For anyone reading who want s to grow a zone 5 orchard where it’s cooler than where I am on the river banks of the Mississippi R. south of Chicago opposite the state by 80-miles where even above me and in the middle of the state and across to the Chicago Subarbs, the temperature drops a lot. I am on a direct line with New Boston IL and between Burlington IA and Muscatine. ‘Mullahy’ is thee-largest (hybrid like Major - same f’ing thing) found in Burlinton. This is where you select Mullahy to grow your Vigorous trees****.
I asked a question about planting 100 seedlings of Kanza, and I learn a lot from the responses, and with what I’ve learned I’m going to ask another question. I want to start about 100 pecan seedlings, and I don’t have a source for seeds. What I need is a source for seed. I’m in Virginia, 7A and I’ve been told I should plant northern varieties. Where does a person go for seed? I’m not trying to produce the next named variety, i just want nice pecans. They don’t have to be large, but i don’t want really small pecans, which is all i find growing locally. I understand that with seedlings there’s no telling what I’m going to get. I’m willing to graft to anything that I don’t like.
Clarification: I’m not looking for kanza nuts, especially after reading the above opinions about kanza.
I have 5 gallons of Kanza sitting in my kitchen floor. If you can’t find them elsewhere, I’ll let you have 3 pounds (about 240 seed nuts) for $25 plus cost to ship which will be about $18. These are from the Auburn orchard. I can toss in a few other varieties if you want including some Florence and Lakota. All three should be good for zone 7A. As previously mentioned, you will need to plant twice as many seed nuts as the number of trees to grow. This will ensure the most vigorous seedlings can be chosen either to grow for production or to graft to adapted varieties. I am not making a general offer. I collected these pecans a couple of months ago to grow for seedlings, but I have a bit more than I need. You will have to stratify them to get good germination.
@Fusion_power - after reading your comments about your previous experiences with kanza seedlings, I’m wondering why you’re using kanza nuts again? And thanks for the generous offer, whether I take you up on it is yet to be determined.
Kanza is not a bad pecan for rootstock. It is not the best if trying to grow a new variety. I’m growing them for rootstock specifically because a high percentage are very cold tolerant and will grow very well in the Tennessee/Kentucky region. Note that I also included some Lakota and Florence which would also handle your climate and give some diversity in terms of choices of good trees.
I probably should add some context which will help with your decision. Any pecan grown for rootstock will have about 30% that grow too slow. These should be culled as they will be slow to establish a viable tree. I had to cull 50% of Kanza seedlings which is higher than the typical 30%. Kanza carries cold tolerance genes from Major which is the likely reason so many seedlings grow slowly but is also the reason why I am growing Kanza for rootstocks. By comparison, Lakota produces a high percentage of vigorous seedlings which have good potential for being disease resistant. This does not mean Lakota has no flaws. Lakota as a tree tends to seriously overbear which makes its seedlings suspect if growing them out to produce trees to be evaluated. Similar problems can be found with every other pecan out there. As noted above, Major has been an excellent parent with outstanding cold tolerance, very tough wood fiber (makes it withstand snowstorms), and excellent disease tolerance. But the weakness of Major is that most of its seedlings will produce small nuts. I could go on with other varieties each of which has a weakness when seed are grown. Elliott is widely used to produce rootstock here in the south. It produces seedlings that tend to be killed by cold. I would not plant Elliott for rootstocks above the Alabama/Tennessee line. Each variety has flaws!
Also, I am a pessimist meaning I look very hard at the flaws of a tree. When I was younger, I was an optimist looking only at the good points. Life taught me that pessimists who study a topic carefully are more likely to be successful in the long term.
Could you point me towards a resource (website or book) that can explain and show examples of various diseases for pecan trees, please? I’m pretty new to this but planted 8 pecan trees (Campbell NC-4, Warren 346, Kanza and Pawnee) over the past 6 years, and I’d like to head off any problems. Thanks for whatever ideas you may have.
Lucky gave an excellent resource for pests and isease, however, it does not cover a lot of important pecan disorders. Zonate Leafspot and Xylella Fastidiosa are two that should be considered. I’ll have to dig to find it, but I have a link to a website in Mexico that covers several more diseases and pests. Most will not be a problem, but are still worth knowing about.