member or friend. Yet, it is important for us to remember those who went before us and not only made the world a better place but more than likely taught us a thing or two....
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Pecan trees and freeze damage, assessing and monitoring your orchard after the freeze
“Hurry up and wait!” A phrase I have come to say more often than not in the last few weeks. What seemed like an early spring was squashed by an unbelievable Arctic Express in mid-February. For the most part, I think that we as pecan growers are ok, but then again nobody knows that for...
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Dr. George Ray McEachern Becomes Professor, Extension Specialist Emeritus
Dr. George Ray McEachern was my major professor for my Ph.D. as well as my mentor. Then interestingly, at the end of his career, I was somewhat his boss, though I never thought of it that way. I feel privileged to nominate Dr. George Ray McEachern for Professor and Extension Horticulturist Emeritus. He has had...
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Grow Leaves, Grow More Pecans
Perhaps you remember that well-known line from the poem “Twas The Night Before Christmas”—While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads. This January, thoughts of lush, dark green leaves sprouting on your pecan trees should be dancing through your head. It’s somewhat hard to think about leaves in January, but growing leaves is exactly what...
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Getting a Handle on Your 2020 Crop
How can it be that it is harvest time once again? It seems that time is flying in these uncommon times! Still your pecan trees have carried on, despite the current challenges. Hopefully, you have been able to keep up with your tree management program and develop a plan to manage your crop load as...
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Tips for Cleaning Up Storm-Damaged Trees After Mother Nature Throws a Curveball
We’re off and running on another year of growing pecans! So, how many years has it been for you? Can you recall any two years ever being the same? At the moment, the season follows the same pattern as always. Some folks have a crop; some insist they don’t and will not harvest, while others...
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Here Comes the Sun
As a new pecan growing season begins in earnest, I hope you have your management plan for the new year firmly in your mind. Now is the time to think about the moments where you dropped the ball or the things you did not do so hot on. Perhaps you were late with a spray...
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You’ve got brush to burn. Here’s how to do it.
As the harvest season winds down for another year, we are often left with mounds of limbs, which need to be handled by being moved or perhaps burned in place. Such litter is the result of the shading out of branches, broken limbs from either too many nuts and leaves, wind damage due to the...
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How to Maintain Pecan Kernel Quality Year After Year
As you ponder the quality of this year’s crop, you need to think about what goes into producing quality pecans. Producing top-quality nuts used to seem easy and simple, but as your trees grow and age, consistently growing quality kernels becomes more challenging. The difficulty increases when you add in the fact that no two...
Read moreFilling your pecans requires you to control & manage what you can
As the dog days of summer encroach upon another pecan growing season, it seems like we are always talking about water—either there’s not enough or way too much! Just like every year, some places across the Pecan Belt have had excessive amounts of rain, whereas other orchards have been getting just enough. The big difference...
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Fertilizer Keeps this Season’s Optimism Alive
Still smarting from quality woes and lack of market activity this past growing season, producers are struggling to find optimism as the new growing season kicks off in earnest. I must admit that I too am struggling for optimism, but in reality, all farmers—whatever the crop—are eternal optimists. Why? Because we have some assurances that...
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Good Pecans Start With Good Leaves
As we stand on the threshold of the 2019 growing season, it would be easy to be discouraged after the challenges we have had the last couple of years, but we all know that if it was easy, anyone could do it and we also know that growing pecans is a lot of hard work!...
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Seasonal challenges augment the effects of overcropping
The challenges of agriculture are never-ending. From being too dry to being too wet to being too cold and always too hot, and then throw in a few hail storms, tornados, and hurricanes! Most everyday folks would never dream of taking the risks farmers take on a daily basis. Then, couple all of that with...
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Tribute to Dr. Jesse Cocke, Retired Extension Entomologist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service
Texas A & M AgriLife Extension Service lost another one of their Distinguished Retired Entomologists when Jesse Cocke, Ph.D., was called in for his next assignment in the vast gardens of heaven on May 23, 2018. Cocke was a great Extension Entomologist and an even better scientist! Jesse Cocke, Jr. was born on Sept. 29,...
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A Happy, Healthy Native Tree Makes for a Potentially Prosperous Crop
Texas has many, many native pecan trees. In fact, we like to claim that the pecan originated in Texas! These trees are located on some of the very best pecan soils in the world—deep, well-drained, fertile and typically with a static water table at about 20 to 25 feet. However, in the grand scheme of...
Read moreTree by Tree, Step by Step
What a difference a year makes as we get ready for another exciting growing season! Our winter to date has been totally different from last year with periods of extended cold, some ice and snow and cold fronts on a regular basis. After a year of virtually no chill, it appears that we will have...
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So, what happened to my pecans?
Hard to believe another year has come and gone, and with it, another pecan harvest of some pretty iffy pecans in some areas of the state. Although other folks had very good pecans, the norm for many areas of Texas has been only fair to good pecans. Please, please, don’t get me wrong. I am...
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When the Storm Ends, Cleanup Begins
The dawn of the 2017 pecan harvest is upon us. As usual, it has its own set of unique challenges, which must be dealt with depending on where you are before one could even think about harvesting. First and foremost, many pecan bottoms were flooded due to Hurricane Harvey, and the cleanup of the debris...
Read moreCrop or Not, Make Your Native Timbre Happier and Healthier
It is hard to believe we are already in the middle of another growing season. Just as they always are, this year has been anything but normal. First, there was the protracted bud break period due to the lack of adequate chilling hours. We had a couple of Arctic Express cold fronts this past winter,...
Read moreUnique Winter and Early Spring Weather
The dawn of a new growing season is upon us once again; it really seems like we just finished the last season and here we go again. What a unique winter and early spring it has been—hardly cold in some areas, but still those areas had two arctic blasts and the cold from those spells...
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A Farewell Salute to Sammy Helmers
It is once again time to bid a final farewell to one of Extension Horticulture’s finest: Dr. Sammy G. Helmers. It seems the Good Lord was in need of a new “storyteller” and our own Dr. Helmers was called in for the job on Nov. 15, 2016. Since we are talking about our one and...
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Stay on Top of Pest Monitoring, Shading Issues
As this Labor Day came and went, I couldn’t help but think of my good friend Horace Brown, now deceased, and his first pecan pie of the season. The Browns had some of the earliest ripening native pecans in the country, and so, Horace was not content to have an apple pie for Labor Day,...
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Rain Can Bring Blessings and Challenges
Rain!!… what a beautiful thing… just seems to be too much at times. But, my, does it make things grow, especially pecans. It seems like we have been talking about drought and the devastation it was having on native trees along rivers and creeks that had gone dry forever, and today we are talking about...
Read moreThe Annual Challenge of Managing Water in Pecans
I recently had the honor and privilege—probably the right term is challenge—to expound on pecan water requirements in a court of law. Those of you who practice that profession and/or those of you who have done that sort of thing in the past know exactly what I am talking about. The real question is where...
Read moreWater Management in Pecans is Annual Challenge
I recently had the honor and privilege — probably the right term is challenge — to expound on pecan water requirements in a court of law. Those of you who practice that profession and/or those of you who have done that sort of thing in the past know exactly what I am talking about. The...
Read moreShortcourse Offers Basic Management Overview
I never cease to be amazed at the power of water… and today we are not talking about flooding, but rather the power to make things grow! Trees given up for dead made unbelievable growth in 2015. We always tell folks that if they want to grow pecans, they have to get their “water right!”;...
Read moreDawn of Another Native Harvest Season
The dawn of a new harvest season is upon us; in fact, the varmints have already captured those early maturing native pecans. More times than not, they get them long before we even know they are ready. What a crazy year it has been again — starting off wet, almost too wet in some areas,...
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Bluefford Hancock – Pecans were his true love
I was privileged to have been hired by Mr. Bluefford G. Hancock, Extension Horticulture Project Group Leader Emeritus for Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, better known as the Texas Agriculture Extension Service in his heyday. As Mr. Hancock often remarked, “When he started out he was the only one (Extension Horticulturist for Texas)”; and he...
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Keys to consistent native production
It is hard to believe that the dawn of another growing season is upon us — seems like we were just talking about harvest and now it is time to start all over once again. No doubt the “old timers” got it right when they said, “the older you get the faster the years go”!...
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Crop is good but varmints lurk
Whew! Looks like we are going to make it! Yes, as harvest begins it appears that the crop is going to be good despite the weather challenges. Many growers related that they were not sure they could make another season if it didn’t rain soon last year (2013) and even though there has been a...
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Exercise caution with weed, brush control
Unexpected rains have been nice across much of the state; that, coupled with a very heavy bloom in native pecan bottoms, is cause for optimism even though a late freeze greatly reduced the crop load in some areas. However, pecan nut casebearer has been quite low to non-existent in many areas. So theoretically we should...
Read moreWinter brought good chilling but drought continues
We are off and running on another pecan year and many folks are looking forward to the New Year after the poor crop in 2013. What a winter it has been to date – unbelievable cold weather. Not so much from extreme lows, but rather from extended periods of cold weather. All temperate fruit crops...
Read moreA – n – t – i – c – i – p – a – t – i – o – n
Some of you remember the Carly Simon song “Anticipation” from years ago. It was the most famous track from her 1971 album of the same name, reaching #13 on the U.S. pop charts. The song relates Simon’s state of mind as she waits to go on a date with Cat Stevens. And just as Ms....
Read moreEven Natives May Succumb to Extended Drought
Water… the basic premise of life, a fact that applies to both animals as well as plants. As anyone involved in the production of pecans knows, water is critical for tree growth and health, and most importantly to ensure nut development and fill. In fact, when most good pecan men are asked to name the...
Read moreDon’t get discouraged and push out your natives!
One is sure hard-pressed to find a positive spin for native pecans today even though there was a big crop in 2012. Unfortunately, the drought also continued in 2012 and for some reason, the price for native pecans was pretty pathetic even though the price had been very good the last two years. Still, for...
Read moreTexas native crop fairly good despite drought
Even though the drought conditions have eased a bit in Texas, there are still many areas of the state that are in dire need of water despite the fact that rains have fallen in recent weeks. The problem is the rain has been very scattered as many areas only received a “settling of the dust”,...
Read moreFor natives, wait for nitrogen application; be ready with zinc
Even though we have turned the page on a new year, the sting of the 2011 cropping season lingers. For many in Texas, 2011 was their worst year ever. Still, parts of the state enjoyed a favorable native and improved pecan crop. Native pecans produced in 2011 were for the most part quite small due...
Read moreAssessing Your Crop: Bending Limbs and the “Pop” Test
Although most are ready for this year to be over, it is really hard to believe it is harvest time once again. Hopefully, most of you have a few nuts left to harvest after the brutal, horrific summer. Most improved pecan orchards have had to supply every ounce of water the trees got; so with...
Read moreWow Will Weather Affect This Year’s Crop?
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...
Read moreVast Stands of Natives Could Increase U.S. Production
Record native pecan prices in 2011 have created a great deal of interest in the potential management of native pecan stands in Texas. Despite the good off-year pecan crop in Texas, the native crop was fair to good at best. However, the good prices lead to healthy returns for most folks who manage and/or harvest...
Read more2011 Pecan Shortcourse coming up Jan. 24-28
The annual Texas Pecan Orchard Management Shortcourse conducted by Texas AgriLife Extension Service will again be held (Jan. 24-28, 2011) on the Texas A&M Campus in College Station in Rudder Tower. If you are planning to plant trees, or have young trees or simply need a refresher course on growing pecans, this class should indeed...
Read moreSteps to Protect Your Pecans This Harvest Season
The 2010 harvest season is here! Even though it is hard to believe it is here so soon, it also seems like it has been a long growing season. Growing conditions have been favorable across the state for most of the year with good and at times too much rain. Still there are places that...
Read moreNative Crop Looks Good in Texas So Far
It is with a great deal of sadness and respect that I note the passing of Belding Farms pecan grower extraordinaire, Mr. Jim Bennett. The first time I visited Belding Farms I was not only intrigued with the trees, but the size of the operation and the smoothness with which it ran due to Mr....
Read moreThe Passing of a Legend: Dr. J. Benton Storey
All involved in the pecan industry are well aware of the work of Dr. James Benton Storey as he was not only a distinguished and internationally recognized Professor of Horticulture and taught the Nut Culture class, Hort 418, at Texas A&M, but also was the heart and soul of the Texas Pecan Growers Association. His...
Read morePrepare To Fertilize!
The drought of this past year and previous years is but a distant memory today in most folk’s minds as many completed harvest in and around rain events. It is hard to believe exactly how dry 2009 really was. When you get to doubting how dry it really was, all you need to do is...
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