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Which Kanza trees need thinning this year?
If you are a long time reader of this blog, you may recall that we have been thinning a block of Kanza trees a little bit each year for the past several years. Today, I took advantage of the warm...
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Pecan cultivars and tree size
In setting out a new pecan cultivar trial, I anxiously wait for the trees to start bearing so I can record nut production data. Nut size, percent kernel, flowering type, maturity date, yield, and...
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Making pecan breeding plot selections
To many pecan growers, thinning a pecan orchard is the hardest job they will ever have to accomplish. Cutting down trees that required so many years of work to grow seems heartbreaking. But over...
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Thinning trees from a Kanza block
In keeping with our plan to gradually thin our block of Kanza trees, I cut down nine trees yesterday (photo at right). We started thinning this block of 144 trees back in 2012, removing 5 to 9...
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Orchard thinning yields great scionwood.
February is a good month for thinning pecan orchards. It is also a good month for collecting pecan scionwood. So today, we took advantage of the sunny weather to collect scions from the trees we...
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Thinning a pecan orchard in a single year.
When to thin is one of the most difficult decisions a grower must face during the life of a pecan orchard. Over the past several years, I've documented our gradual approach to thinning a block of...
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Wood growth in a forked pecan tree
Back when I was thinning trees out of our pecan breeding plot, I cut down a tree that four years earlier had been a forked tree. The photo at right shows the basal portion of the removed tree and...
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Unequally yoked: grafting hickory on pecan and pecan on hickory.
Pecan and hickory are closely related, both belonging to the genus, Carya. Pecan and hickory are also graft compatible meaning scions from one species can be grafted successfully on a tree from...
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Pecan seedlings heading for advanced testing
Twenty years ago I made some controlled crosses between several pecan cultivars. Over the past three years we have been evaluating the nuts produced by the seedling trees that grew from those...
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Fire damage on young pecan tree
The other day a grower called to see if he should burn off the pasture under his pecan trees. Early spring burning might be a tried and true method for invigorating Kansas grasslands but fire and...
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The first signs of pecan tree bud growth
Surecrop, 17 March 2106 This year we've been experiencing a warm and early spring. Over the past week, I've been watching pecan buds carefully to detect the first signs of bud expansion and growth....
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Fertilizing pecan trees in the spring
Today we made our springtime fertilizer application (photo at right). Every spring, we rent a fertilizer spreader and carpet the entire orchard floor with nitrogen and potassium fertilizers. We...
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Fresh sapsucker holes
Every spring yellow-bellied sapsuckers fly through our area at this time of year drilling fresh holes in the bark of pecan trees (photo at right). These migrating members of the woodpecker family...
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Pecan tree starting to push
During yesterday's this beautiful spring weather, I took a short walk around my pecan plantings and noticed that some trees were starting to push open new buds. The photo at right was taken...
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Why we call it sapwood
Last week, we removed a couple of large native pecan trees that were shading the growth of some young trees in an adjacent planting. After cutting the trees, we left the stumps in place for a couple...
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When is it time to graft pecan trees?
We have a small planting of seedling pecan trees that I plan on grafting this spring. All the trees in this planting are open-pollinated Kanza seedlings. This morning, I looked over the field and...
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Pecan buds push open and reveal catkins
City Park, protogynous Yesterday, the sun broke through the clouds so I grabbed my camera to photograph emerging pecan buds. My goal was to concentrate on recording the growth stage and flowering...
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Grafting a pasture pecan tree
When I stopped cutting hay on a portion of my farm, I discovered several volunteer pecan trees growing up through the grass. These trees had been mowed off at ground level every year for over a...
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Pecan pollination season rapidly approaches
Yesterday, I took a quick trip around the Pecan Experiment Field to check for pistillate flowers (female flowers) on our pecan trees. The catkins or the male flowers have been out for some time but...
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Mid-way through pecan pollination season
The last few days of warm sunshine has really promoted the progress of pecan pollination season. Cultivars with the protandrous flowering habit (pollen early, pistillate flowers late) have released...
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