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 percentage of terminals were bearing nut clusters but each cluster contained an usually large number of nuts (photo at right shows a cluster of nine Kanza nuts).
From past experience, I've found that Kanza usually produces 3 to 5 nuts per cluster. So why the the difference this year? The number of pistillate flowers produced by a pecan tree is the product of the previous season's crop load, the nutritional health of the tree, and rainfall during the kernel filling period the prior summer.
Last year we had ample rainfall throughout the growing season and I always try to make sure my trees receive adequate fertilizer both spring and fall. In addition, last year I used summer shaking to reduce a heavy crop load. The result of this combination of weather and crop management turned out to be ideal for promoting flowering this past Spring.
There is no way a pecan tree can grow and fill a canopy full of 9-nut clusters. This kind of crop load will lead to limb breakage and poor kernel filling. To reduce the crop load, I plan to shake all my Kanza trees once again this summer.