I received a sample of ‘Hall’ pecans today from a dentist who lives in Evergreen Alabama. A few years ago, he send scionwood to Fred Blankenship who has a grafted tree that is now bearing nuts. The background on this tree is that a man ordered and planted 3 trees beside his house sometime in the 1930’s. It is not known if the trees were grafted or seedlings. Two of the trees died leaving a single tree growing. About 50 years ago, a man found out about the tree and got a few buds onto seedlings. He has mature trees growing and producing nuts. He is in his 90’s now and trying to get other people to give them a try. I went through a dozen varieties with similar descriptions and did not find a match to this pecan. My opinion is that it is a seedling but this needs to be verified by someone with more knowledge and experience than I have.
The nuts are pointed with acute apex and rounded base, slightly rotund in the middle, 60 nuts per pound with 49% kernel. They might run a tad higher percent kernel if under best management practices. The kernels are a bit tighter bound into the shell than I like. Flavor is excellent. Scab resistance is reportedly very good. This pecan won’t win the favor of commercial growers because of low weight, low percent kernel, and kernel bound in the shell a bit too tight. It looks to be a good pecan for home growers.
The market currently is looking for a pecan with 30 to 50 nuts per pound, 55 to 60 percent kernel, early maturity in September or very early October, good fill and flavor, easy to shell, and high resistance to pests and disease.
While visiting my kinfolk in OK, we made sure to pick up some pecans while we were there. We called a few places and they were already closed for the season, which was discouraging. But thankfully my mom knew a fellow who gets his from other vendors. We gave them a call and he said he had some.
We drove over and had just a few 5 and 10lb bags of Kanza nuts, partially shelled. The best part was that he only charged $4/lb, that’s the best price we’ve found on such good nuts in years. We picked up a 5lb bag for us, and few extras for our friends back home.
The fellow grew them in very large orchard east of Tulsa. He grows Kanza, Pawnee, and Oconee among others. He said due to a very wet summer, he had quite a battle with scab, especially on the Pawnee. He said the Kanza were almost scab free. This variety was the last one he was selling, the Pawnee matured earlier, and were sold out about a month ago. I prefer the taste of Pawnee, but these Kanza are still very tasty.
I think we’ll get about 3lb of nut meat out of each 5lb bag. That is, if we don’t have too much sampling going on!
I have a copy of “Pecan Cultivars: Past and Present” by Tommy Thompson and Fountain Young on order from Amazon. I am watching for a copy of Darrell Sparks book “Pecan Cultivars: The Orchard’s Foundation” to come up on Ebay. One sold back in October for $35. Between them, I hope to add more detail and perhaps more cultivars to the list.
Adding info that ‘Hall’ - mentioned above - produces a high percentage of tri-lobe pecans. The sample I have runs about 7 percent or one in 14 pecans. This is an unusual trait that to my knowledge is documented in very few other varieties though I have seen an occasional tri-lobe pecan in several other varieties. This is the first time I’ve seen one that runs so high. USDA has ‘BCAR 592 MX 5-3 triple cotyledons’ listed in their inventory.
F_p,
Mike Cartwright and I have traded some plant materials in the past, but I don’t recall him talking about the ‘Hall’ pecan at that time.
I have ‘Wortham’ pecan, brought to my attention by my wife - a large, papershell type, that Larry Grauke says is most likely Mahan, but tree was growing and bearing at Lynn Grove, KY, about 20 miles west of Murray, KY. It also produced a noticeable number of trilobed nuts.
Shape and shell thickness was similar to the old Mahan in the yard back at Auburn, but larger than I recalled - though the tree in Auburn was virtually never fertilized. Like an older Mahan, the kernels were often incompletely filled.
Have seen nuts of ‘Hausmann’, a tree growing at Mt. Vernon, IN, that look indistinguishable from Wortham (or Mahan)… but I’ve not seen enough of them to know if it throws trilobate nuts. My one graft of Hausmann died several years ago… but I planted a seedling at my kids’ elementary school, and it produced nuts for the first time this year… but I didn’t know it until I passed by the other day and saw the empty husks in the canopy.
@bambooman, best get to Ray City if you want an Avalon to plant. I got 23 today and left about 15 or 20. They won’t last long. When you get to the address, drive back on the dirt road about 1/4 mile to where they are hilling in the trees. He has people there who can show you where the plants are. Be sure to carry a few large plastic bags to bring them home!
The trees are very small at 2 to 3 ft tall, but they have healthy root systems. I got 23 of them because $8 per tree. He had some larger trees that were grown on contract and were already sold.
Thanks Darrell, Dr. Patrick Conner raved about this cultivar. I’m headed to Ray City this afternoon. Buck is a nice guy. I spoke with him about grafting. He recommends whip and tongue now, while the trees are dormant. He says he gets 70% takes. I asked him if he tries whip and tongue after bud swell, he said not to try it. Maybe @Barkslip or @Lucky_P can chime in?
I forgot to add, Buck has another row of Avalon you may not have seen. He is digging those today.
If he heats up his rootstocks for at least two weeks and then grafts and then keeps the temps fairly high (70-75F) then I see no reason that shouldn’t work.
I wait until bud swell. It’s that simple. Same with my buddy who’s been grafting pecans for more than thirty years. My buddy uses his homemade grafting tool with a V type cut and he’s gotten better than 90% results after being planted in the field and followed up on the second year.
His trees are field grafted, which is standard operating procedure for the big pecan bare root farms around here. I may be wrong but I’m under the impression people like you and your buddy like to maximize results, and I like to also.
Also, he has thousands, if not tens of thousands, of trees to graft so it’s mainly a time constraint thing.
Just a raw estimate, but what I saw yesterday was at least 150,000 trees hilled up and ready to sell plus another 100,000 still in the rows waiting to be harvested. I have no idea how many other fields he has growing, he would need at least 40 acres per year with a 3 or 4 year cycle.
The difficult with field grafting is that 70% take rate. That leaves 30% of the trees ungrafted. it is common to ring bud which can give another 20% but ring budded trees don’t grow off as fast as dormant season grafts. In other words, they are sellable, but usually with a different price than the whip and tongue grafts.
Yep, just got back. He had mountains of pecan trees heeled in. I think 70% is pretty darn good these field grafted whip and tongues are not always pretty. The Elliot rootstock I got from him are beasts, they are the smallest size he has.
Great! Hopefully you and I will get some (heavy) caliper persimmon seedlings from MO.'s state nursery, as-well. I would be happy to get the largest seedling as possible for anything I graft at any time. That gives you so many more options for technique. I hope to do mostly bark and 3-flap grafts on my MO. pecan seedlings and walnut seedlings.
Did either of you take any photos while you were there? What’s the name of the nursery? I went back up this thread and didn’t see a mention. @Fusion_power
Sorry, I forgot to take photos. I was so focused on bagging everything I didn’t think to. It’s Shiloh Pecan Farm in Ray City, GA (no website). This video from DWN pretty much sums up what I saw Dave Wilson Nursery Bare Root Tree Harvest - YouTube ( DWN is a heavily roided version).
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