Letter from the Editor: “Thank you, Bill Ree”
Dear readers, Last month, I brought you all behind the curtain and shared with you all the people who help make this magazine possible. This month I’d like to go a step further and thank one person in particular who has been an unwavering advocate for and contributor to this magazine. Thank you, Bill Ree....
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Exploring the Origin of the Pecan Weevil Quarantine
Dear Readers, After 31 years of service with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, which has included over 360 Pecan South articles, I will be retiring at the end of August 2019 which makes this my last article in Pecan South. Over the 31 years, I have tried to provide timely and useful information for producers and...
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Passing on a Pecan Farm from Generation to Generation
You have done all the right things. You invested in a seedling or a grafted tree that has turned into a producing tree, into an orchard. You have built an asset that will live on for generations. Now, how do you ensure that asset gets passed on to the next generation without being destroyed? Given...
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A Year in Review
It may sound cliché, but time has a way of marching right on by when you’re busy having fun. This past year has been full of many firsts. The American Pecan Council (APC) was established in 2016, but like any endeavor built from the ground up, it has taken a couple years to establish a...
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Late-Season ‘Pawnee’ Challenges for 2019
Our Texas crop for 2019 continues to be a mixed bag. My estimate of 65 million pounds appears to be way too high. Hopefully, Texas can produce more than the estimated 28 million pounds. We know one thing. ‘Pawnee’ looked great in the Texas A&M orchard in early August. Seven of 10 shoot terminals are...
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Pheromones Give Nematodes a Boost in Controlling Pests
BYRON, GEORGIA, July 25, 2019—Beneficial nematodes are used as biological control agents to fight a variety of insect pests that severely damage crops. However, in many cases the nematodes don’t measure up to other control methods such as certain chemical pesticides. A recent Agricultural Research Service (ARS) study, published in The Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, shows...
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Pecan Aphids, Part III: A Different Approach to Managing the Black Pecan Aphid
The first and second articles in this series on pecan aphids focused on the distribution of the three aphid species (blackmargined aphid, yellow pecan aphid, and black pecan aphid) on pecan foliage and their feeding biology. An emphasis was placed on how the black pecan aphid conditions foliage at feeding sites by eliciting chlorotic zones,...
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Family Trees: Generations & Propagations
Time gets divided into generations in our families and the social context of our culture. Some generational generalizations (Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, Gen Z) are media hype, but some patterns are appropriate to recognize to maintain what functions well in our communities. The culture of trees carries the previous generations’ fingerprints in the even-aged...
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The Pecan Industry Celebrates the Life of Jim Hamilton
Our friend and longtime member of the NPSA James C. Hamilton passed away Friday, July 26, 2019, surrounded by his family. Jim was born Aug. 10, 1937, in Visalia, California to Clarence and Ruth Hamilton. From a very young age, he worked the land, first with his father, and then on into his own career....
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