Consumer trends — ‘Nouveau Snacking’ on the rise
Consumers are snacking much more frequently. According to Technomic Inc.’s 2012 Snacking Occasion Consumer Trend Report, about half (48 percent) of the population snacks at least twice a day, double the 2010 level of 25 percent. Seven in 10 snacks are eaten in the home, reports Technomic. Fresh fruit, crackers/cookies, cereal, potato chips/pretzels, ice cream, and...
Read moreTexas pecans: shake and make
We just completed shaking off 400 pounds per acre of green, waterstage ‘Pawnee’ pecans in the A&M Storey block. The trees were overloaded with clusters of 3 to 5 nuts on 10 of 10 shoots. Our crop was good last year, but not great enough to shake. This was the “on” year and the trees...
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Weevils in their native environment
Weevil is the number one pest native pecan growers must learn to manage. Every time I think I’ve discovered the magic formula for completely stopping pecan weevil damage, nature throws me a curveball and I end up pulling weevil-damaged nuts off the cleaning table. It seems that managing pecan weevil in a native pecan grove may be...
Read moreOne Percent Kernel
The months of August and September are very important for pecan crop development. Shell hardening signals the end of the nut-sizing period, and the commencement of kernel filling. The date of shell hardening varies by variety and location. The early-maturing variety ‘Pawnee’, was at full shell hardening by the middle of July this year at Bastrop,...
Read moreVarieties Worth Considering—Part 1
For some time I have been considering what varieties to plant in some new orchards we are establishing. I have read and studied many of the new releases, and while interesting to me in some cases, long-term field data is missing on these cultivars. True performance can only be assessed after the variety is in...
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