Western Schley Pecan

Today we found this Western Schley Pecan from L.E. Cooke at El Plantio Nursery In Escondido. I’ll plant it where our JKS Fig resided. :slight_smile:

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I’m surprised you’d plant that pecan or any pecan. Western Schley is much better adapted to climates with a long hot summer. You might make some nuts but it’s not a tree you can prune to keep small.

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I’m willing to give it a try. :slight_smile:

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Incoming nuts …

Out going pollen.

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Yes, a few have popped on each of the many strands on the tree.

The site for this pecan is along our northern border. There is room for a 15’ diameter, 24’ high tree. These are the size parameters recommended for WS in DL (dry weather + low altitude) climates. Our hot late summer and fall Santa Ana wind conditions makes us a good match for the DL environments discussed in the literature – esp. in Mexico.

We’ll see what happens. If it fails … it won’t be the first or last plant I’ll try at my property. :slight_smile:

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Are there other pecans around for pollination? I’m not sure what you can expect from a self pollinated WS. I don’t think of Vista as pecan country. But you certainly have enough frost free days…!!

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No one else thinks of this as pecan country either, and thus I might have to (gasp) graft Witchita onto it. The reports I get from a few others growing WS alone is they get plenty of nuts for themselves but it’s about 1/2 a commercial crop.

Half a crop is enough…after about 30 yrs. My lone tree produced 150 lbs of shelled out nuts one yr. It’s probably at least 40 yrs old and 40ft tall.

Last time I was in Modesto I looked at a place for sale. It had the most beautiful 30ft pecan tree loaded with nuts. They were very well filled out nuts. That’s a fair amount warmer than Vista.

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Given our needs, we’d be thrilled with 10 or so lbs of pecans per year. Our annual consumption rate of almonds is about the same. :slightly_smiling_face:

Nice tree. Pretty sure you need two compatable trees to cross pollinate. Perhaps you already have some.

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@Richard checking to see how this tree panned out. I have one arriving this month.

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@PHiGGY
Hi !
It grew at a tremendous rate. I became concerned it would outgrow the available space, so I had it transplanted to a colleague’s home with more acreage.

Oh my! Well…here’s hoping. The Schley was supposed to grow to 40’ x 40’, which is one of the reasons I selected it, as that is a ‘small’ pecan. Plus adapts to crappy clay soil well and is self-pollinating. Someone else around here has a pecan - no idea the type tho.

@PHiGGY
I expect my former specimen will meet your expectations. It is currently about 20 x 20.

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Awesome!

It looks like Cheyenne is pollen compatible with Western Schley. Both are considered relatively small trees.

Western Schley sends pollen out for Cheyenne, but Choctaw would be the one that pollinates Western Schley. 3 Days of overlap for Western Schley. I guess we can look forward to small harvests unless there is something else around. https://www.texaspecannursery.com/product/cheyenne-pecan/

It is not the first time I’ve seen an error on Texas Pecan’s pollination chart. Cheyenne pollen shed fully overlaps with Western Schley. Their data is … out of date. See the New Mexico chart which shows the overlap.

However, keep in mind that pollen shed and pistil receptivity change as latitude increases so if you are in extreme south Texas on the border with Mexico, you may see results more like the chart posted.

Here is a bit more info you may be able to use. Western Schley and Cheyenne are both listed as protandrous varieties on most of the available web documents. Western Schley is actually an overlap pollinator which is almost always a protandrous variety that happens to shed pollen the same time pistillate flowers are available. This enables Western Schley to pollinate itself which is why it often sets crops without other pollinators. Cheyenne happens to cover almost the entire pistillate bloom of Western Schley. Under some climate conditions, Cheyenne is also an overlap pollinator though it rarely covers more than 50% of the pistillate bloom with pollen shed.

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