Spring has arrived a little later than normal this year. I've been checking pecan buds for several weeks now and have only recently seen signs of spring bud growth (photo at right). When the outer scales of primary buds split I know its
time to spread some fertilizer. With light rain showers in the forecast, today was a great day to make our regular spring time fertilizer application.
We have been following the same fertilizer program for over fifteen years and have had good results--higher yields and more consistent nut production. Remember, we make two fertilizer applications per year on our bearing pecan trees--Early spring and mid October. Today, we applied 69 lbs. N/acre and 60 lbs. K/acre. This fall, we'll spread another 46 lbs. N/acre.
For today's fertilizer application, we used urea as our nitrogen source and potassium chloride (Potash) as our potassium source. We had our local fertilizer dealer mix 3 parts urea and 2 parts potash (by weight) and then used a rented fertilizer buggy to spread 250 lbs. of the mixture per acre (photo at left).
