There are pecans adapted to longer growing seasons. For example Ukulinga was selected in South Africa for ability to mature pecans in their 250+ day growing season. Elliott is a selection that combines scab resistance with a relatively high crop produced and is adapted to similar growing season length but with high rainfall/humidity. Waco Wonder is a possibility if you want a pecan that can grow in a hot dry climate like Socal. My opinion is that Western and Wichita would disappoint because they tend to overbear. Also, any pecan grown will require irrigation so figure out first how to get water to the trees.
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Thanks!
Yes, the irrigation is already in place.
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Graft a pollinator on as you are quite aware Iām sure.
Dax
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Western Schley is self-fruitful and has produced in 150 standard chill hour locations in the county. I have yet to find c.h. information for Waco Wonder. If that latter is not self-fruitful then its not acceptable for my property.
Beyond my knowledge. I had not heard of Waco Wonder, Western Schley, or Ukulinga until today.
Wesā Riceās book has āWesternā in it. Iāll just post it now:
Origin: seedling, San Saba, Texas 1924
Pollen: (type) 1, precocity: 3, scab 5 (very bad on scab)
nuts per pound: 53; % kernel 55
Nut maturity: 4 days after āStuartā
Nut quality: 2; tree quality: 2
Standard culitvar for western, low humidity areas. Popular as a yard tree in western areas. Kernel quality is adequate, and tree has good structure and resists wind and freeze damage. Shell topollogy is rough and mottled.
1-5 scales. 1 is most resistant to scab.
Nut and tree quality. 1 is better quality characteristics.
Tree quality includes: tree structure and other factors that relate to appearance and ease of management.
Pecans - Volume 2
A Growerās Perspective
G. Wesley Rice
===
Dax
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You wonāt find much on the web about Waco Wonder. The short summary is that it is 40 nuts per pound with 56% kernel, somewhat scab susceptible rating about 2 on Wes Riceās scale. The tree is a moderate producer but likely protogynous from what little information Iāve found. Wes Rice suggested I find out about it a few months ago. I have arranged to get scionwood in a few weeks.
As for self-fruitful pecans, I suggest doing some due diligence. Self pollinated pecans tend to have a lot of problems including shuck decline, heavy fruit drop, and poorly filled nuts. Whether it is self-fruitful or not, production will be better with a compatible pollinator. Instead of forcing the plant to meet your ideals, maybe look at making your ideals fit the plant. A few varieties that overlap pollen shed with pistillate receptivity are: Western, Syrup Mill, Cherokee, Jubilee, Baby B, and Barton. Most of these would not be suitable for your climate due to chilling requirements. There are a few others shown in the pecan pollination chart.
There are self perpetuating stands of native pecan about half way to Mexico City. Pecans are widely cultivated where water and suitable land are available. I do not know of any selections made from the southernmost populations though Iām fairly sure L.J. Grauke would have some information.
Ukulinga is difficult to find information about. It was selected for high disease resistance under conditions prevalent in South Africa. There is just barely enough information to conclude that it would not be viable here in the U.S. The short version is that South Africa does not have scab like we have and we do not have 250 day growing seasons like they have.
Western Schley aka āWesternā is a 100 year old selection from San Saba Texas by E.E. Risien. It was mentioned a few days ago when someone in a northern state noted it would be a good pollinator for his trees from Stark.
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I canāt force my chill hours to increase. I require c.h. <=200.
Actually farther south and west into central Oaxaca, USDA CH zone 11.
Thanks, Iāll try contacting him. 
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I searched diligently for a reference documenting Major as a C. Cordiformis/C. ovata cryptic cross. I found one reference that makes the same statement given to me verbally by L. J. Grauke a few weeks ago. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s40064-016-3531-4.pdf on page 8 has this:
āIt is more interesting that several other prominent interspecific hickory hybrids originate in that geographic region: āMcCallister,ā among the most prominent cultivars of C.Ćnussbaumeri, originated just north of the Ohio River near Mount Vernon, IN; āMajor,ā a pecan that has contributed to several cultivars released by the USDA ARS Pecan Breeding Program, originated in the Henderson, KY area on the Green River and carries alleles from C. cordiformis and possibly C. ovata(Grauke et al. 2015). Hybridity occurs in areas of sympatry, and that region has the highest concentration of sympatric Carya species (Grauke and Mendoza-Herrera 2012).ā
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Thanks, a worthwhile reference. Although, if it had referred to the Green River originating in Wyoming and merging into the mis-named Colorado it would have been more interesting out west.
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here are some links for state and national nut grower associations.
Northern Nut Growers: http://www.nutgrowing.org/
Walnut Council: http://www.walnutcouncil.org/
American Chestnut Foundation: https://www.acf.org/
Canadian Maritime: http://maritimen.webs.com/
Indiana: http://www.nutgrowers.org/
Iowa: http://iowanutgrowers.com/
Michigan: https://michigannut.org/
Missouri: https://www.missourinutgrowers.org/
Nebraska: http://www.nebraskanutgrowers.org/
New York: http://www.nynga.org/
Ohio: http://www.onga.org/
Ontario: http://www.songonline.ca/
Ontario Hazelnuts: http://www.ontariohazelnuts.com/
Pennsylvania: http://pnga.net/
Quebec: http://www.noixduquebec.org/
And a few sites for pecan information
USDA: http://cgru.usda.gov/carya/
Alabama: http://www.alabamapecangrowers.com/
Georgia: http://www.caes.uga.edu/extension-outreach/commodities/pecan-breeding.html
Northern (Bill Reid) http://northernpecans.blogspot.com/
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When it comes to growing nuts, I feel like Iām in the forgotten middle. The Deep South (zone 8 & 9) has southern pecans, but the Upper South (zone 6 & 7, in other words the rest of SC & NC + VA & TN & KY) just seems totally left out. Most of the nut species that are grown in the Upper Midwest should grow well here, too, I think, but Iām sure there are varieties better suited to the growing conditions here.
My girlfriendās father gave me a two 5 gallon buckets of pecans. Unfortunately, Iām on the last few gallons. I do live in the heart of pecan country, but the prices are still high here. Does anyone have some contacts for bulk purchases of pecans in the shell? I wouldnāt mind driving to a farm around the Tifton/Albany area.
These may not be the size/cultivars you want but in shell are 2.50 lb. I think except Pawnee is 3$ a pound
http://www.shepherdfarms.com/
He may be closed now.
Iāve bought from Swift RiverPecans in the past. The pecans are great. More expensive than Shepherdās.
http://www.swiftriverpecans.com/pecans/
I think when I bought bulk though it was less than 5$ a pound.
Dax
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I was searching for Dodd pecan information and bumped into this report on chilling hours for budbreak of pecan. This might be useful to understand dormancy requirements in pecan from latitude 30 and up. It would be nice to find a similar report for pecans from Mexico covering latitudes 15 to 30. If this link does not work, try searching for āDodd chilling hoursā.
tldr: Dodd pecan seedlings broke dormancy in a declining curve with longer interval before and shorter interval after 1000 hours below 50F. Other pecan varieties have documented chilling requirements between 500 and 600 hours.
http://journal.ashspublications.org/content/117/5/745.full.pdf+html
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Thatās a lot more chilling than pecans in Texas are thought to need. Maybe Dodd is a high chill cultivar.
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Yes, per the available research, Dodd takes more chilling hours than southern cultivars as might be expected given its origin in Oklahoma.
I put in some time researching pecan growing in Mexico finding several relevant documents. If you want to spend an entertaining few hours, here are a few links.
http://eprints.uanl.mx/379/1/1020090171.PDF
Among other things I found is that several southern pecan varieties are recommended in Mexico. Western is recommended as the standard production cultivar. Wichita, Choctaw, and Shoshoni are suggested as pollination partners to provide full coverage of the pistillate flowering period of Western. This reflects the unusual timing of Westernās bloom period, it is nearly as hard to match as Forkert.
There is a variety listed as Frutoso which I am interested in. I wonder if this is a translation of Candy?
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Iām stupefied that the article begins (chilling article) discussing chill hours for cultivars (not seedlings of cultivars) but then gravitates to seedlings of said cultivars with a finishing touch going back to cultivars. So wood was discussed in the first paragraph, then the article went to seed-grown of these cultivars and then the last couple paragraphs the article returned to wood.
Seed of cultivars will be pollinated and thereās no control measure then. That article doesnāt state which other cultivars were pollen parents.
Did I miss something?
Dax
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Cultivars of native U.S. Pecans grown in Mexico is not so interesting to my situation. I have sent an email to Dr. Grauke asking what native pecans he might have in his repository from zones 10-11.
Hereās is the NPGS stated native range of Pecan (C. illinoinensis):
North-Central U.S.A.: United States - Illinois, - Iowa, - Kansas, - Missouri, - Oklahoma
Northeastern U.S.A.: United States - Indiana
Northern Mexico: Mexico - Chihuahua, - Coahuila, - Nuevo Leon, - San Luis Potosi, - Tamaulipas
South-Central U.S.A.: United States - Texas
Southeastern U.S.A.: United States - Arkansas, - Kentucky, - Louisiana, - Mississippi, - Tennessee
Southern Mexico: Mexico - Guanajuato, - Hidalgo, - Jalisco, - Oaxaca, - Veracruz
If you havenāt read it before, check out this 1998 article from Wood, Grauke, and Payne: Provenance Variation in Pecan.
The problem with provenance variation over the natural range of pecan is that most of that natural range is not adapted to a climate with only 200 chilling hours below 10C. Granted that Oaxaca is the southernmost natural population, the problem is that trees adapted to Oaxaca are unlikely to be adapted to socal and vice versa. There is a good bit of documentation showing that Jalisco may have some genetics of interest. The variety Frutoso should be on your radar but with the caveat that it is a native selection. I found 7 other selections from native trees but all were indicated to have problems of one type or another.
The development of pecan as a commercial crop has roughly 3 phases so far.
-
Selection of native trees: This phase is still ongoing with plus trees being found as a result of searching native stands. Most native selections were made 100 or more years ago though some such as Prilop of Lavaca are less than 80 years old. Some good natives from northern areas have been found in the last 30 years.
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Selections of seedlings grown from plus natives resulted in significant development. Stuart, Elliott, and Success are examples of this phase.
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Crosses of the best selections found to date are the third phase. These selections are exemplified by varieties such as Kanza, Oconee, and Caddo. These varieties have been through enough evaluation to prove their production potential. The earliest crosses between selections resulted in varieties such as Desirable and Forkert. Selections being made today include more selection pressure for enhanced production and nut quality as well as improved disease resistance.
The fourth phase will be when we get enough genome data to selectively breed for specific traits. We are on the cusp of this phase today.
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