Northern Pecans: October 2024

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Fall color in the pecan grove

Kanza tree, 24 Oct. 2024

Most years we experience a hard freeze in late October that causes the complete defoliation of green leaves from our trees. This year, the combination of warm fall days and drought conditions has caused pecan leaves to remain on the trees and turn golden yellow (photo above).


Kanza nut cluster, 24 Oct. 2024

A hard freeze will also kill pecan shucks, turning them black, and promoting shucks to fully open. This year is different. The shucks are slowing drying exposing the ripe pecans inside. In the photo at right, you can see that the tips of the shucks are fully dry and have turned brown while areas of the shuck closer to the base of the nut are still green. These Kanza nuts should shake out of the tree easily and separate from the shucks allowing me to start harvesting tomorrow.

Labette, 14 Oct. 2024

During early October, I continued to monitor the shuck split dates of all the seedling trees in my breeding block. Labette, one of the cultivars I developed, ripened on 14 Oct. 2024 (photo above). While I was observing shuck-split this year, I observed that the deeper we descended into drought this fall to more shuck-split was delayed on later ripening clones. Labette provides a good example. Labette matured on October 9 in 2023 but 5 days later in 2024.

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Pecan cultivars ripening in late September

I continue to monitor shuck-split for the pecan cultivars I have growing on my farm. Even though it seems like we are sliding back into drought conditions this fall, nut size and kernel quality appears far better than what we harvested in 2022 and 2023.

Cultivars ripening during late September are pictured below.