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Pecan trees still dormant
The calendar says its Spring and my peach trees are starting to show some pink buds. But it seems like its still winter in my pecan orchard. The first sign that pecan buds are beginning to...
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Pecan buds starting to push
My pecan trees have been slow to break bud this year, but finally, I noted the first signs of new growth. Pictured above is a Kanza shoot with the two primary buds nearest to the terminal in the...
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Spring fertilizer application in the pecan grove
With pecan buds swelling and the soil dry enough, today was a good day to spread some fertilizer on my pecan orchard (photo at right). Earlier this year I took a soil sample to test for...
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Controlling weeds in the pecan orchard
Over the past week, I've been working on getting the weeds and grass controlled around my pecan trees (photo at right). It is widely accepted that total vegetative control around young trees is one...
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Grafting this Spring
A successful apple graft Over the past week, I've been getting plenty of practice with my grafting knife by propagating apples and pears in our fruit orchard. Fortunately for me, the best time to...
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Pecan catkins emerging
Yesterday, I spent some time out in my pecan grove inspecting emerging leaves and catkins. Its much too early to see the kind of nut crop we are going to have in 2019, but by looking carefully at...
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A great day for grafting pecan trees
The weather today was overcast, cool, and damp--prefect weather for grafting. So, once the early morning showers moved off to the northeast, I spent the day grafting trees. I used two of the...
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Grafting a tree to produce scionwood
Whenever I graft a large seedling pecan tree over to a new cultivar, I usually place a single graft on the central leader and leave some lower limbs on the tree to provide photosynthetic energy for...
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Time for directive pruning young trees
While I'm out grafting trees, I often pause at trees that I've grafted in past years to give them a little directive pruning to ensure that I maintain a central leader on rapidly growing grafts....
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Pecan pollination season begins
Its that time of year when you can look up at a pecan tree and see thousands of catkins dangling from limbs (photo at right). Plentiful catkin production is a good indicator of a healthy tree but...
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Spring blooms in a native pecan grove
Over the past week, its been largely cloudy with frequent rain showers. I've recorded over 7 inches of rain in the past 8 days with more predicted to come tonight. With all this gloomy weather, I...
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Waiting for grafts to break bud
The sun has come out and daytime temperatures are starting to rise into the 80's. With this kind of weather, I start to get anxious to see my pecan grafts break bud. Today I visited the first graft...
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Pecan pollination half-way complete
Today, I checked pecan flowering to see how things were progressing. My first stop was a Gardner tree. As you can see in the photo at right this protandrous cultivar has shed all its pollen, the...
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First buds to pop on 2019 grafts
Today, I start on a long drive to Indiana to teach pecan tree grafting to some eager nut growers. But before I jump in to the pickup, I decided to take a photo of one of my 2019 Kanza grafts just...
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Third flood this year on the Neosho River
Over the past 3 weeks, we have received over 14 inches of rainfall--That's one third of our normal annual total. Within this same period, the Neosho River has spilled over it banks 3 times....
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Forcing a new pecan graft
Between rain showers, I have been inspecting all the grafts I made earlier this Spring. New buds on the scions are emerging but stump sprouts are trying to over take the scion. The photo at right...
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The mystery of pecan grafting
Early this spring, I decided to top work a fairly large tree with the idea of creating a tree just to grow Pawnee scionwood. This particular tree had two main stems, each about 2.5 inches in...
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A bad case of pecan leaf phylloxera
I have been scouting pecan trees for signs of pecan nut casebearer activity and have made a couple of important observations. I haven't seen any casebearer as of today, June 7th and every native...
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Pruning a Kanza graft
Flood waters covered my pecan grove for two weeks and the water just receded this past Monday. This week the soil had a chance to dry out and I was finally able to get out to look over some of my...
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Spraying pecans to prevent diseases
I've been scouting pecans for pecan nut casebearer every-other-day but as of June 11, I haven't seen anything. What I have seen, is lots of pecans. Every native pecan tree in our area seems to have...
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