Yeah, I’m guessing it could have been a shuckworm, I found a worm in one pecan although I don’t remember what color his head was. The plum curculio would also cause a worm to develop.
Having a bigger problem with stinkbugs. I see the little dark spots on the kernels. But I have read that if the stink bug gets to the pecan in its water stage the whole pecan ends up rotten. Did water the pecans trees this summer but still had a lot of pecans with rotten kernels and skin tights… Not sure about all of that. Maybe the pests could cause problems with shucks opening.
My two mature trees sure have different growing characteristics. The Sumner tree has grown with every limb going sort of sideways and then out without much of a central leader while not having much height. The other of which I’m not sure of its variety has grown straight up very high with a well defined central leader. I don’t remember doing anything different in their early pruning.
Sumner — “Sumner” is slow to come into bearing. Mature tree production is usually average, with fairly regular production. “Sumner” produces large nuts of moderate quality. As a favorite cultivar of black pecan aphids, it is typically one of the first to show damage from this pest. Historically, “Sumner” has been resistant to scab, although susceptibility has recently been reported in some locations.
I’m now thinking that the black pecan aphids is what is wrong with my Sumner. But what does this damage look like? Mspecans.org does not say, although they do provide a solution.
Do a search for black pecan aphid damage and you will find lots of pictures. When they are really bad, entire sections of the tree will have twisted and malformed leaves and sometimes the leaves will fall prematurely.
So I was looking through your fantastic document to find pecans that are both big and early and I noticed a couple ripening times that conflicted with other sources. The USDA says that Zuni matures nuts 10 days later than Pawnee and Shoshoni ripens more than a week before stuart (october 7 according to the uga cultivar list)
Your sheet has Zuni ripening on September 13, Pawnee on September 20, Shoshoni on September 17 and Stuart on October 14
I adjusted dates of maturity for Shoshoni and Zuni. Shoshoni should show maturity 10 days before Stuart. Zuni should show maturity 2 days before Shoshoni. Why was there an error? I had data from Louisiana, Georgia, and USDA in Brownwood TX. The dates shift a bit depending on which I used for a given variety. There will be other errors so don’t hesitate to speak up.
Is Kanza known for shedding its leaves later than average? My front yard Kanza had green leaves up until Thursday night’s freeze, while my other pecans (seedlings) started fall-coloring their leaves over a week ago.
Kanza is mid-season leaf shed. It often has nuts hanging on after a killing frost. The nuts still manage to mature. As examples, all of my pecan trees still have leaves excepting known northern varieties such as Major. Kanza has dropped about half its leaves, but the rest are still green.
We are due for a killing frost Sunday night and again Monday night. Avalon and Sumner are still holding a handfull of pecans. Sumner is notoriously later maturing. I had hoped Avalon would mature earlier.
Yeah, pecan trees tend to turn color in leaves at various times. 3 of my trees have mostly brown leaves while a supposedly Stuart has yellow leaves. All had dropped some leaves. I noticed that a wild pecan in the woods still had green leaves mostly. Also, I noticed that a hickory sapling had completely lost all of its while another still has green leaves!
But more concerning to me is that my Cape Fear pecan tree has been dropping its pecans with the husks still intact. I’ve read that it could be that I’m quitting watering it too early. I quit watering in September as I thought that the drought had ended. Could also be pests like pecan nut casebearers causing premature nut drop. Seen a lot of insect damage in the pecans this year. My Sumner has scab problems this year. Cape Fear is cleaner as in picture but has been with its husks.
I’ve read that it has been a bad year for pecans in Georgia. Too much rain early leading to scab and then drought.
Pete,
Greenriver pecan originated from the same 400-acre native pecan forest on the Green River Delta between Owensboro & Henderson KY that also was home to the ‘Major’ ortet.
Busseron originated just a little farther north, in Knox Co. IN.
Kanza is a cross of ‘Major’ with the Southern pecan variety, ‘Shoshoni’, and exhibits some traits that are intermediate to either parent variety.
After most of the leaves had fallen, I still discovered some nuts.
There were nuts on almost all the trees/varieties:
Shepherd, Colby, Lucas, James Early, Kanza, Mandan, Warren and the seedling.
In Munich, I had nuts on the Liberty and James varieties.
Unfortunately, I have little hope that the above varieties will ever bear ripe nuts.
I have already seen nuts with kernels on James, James Early, and Lucas.
On the seedling tree, the nuts with opened husks were unfortunately in the upper part
The photo from the tree with green leaves is Mandan
Our town is located at approximately 50 degrees north latitude.
That’s north of the US border with Canada,
near Winnipeg.
But the winters aren’t very cold, and the summers aren’t hot either.
