Good squirrel cover…
That might be the cause on this one, because I am right between Fresno and Sacramento. And after cracking all, I noticed some actually filled so I assume some had priority on little water intake depending on branch location or height.
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Is there any less graft compatibility between pecan and hickory than there is between pecan and pecan?
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Anecdotally, there appears to be, for some hickory selections.
Several people I know have had a hard time getting ‘Lake Icaria’ shagbark to grow on pecan rootstock (it’s not an issue only for me).
The late Larry Daulton swore that ‘Cody Cox’ would not work on pecan - but Fred Blankenship says he has not had that experience with it.
I have a 25-y.o. graft of ‘Wurth’ shagbark on pecan that has struggled to grow well, and the pecan understock has persisted in pushing multiple vigorous shoots below the graft, each year, that I’ve pruned off repeatedly. This may be - like Clark has described for some of his callery rootstocks - an incompatibility peculiar to that one particular pecan seedling rootstock.
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Any experience with pecan grafted onto hickory?
Pecan tends to grow fast where hickory grows slow. As a rootstock, hickory is almost always overgrown by a pecan scion.
This year I got 32 pecans totalling 182 grams from one of my Kanza trees. So over 6x as much as last year! We did have a much wetter year this year, versus last. At the same time, we had had almost no rain from mid-August until I harvested October 19th, iirc. Average weight after drying this year was 5.7 grams, with a range of 3.52 to 7.41 grams. That average is quite a bit less than last year, but given the much larger number of nuts it’s not surprising I suppose. The ones I’ve cracked so far has been well filled, light colored, and tasty, so living up to expectations in that regard I think.
I accidentally deleted my photo of the whole lot, after I had cracked and eaten the smaller ones, so only have the 19 largest to take a picture of:
On the other hand, the tree that gave 1 pecan last year gave 0 this year. So I’m not sure what’s up with that one, which is also a Kanza. I suppose I’ll hit it with more fertilizer next spring. Still waiting on my Hark to bear, which I think is only 2 years younger than the Kanzas, but nowhere near as large.
When one wants to save pecans for seed, should one keep them moist in a bag, like I’ve read you’re supposed to do with chestnuts? Or are they less sensitive about that than chestnuts are?
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Pecans need to be stored cool and moist to germinate rapidly next spring. Peat moss or cedar shavings (sold as hamster bedding in most box stores) work well for the purpose. Moisten just enough to be damp but not dripping, put in a ziploc bag, add pecans, put in a crisper drawer in your refrigerator. Pull them out in March or early April and plant them. Squirrels and ground squirrels will dig through barbed wire to get to stratified pecans so be sure they are protected!