No they won’t produce. Please see my reply to your pm.
Dax
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There are several EU countries that have nascent pecan producing areas. I know of one in Romania and another in Moldova.
Hi to everyone. Is there any variety of pecans (northern) for zone 5b/6a with very late spring frosts? Im trying to find some seeds for years in my country but its impossible to find. By the way i am from Serbia. Reading online about them and still dont know much, it looks like i need 2 types for cross pollination to have nuts. I’m eager to try to see if they would succeed.
Fusion_power can u send me some information about pecans in Romania?
You can easily find information about pecan in Romania and Moldova. Here is one link.
Are you in northern Serbia closer to Timisoara? or southern Serbia with climate more similar to Bucharest? For climate comparison, Timisoara is similar to Illinois and Iowa climate while southern Romania is more similar to Kentucky and Tennessee.
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I’ve emailed a friend in Europe for any information about buying grafted pecans there. Once I hear something I’ll return to post.
Dax
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Here are resources in Europe. I haven’t opened the links. I’m just posting for you. Dax
www.venditapiccolifrutti.it
My friend sent more links:
http://www.pepinieredubosc.fr/?s=Pacaniers
And this nursery in Poland my friend said has a test orchard but he does not know if pecans are for sale:
http://cornusmas.eu/
Dax
Thanks guys for replies. I couldnt answer earlier because i need a computer for spell check (i forgot english), but i read on my mobile phone.
@Fusion_power I read that site but nothing could get from it.
I am from south east of Serbia, closer to Bulgaria and my place have specific climate. It`s a valley with very late spring frosts sometimes, in recent years more and more often. So I think that the climate is more similar to Illinois and Iowa.
@Barkslip Also read all the sites. Thanks for them, but they are too expensive for me. With shipping costs will be 1/2 of my sallary,unfortunately. I’m not in that position at the moment to be able to afford it. Last year, I bought one persimmon from Slovakia and 2 jujubes and persimmon from Bulgaria. But something else came to my mind.
I have a friend who works in America right now, and he will come in a month on vacation, so I will look for seeds from someone from the states and he will bring me when he arrives. Seeds are more affordable. I’m asking you if you may have, or you know someone has seeds ? I do not need much, just to see if they would succeed here. I think that a dozen would be enough, in case everyone does not germinate, and soI can plant them at least on 2-3 locations for testing.
The biggest question remains what variety to be? Preferably some self fertile, or to mix at least 2 types, but that it is resistant to cold. I hope that I will be able to find some until a friend goes.
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Your difficulty is going to be that from seeds you will not see nuts for a minimum of 15-years. It’s not spring frosts you will be concerned with for 15-20 years, it’s if you have enough summer heat (which you do according to the conversation.) So the issue is you need grafted trees which will bear in 5-7 years to know which varieties will be successful at your location. Surely I could give all the seeds you need to your friend and you can grow them for 3-4 years and graft on them to learn the varieties best for you.
Dax
Oh man how fast you are. I know that they need a lot of time to give the nuts, but for the start I’d see if it’s possible to raise them here. Later I would graft them, I looked at the net how it was done.We do have long and hot summers, summer heat is not a problem, this year was almost +40 celzius. But it was also a big drought. Spring frosts is a problem for our walnuts. The last 2 springs late frosts picks up the leaf and they does not give walnuts. The weather is going totally crazy.
Its great that u have them, and maybe you also have some hickory nuts? I read about the pecan and they made me interesting for wood. I planted 40 black walnuts for a test on a piece of land last year.Later generations will benefit from them.
I have shellbark hickory nuts you could grow but ideally you really should graft hickory onto pecan.
I could easily supply to your friend 50 pecans for seed. Send a message if you’d like them with your friend’s address and how many.
Sounds like your weather is perfect. We have frosts here too. Far northern pecans are what you will need (exactly the same I grow.) There are southern pecans; northern pecans; far northern pecans; and ultra northern pecans. Both far northern and ultra northern seem to fit your late frosts best. Hickories will grow great for you, too. Walnuts should be fine. You know trees begin to adapt too. I’ve many times seen where southern sourced seed have adapted to my area. A friend has a grove of persimmon that after an amount of time… I don’t know how long, they began vegetating later here.
Dax
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I’m planning to start a small organic pecan orchard. I’m in zone 7a, southern middle Tennessee. My reading thus far is making me think that Major and Greenriver would be the most reliable bets for consistent no-spray production. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Other varieties look good as well, like Hark, Lipan, Lakota, Amling, Kanza, Gafford, etc., but they all seem to have their own issues of one kind or another. Alternating production, inconsistent yields, or unknown long-term disease resistance (in the case of younger varieties). Would you be able to provide any insight or guidance?
We have about 188 no-frost days.
About what I can tell you is if I bring northern pecans “up here” those with scab in your area stop showing scab here. If you take our far-northern pecan cultivars south, they get scab.
‘Major’ is a good nut but I would guess it’s prone to scab. A complete guess. I would nix it and decide upon ‘Kanza’.
‘Greenriver’ is an excellent pecan. I’ve had some shipped to me from @Lucky_P. It was years ago though so I don’t recall the kernel color but I remember being impressed.
The whiter the kernel color the more desirable the cultivar. ‘Hark’ and ‘Kanza’ are blonde/white. Two very excellent cultivars. ‘Greenriver’ may fit right there among them. The other thing is pollination. I know ‘Hark’ and ‘Kanza’ are excellent mates. I would need to check where ‘Greenriver’ fits regarding pollination.
Besides Lucky, you would be best off to consult with William/Bill Reid. Go to his blog and call him. He’s thee man with all the knowledge… for your area.
Northern Pecans Blog
Dax
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Alrighty, thanks for the reply! I’ve been reading his blog, but I shall give him a call and see if he has any input.
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‘Major’ is exceptionally scab-resistant. So much so that USDA/ARS has used it extensively in their breeding program as a source of scab resistance… It’s the parent of scab-resistant varieties, Kanza, Lakota, the Yates series (68, 127, 152, etc.), and grandparent of Osage; probably the parent of Hark.
It’s a small enough nut that it probably would not be recommended for the Southern pecan belt, but I’ll bet you that it would still exhibit scab-resistance far above most Southern pecan varieties.
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As Lucky says, Major has heavy duty scab resistance. What he may not know is that Major is technically a hican. It has numerous DNA markers from C. Cordiformis and some that may come from C. Ovata. Look closely at the nut husk on Major and you will see hickory traits. I will however second Barkslip suggesting Kanza and Hark for your area. This is for two reasons. Kanza does very well in North Alabama and Hark is a good pollination partner and makes excellent nuts.
Here are the best candidates for high scab resistance and good production under low input conditions and that can handle your climate. I am presuming you are somewhere near Manchester TN.
Lakota is well described so look it up.
Huffman (Desirable X Pawnee) is only available currently from a few nurseries around Albany GA all of which propagate on Elliott rootstock. This is not a good combination for your area. Huffman should be fine if on a different rootstock. I have it growing and so far have excellent results.
Avalon (Gloria Grande X Barton) is not yet available from any source. I don’t yet know how it will hold up to colder conditions, but from the parentage, expect it will work at least through middle Tennessee. I am attempting to get trees this fall.
Adams #5 is not to my knowledge commercially available. I have it growing and producing an outstanding crop of pecans in my front yard. Based on observations, I think it will be viable up through Kentucky. The only weakness with this pecan is that it is 81 nuts per pound which is smaller than commercial growers want.
Amling has excellent scab resistance and is an obvious choice for your area. It is a Texas seedling that has done well so far for me. One caution, ambrosia beetles hit it hard this year. I’m not sure if that is an issue or not. Sometimes they just pick a tree and devour it.
Miss L is a Louisiana variety but not commercially available to my knowledge. It is a small nut. I’m getting scionwood in January and hope to have it grafted next spring.
Gafford is another with industrial strength scab resistance. It is probably descended from Stuart based on tree shape and nut form. I recommend getting this one started if you can. It is a type 1 protandrous variety which would complement Hark nicely.
McMillan is not as scab resistant as the others, but it has traits that are useful. It is an excellent producer of medium quality nuts. I have to give a qualified maybe on this tree. I don’t have enough observations on it to be sure how it will perform long term.
Now the bad news. Most of these varieties are limited availability. Bass sells several of them, but they put everything on Elliott rootstock. Some of them are available from Willis, Nut Tree Pecan, Texas Pecan Nursery, or Shiloh. These sources all use southern varieties as rootstock. I have had some trees turn out very well and others that died in a cold winter when on Elliott. My suggestion would be to get some Kanza or Lakota nuts and plant them to produce your own rootstocks then graft with the varieties you want.
If you want to see how this would work out for pollination, pull a copy of the spreadsheet I uploaded and compare varieties. It is linked in the Pecan Pollination chart thread.
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F_p,
That’s the first claim that I’ve ever seen that ‘Major’ is a hican. I don’t see anything about the husks - or anything else about the nut or tree - that make me think ‘hickory’… only ‘pecan’. Would be interested in seeing the DNA analysis.
Lucky, it was straight from Larry Grauke this past Saturday. I commented that Major showed a lot of hickory traits and he chuckled and said there was a reason why. Then he said it has markers that only occur in C. cordiformis and added that there are a couple he has only found in C. Ovata.
How thick are the husks on your Major nuts? Do the nuts fall freely from the husks? or do they hang in the husks until a freeze turns them loose? How do the husks compare to other pecans? Do they have noticeable “wings” at the sutures? Pecans have wings, only hickories have clam shell sutures
Read carefully the description of pecan http://cgru.usda.gov/CARYA/species/illinoinensis/illinoinensis.htm
Then read the description of C. Cordiformis http://cgru.usda.gov/CARYA/species/cordiformis/cordiformis.htm
And of C. Ovata http://cgru.usda.gov/CARYA/species/ovata/ovata.htm
The question of Major parentage won’t be settled until the genome mapping project gets a bit further down the road. I’m comfortable with the statement that it has significant introgression of hickory traits. Have you noticed that Major is rarely damaged in ice storms where other pecans take heavy damage?
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I bought 12 pounds of Kanza from Bill Reid that arrived yesterday. With a cup of morning coffee, pecans are the perfect pairing.
Dax
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That’s very interesting, F_p. Genomics is revealing a lot of things that we had no inkling of…
Yes, clamshell shucks on my Major(I have both the original and the Henry Converse sport). Most nuts drop free of shuck, but some don’t. I don’t know that I find any more(and maybe less) still in-shuck than I do with Posey, and it has very pronounced ‘wings’ at the sutures of its husks.
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