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Pecan TreesGrowing Range • Nut Production • Planting • Pollination • Varieties • Pests & Diseases • Nut Size • Harvesting & Storage • Nutrition • As American as Pecan Pie! Certain foods bring to mind events in our lives. Pumpkins for Halloween, turkey for Thanksgiving, and pecans mean fall in the south. Pecans are a southern nut and one of the most popular nuts we eat. So get ready, its pecan season and it looks like there will be a great crop. Pecans are native to North America, from Texas to Illinois. The Indians were using pecans for food long before the European settlers came. Pecan is an American Indian word, which appears in varied forms in the languages of many of the tribes. They used pecans extensively, from pressing the oils for seasoning, they ground them into meal to thicken stews, and they cooked them with beans, and roasted them for long hunting trips. And while we still enjoy native pecans, through plant breeding, the size and quality of the nut has grown substantially over the years. Pecan trees grow best in southern conditions, but will grow in zones 6 - 9. Optimum conditions for the highest production are a long, warm growing season, without much of a temperature drop at night. Further north the hican, a cross between a pecan and a hickory tree are grown, since they are more tolerant of cold weather. Pecans produce a large tree, growing to 150 feet tall at maturity, with a spreading canopy and dark green foliage. To produce nuts, you need at least two varieties for cross-pollination. And while they can make a good shade tree, harvesting quality nuts in a home situation can be tricky. There are several diseases and insects which attack them, and commercial growers are better equipped to spray for these problems. Due to their large size, it is difficult, if not impossible for home gardeners to spray for control. For this reason, consider pecan trees as a shade tree, and if you get quality nuts that is a bonus. When looking for the good pecans to eat, look to your local growers. Since pecan trees grow so large, when planting them you need to allow a minimum of 35 feet spacing between trees. Even with that distance, in time, they will need to be thinned out to 50 foot spacing. They thrive in full sun and in soil that is fertile and deep. Pecan trees are deep rooted and need fairly large quantities of water during the growing season. Pecan trees produce separate male and female flowers on the same tree. However, they are usually not in bloom at the same time on the same tree. Some varieties shed their pollen before the female flowers are receptive. Therefore they need pollen from another variety that matures its pollen a little later. The male blooms generally appear first each spring as tassel-like growth. The female blooms appear later and consist of the ovules found at the tips of the new spring growth. When choosing your varieties, look for pollination compatibility and disease resistance. Pecans are wind-pollinated, and only need a few hours of clear weather with favorable humidity and winds, to pollinate a crop. Most catalogs and the pecan fact sheet from the Cooperative Extension Service will list pollen compatibility as well as disease resistance. New varieties emerge over the years, and favorites come and go. Many producers in Arkansas favor the Cape Fear variety. Stuart and Mahan were the trees of choice several years ago, and are still around. For home gardeners who want to give it a shot, look primarily for disease resistance. Elliott, Mohawk and Gloria Grande are three varieties with good disease resistance and are considered good yard trees, versus orchard trees. The most common disease problem is pecan scab. This disease causes sooty black spots on the leaves and malformation of the nuts. The nuts often are covered in black spots also. Insect problems include stinkbugs, which cause small bitter black spots on the meat of the pecan, and pecan casebearer which causes small worms in the nut. Other insects and diseases occur in some years. Most commercial growers spray from 10 to fifteen times a year to prevent these problems. Nut size will vary with the variety, age of tree, size of the crop and moisture conditions during the growing season until shell hardening. Most trees will start to produce pecans within five to eight years depending on variety, growth rate and location. Many pecan trees are alternate bearing, they produce a large crop one year and a smaller crop the next. Harvesting pecans occurs from mid October through November, and occasionally into December. For home harvesting, gathering falling nuts can be an option, but you usually have to fight the squirrels, who are master nut gatherers. Small harvests can be achieved by tapping limbs with a padded stick to help with nut drop, or commercially tree shakers are used. Mechanical shakers are fascinating to watch. Once secured on the trunk of the tree, they are turned on and the tree shakes rapidly, causing the nuts to drop like pelting rain. Standing nearby, even the soil vibrates. Then the nuts are gathered, removed from their outer husks and sorted. Pecan nuts lose quality very quickly on the ground, especially during wet weather, so it is important to harvest soon after shaking. Fresh pecans need to be air dried for two to three weeks before storing. Pecans will oxidize or turn rancid more rapidly in light and out of their shell, so nuts will store longer when they are in their shell. If you don’t intend to use them right away, you may want to buy unshelled nuts. They are best stored in a cool, dry, protected location. If you plan to store them for more than a month, you might consider freezing them. For the highest quality product it is recommended that they not be stored for more than one year in the freezer, but they have been known to do fine for several years. Pecans are a complete protein, containing significant amounts of 18 essential amino acids. They are a good source of energy, but are also high in fat. They also contain good amounts of iron, calcium, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, as well as vitamin B, C, Thiamin, and Niacin. The pecan is originally 100% American, and it has been allowed to remain 95% American. While there have been some sparse plantings in Australia and South Africa, pecans are not eaten much outside of America. Even in export, the pecan remains American, the chief foreign buyer is Canada. If the pecan has failed to gain popularity outside of America, it is not because it isn’t a tasty nut, but more likely that it closely resembles the flavor of a walnut, which was already established in Europe well before the pecan was discovered. And since they don’t breed true from seed, needing grafting, and because they grow so large and need a warm climate, they; haven’t spread far. But in the United States, the pecan is cultivated in orchards more widely than any other native tree. So maybe the slogan should say "As American as ‘pecan’ pie!" Whether you are growing them, or just enjoy eating them, we are in the midst of pecan season. Enjoy our native nuts. |
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