Is It Time To Make A Few Changes?
Well, we made it through Christmas and we rang in a new year, although I’m sure a few were sleeping when the ball fell in Times Square. This year we not only started a new year but a new decade as well. Some of the events of the last decade included multiple hurricanes, record drought,...
Read morePape Nutcracker Collection May Be World’s Largest
Kenneth Pape of Seguin, Texas, may have the largest collection of nutcrackers in the world and his collection is now showcased in his Nutcracker Museum, one of the biggest attractions in this small town about 30 miles east of San Antonio. Seguin is rich in pecan tradition and the Pape family is responsible for much...
Read more2010 Pecan Calendar For Texas
As pecan growers enter the 2010 pecan year, it is good to outline management practices that may need to be used and develop plans. The 2007, 2008 and 2009 early markets were less than ideal as far as prices to grower. The 2009 crop started out great, but 4 months of drought followed by way...
Read moreHorticultural Oils For Pest Control: Use With Care
This is a topic I have written about several times in the past for this column, but every year I receive questions concerning the use of dormant oils on pecan so I will rerun again. Horticultural oils have been used in agriculture for over 100 years to control various soft bodied insects such as scale,...
Read moreFrom The Tree To The Pie: One Grower’s Adventure
We are considered to be a small grower. We have a ‘Maramec’ orchard that produced slightly over 20,000 pounds in 2009 with a potential of 40,000 pounds annually when the smaller trees mature. Although small, I take pecan production very seriously. Our orchard is primarily random. I began grafting existing sprouts in 1979. The annual...
Read moreSpring Fertilizer Timing
An annual application of fertilizer is one practice that separates intensively managed commercial pecan orchards from many native groves and dooryard plantings. Pecan trees will bear nuts with no supplemental fertilizer in many of those settings, and occasionally will make fantastic crops, but producing pecans consistently and profitably requires that the nutritional needs of the...
Read moreTime To Move On
We are into February now and many of us did not really finish harvest and clean up until at least mid-January if not later. This creates a short off season for us to do those things in the orchard that we need to before spring comes. With all the chill hours that the eastern part...
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