Pecans

[Lucky_P]

Pecans and other hickories are my passion.
Have been collecting and grafting improved pecan & hickory cultivars for 30 years.
H2OFowler will need northern pecan selections.
Seedlings from a superior cultivars, pollenized by another improved selection have a better likelihood of producing better-than-average nuts, but there is no guarantee of nut size, quality, productivity or disease/pest resistance.
Seedling pecans generally take 20+ years to come into production - pushing w/ fertilizer might shorten that slightly; grafted trees generally bear in half that time or less - and nut size/quality, disease resistance are a known feature.
Some cultivars, like 'Major', are noted to produce a high percentage of seedlings with good scab resistance and excellent nut quality.
Dr Bill Reid has lots of good pecan info, with emphasis on northern varieties at his blogspot:

Northern Pecans

Observations on growing pecans in Kansas and across middle America

northernpecans.blogspot.com

 

[Lucky_P]

Bill Reid's northern pecan cultivar list is useful in comparing nut qualities, ripening times, scab resistance, etc.

Pecan Cultivars

On this page, you will find a summary of pecan cultivar information that has been collected at the Pecan Experiment Field near Chetopa...

northernpecans.blogspot.com

'Major' pecan, which originated in KY, has been shown to have some gene markers common to bitternut and shagbark hickory, suggesting that an ancestor close-up in its pedigree may have been a shagbarkXbitternut hybrid. It has been used extensively by USDA and others as a parent in breeding scab-resistant pecans, especially for the northern/Midwestern pecan belt.

 

[b116757]

I just planted my first grafted pecan trees this past spring 4 of them one died already but we had a drought and I didn’t water them but once or twice all summer. I really really wish I’d of planted some grafted trees 20 years ago I’d have some producing trees at this time. I do have a few native trees at the home place that produce some years.

 

[H20fwler]

Pecans and other hickories are my passion.
Have been collecting and grafting improved pecan & hickory cultivars for 30 years.
H2OFowler will need northern pecan selections.
Seedlings from a superior cultivars, pollenized by another improved selection have a better likelihood of producing better-than-average nuts, but there is no guarantee of nut size, quality, productivity or disease/pest resistance.
Seedling pecans generally take 20+ years to come into production - pushing w/ fertilizer might shorten that slightly; grafted trees generally bear in half that time or less - and nut size/quality, disease resistance are a known feature.
Some cultivars, like 'Major', are noted to produce a high percentage of seedlings with good scab resistance and excellent nut quality.
Dr Bill Reid has lots of good pecan info, with emphasis on northern varieties at his blogspot:

Northern Pecans

Observations on growing pecans in Kansas and across middle America

northernpecans.blogspot.com

Thanks, that is good info. I’ve got a few ordered for next spring.
I so wish I would have paid closer attention to pecans years ago and got into them a decade ago.
The couple people I know in my area that have any tell me they are a December drop here, almost all are in peoples yards.
Seems like the perfect hard mast for just after acorns to fill that spot. It’s obvious that deer and all wildlife will get after them.

I’m surprised there hasn’t been more chatter about them, I know everyone is into chestnuts and acorns, pecans just seem to have slipped under the radar as a late season big draw further north.
I think a lot of it is because pecans are a more of a “southern” thing and a lot of people me included had no idea that thin shelled northern varieties were even a thing.

The most I really hear about pecan is how guys with smokers love the wood. Never had heard much wildlife talk about them.

 

[Lucky_P]

Gotta water those transplants if they don't get at least an inch of rain per week for at least the first year; especially critical if they are bareroot! Mulching and keeping at least a 6 ft circle of ground around the tree free of competing vegetation really helps get them off to a good start.

Best source for grafted northern pecans and hickories is Rock Bridge Trees in Bethpage TN. Bass Pecan is great for Southern pecans.

 

[b116757]

One of my native pecan trees this one was in a fence row I pushed out about 20 years ago it was likely about 15 years old at that time it gets full sun and this year produced a bumper crop of pecans. I was looking at my pecans and hickories behind the house this afternoon I’m planning on logging several of them and having them cut into lumber but I’m leaving the heavy producing pecan trees. I was doing a little inventory of the heavy producers.

 

[Lucky_P]

Consider inventorying those hickories, too!
You might have individual trees (especially if we're talking shagbark or shellbark hickory) that produce excellent quality nuts - thin shelled or excellent cracking characteristics, and would be worthy of retaining.
Deep-woods hickories are often less than heavily productive due to crowding & shading, but if you're gonna harvest some, opening the canopy and reducing competition to those exceptional hickories may pay off in a big way.
I have one shagbark in my woods that makes a nut with shell thinner than many pecans, cracks out intact halves, with 46% kernel... But in deep woods, it doesn't produce many nuts, and it's hard to beat squirrels to them. I need to graft it onto some pecan seedlings in an open location, but will have to shoot a branch out...its at least 40 ft up to the first limb.

 

[b116757]

My hickories are smooth bark their nuts are like rocks wish I had some shag bark at least they would be good for bat habitat.

 

[bwoods11]

I found some Pecan trees on my new farm in Missouri. I know nothing about them, so just reading up on them.

Interested to know more about them.

 

[Lucky_P]

My hickories are smooth bark their nuts are like rocks wish I had some shag bark at least they would be good for bat habitat.

Sad. The farm I grew up on, in east AL - heck, all of east Alabama, for that matter, as far as I know - was only populated with mockernut, pignut, and bitternut hickories (and tons of 'volunteer' pecans from all the old pecan orchards. Those hickories are not much good for human consumption - but every once in a while, someone finds a mockernut with thinner shell that cracks out decent size kernels. Otherwise, they're about only good for squirrels and lumber, though you could crush mockernut/pignut to make 'hickory milk' or boil the nuts and a few nutshells to make hickory syrup.
I've got two local shagbark selections that I've made which have won 1st & 2nd place, on multiple occasions, at the KY State Fair. Attached photo is the 2nd place winner this year. 1st Place winner is slightly smaller, but cracks out even better, and has slightly better flavor.

 

[b116757]

I found some Pecan trees on my new farm in Missouri. I know nothing about them, so just reading up on them.

Interested to know more about them.

Crown release them and many times they will start producing pecans it may take a couple years after crown release to really see the effects.

 

[Lucky_P]

Fertilization will help production as well, but will not increase genetically determined nut size, which may or may not be kind of disappointing from some natives.

Northern Pecans

Observations on growing pecans in Kansas and across middle America

northernpecans.blogspot.com

 

[bwoods11]

I’ve got about 6-7 big mature trees in one area— All by the themselves

 

[Turkish]

Built our retirement home on an old farmstead with about a dozen very mature pecan trees and 2 massive walnut trees. Beautiful to look at. But I don't like em. Pick up limbs after every storm and mowing is a nightmare with the nuts from both trees.

This is definitely their reputation. I like them because they are a staple on really old homesteads. But if I were to put them in my yard, I’d only consider one of the new improved cultivars that don’t drop limbs (if there’s such a thing).

Also, Im surprised hear that a forester recommended them. I don’t think of them as a tall straight grower, but I guess they could be in a forest setting.

They’re pretty common down here in Bayou country and in SW MS.

 

[b116757]

I have a couple black walnuts in my yard the walnut cleanup every fall gets old I will admit that, they are not my favorite yard trees for sure. All my pecan trees are in the pasture or the timber and the mess isn’t an issue. I will say my yard walnut trees because they get full sun tends to be a very heavy nut producers which sucks to clean up but the flip side of that is I always get plants of walnuts that I generally dump in a big pile someplace and I pretty much always get several walnut trees growing in that area where the nuts where dumped so I strategically dump them now in areas I want more walnut trees. Wouldn’t be unusual for me to have 1/4-1/2 a pickup bed full of 5 gallon pails of walnuts depending on the year. I must be overwhelming the predation dumping so many in one place each fall.

 

[H20fwler]

I grew up with oak and hickory trees in the front and back yard, hated having to rake that mess up every fall. I will never have any type of nut tree in my yard ever again.

Both our woods are loaded with hickory trees some are huge, mostly shagbark but a few pig (red) hickory, the wood ducks like the small pig hickory nuts and timber cruisers like the red wood. Everyone around here likes shagbark for using in there smokers, I like it because it splits nice. We have no native pecan in our area.
Lots of our older hickory trees go hollow and stove pipe...the coon love those as den trees, I do not love the coons. Walnut/hickory/black locust are all terrible for sprouting out from the edge of woods into the yard and trying to creep out.