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Spring frost burns emerging pecan shoots
Frost burn on Kanza At first I didn't think it got cold enough last Saturday morning (18 April 2020) to give cause for concern. Our thermometer, read 30 degrees F at dawn. That shouldn't be cold...
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First day of pecan grafting
I might have been able to start grafting earlier, but last week's frost caused me to delay carving scions until I could see how my trees recover from the frost burn. Turns out, my bigger trees...
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Bark grafting tips
A successful bark graft This past week has provided excellent weather for grafting even if I needed rubber boots to wade through the mud created by a couple of night-time rain showers. In previous...
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Regrafting a damaged tree with an arrowhead graft
Last summer, I discovered that one of my grafted trees was girdled by a squirrel stripping the bark from the fast growing scion (see Here). After cutting out the dead graft, I allowed one shoot to...
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Using a 3-flap graft on a frost-damaged pecan seedling
I finished up my grafting season this past week applying the last few grafts to trees that were recovering from the April 18th frost burn. All these trees were fairly small and ideal for attaching...
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Pecan pollination season
Gardner pistillate flowers The weather in SE Kansas this spring has been cool, cloudy, and wet with only a few days of sunshine and warm temperatures. As a result, pecan bud break and flowering has...
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Directive pruning young pecan trees
In between rain showers, I have been trying to work on pruning all my young pecan trees. Right now, when I look out in the orchard, I see far too many trees that look like lolly-pops; Trees with a...
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Forcing pecan grafts
In the world of horticulture, the phrase "forcing graft" means to prune a newly grafted tree in such a way as to direct all the tree's energy towards to growth of the scion. During early June, I...
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Pecan Nut Casebearer arrives late
I've been scouting my orchard every other day for the past 10 days watching for the first signs of pecan nut casebearer activity. After inspecting over 100 nut clusters, I found a single casebearer...
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Heavy Kanza Nut Set
Last week while I was scouting nut clusters for pecan nut casebearer activity, I was surprised to find that my Kanza trees had set an unusually heavy crop. It was just not the fact that a high...
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Pecan bark graft - The first year in pictures
Graft placed 25 April 2020Updated 16 June 2020 This year, I decided to photograph the growth and training of one of the bark grafts that I made this Spring. I'll be adding to this post as the season...
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Directive pruning leads to increased lateral branching
Earlier this spring, I showed you how I use Directive Pruningto reshape a top heavy tree and promote the growth of a single, central leader. The photo at right was taken one month after my initial...
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Bearing pecan trees compete with ground-cover for water
The weather this year has been wild. During the month of May, over 9.5 inches of rain fell on my pecan grove. When June arrived, Nature's spigot seems to turn off completely. We've recorded only...
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Collecting leaf samples for analysis
This week I collected leaf samples from my pecan grove so I could submit them for nutrient analysis. Leaf analysis is the best way to discover if pecan trees are getting all the nutrients from the...
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Insects feeding on pecan leaves
Over the past week I've been scouting my pecan orchard for signs of summer foliage feeders. At this time of year, we can have outbreaks of Fall webworm and/or walnut caterpillar and I don't want...
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Kanza will need crop load thinning
By the first day of August, pecans have gained enough size to be clearly visible on the tree. Looking at my Kanza trees, I could already see limbs weighted down with an immense crop (photo at...
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Time for nut crop thinning
This year, my Kanza trees have set way too many nuts to be able to produce high quality kernels come this Fall. To remedy this problem, I need to remove a portion of the nut crop to allow the...
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Squirrels feeding on young tree bark
When nut growers think about squirrel damage, they usually imagine their crop eaten by the fuzzy-tailed bandits. However, the other day I spotted a different kind of squirrel damage that can be...
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Spraying to control pecan weevil
It has been hot and dry most of the summer in extreme SE Kansas. The lack of rainfall has effected nut size (smaller nuts than normal) and has delayed the emergence of pecan weevil. During...
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Waiting for pecan shuck-split
One of the cultivar traits important to northern pecan growers is ripening date. I judge pecan ripening date by recording when at least 50% of the nuts on a tree have split shucks. I always...
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