Today, I collected a few Pawnee nuts from trees at the old Pecan Field Station. In previous years, I reduced the crop load of overloaded Pawnee trees by using a trunk shaker. Now that I've retired from the University, the field station has been abandoned and Pawnee was allowed to over-produce in 2018.
I collected Pawnee nuts from two areas. The first was a mature orchard with nuts hanging from every terminal. Prior to 2018, these mature Pawnee trees received a good summer shake every year they loaded up with nuts. The second spot was in a young orchard, just starting to produce nuts. Like all young pecan trees, these Pawnee trees had not reached the age when over-cropping becomes a problem. The young tree produced normal-sized Pawnee nuts while the over-loaded trees produced much smaller nuts (photo above). When I held those smaller nuts in my hands I could already tell the kernels inside were going to be shriveled.
As I suspected, the kernels produced by the over-loaded Pawnee trees were smaller, poorly filled, and even darker in color. The two kernels on the far right in the photo above were so paper thin that they would be inedible.
Pawnee is a cultivar that requires a high level of care but when treated right can produce beautiful pecans. Growing Pawnee profitably means adopting a good scab control program and shaking off nuts during the years when the trees set an over-abundant crop.
