Pecan variation and feeding of older trees | The Survival Gardener

I am guessing all our pecan trees are seedlings. There is quite a bit of variation in the nuts, and they are smaller than commercial pecans.

We are really blessed to have pecans falling from the sky right now. They should be bearing a lot more, though. We’ll have to work on them. As Faye comments beneath my recent video on our pecan trees:

Many years ago I had an organic pecan orchard. Made deep holes with a pick 18” apart around the drip lines and filled with cottonseed meal and fish emulsion, limed the orchard, added soft rock phosphate, lots of compost. Two years later they had doubled in production and nuts larger with higher oil content. Love those seedling trees, they just seem to taste better. They were producing 150 pounds per tree. They do need a lot of zinc.

Sounds like a good idea. I need to get a lime buggy out here anyhow.

That said, holes 18″ apart is a ton of work. That’s a ton of digging, considering the size of these pecans. The drip lines are likely 70-80′ in diameter.

But we have to do something.

Otherwise, as another commenter writes:

“If you want good, abundant nuts, you need to care for the trees, otherwise you just what you have been, or less.”

And I definitely don’t want just what I have been, or less. I want these trees to go NUTS!

And of course, if you want to make something delicious with your pecans and other fruits of the homestead, get Rachel’s new cookbook here.