Pecans are delicious 😋, but if you want to grow them, you need plenty of space for more than one tree.
In honesty, in my experience living on a macadamia farm, the pecans are not as popular as the latter, cashews, pistachios, and almonds in the export market.
Which is a shame as pecan has a buttery sweet texture compared to other nuts. Despite the bountiful gifts you receive from the trees, people find them a hassle as they drop many leaves, twigs, and husks in the fall.
But placing the litterbug tendencies aside, pecan trees can brighten a landscape with their overall form and beautiful leaves.
Still, no matter why you want to grow pecan trees, you will need the knowledge to ensure success, and we are here to help.
Plant Name: Carya illinoinensis
Other Name: Pecan tree, hardy pecan tree
Plant Type: Deciduous tree
Native Areas: Central and East Central United States and Northern Mexico
Light Requirement: Full sun
Watering: Moderate
Fertilizer: Compost
Toxicity: Toxic to other trees
Temperature: Warm summers
Propagation: Seed, graft, or transplants
Growth: 70-100 feet tall and 40-75 feet wide
Soil Type: Loamy sandy neutral to acidic
USDA Hardiness Zones: 5-9
What Are Carya Illinoinensis
The pecan tree cultivar belongs to the hickory trees in the Carya genus with the botanical name Carya illinoinensis. The pecan industry is enormous; you can get an annual crop to bear tasty fruit.
You can enjoy the nuts in pecan pie, and candied pecans and add them to food like salads as they are very healthy. The pecan trees are native to Northern Mexico and the Southeastern United States. Hence, pecan orchards are found in the USDA hardiness zones 5 to 9.
These are large trees reaching heights of 70 to 100 feet tall. The trunk diameter of a mature pecan tree has spread 40 to 75 feet wide. The trunk is ridged with brown bark, gray dots, and a round, oval crown. It also flaunts compound green leaves with toothed-shaped leaflets.
The foliage turns yellow in the fall and provides a dense form to provide shade in the summer. When you plant pecan trees, they are monoecious, producing male and female flowers. The male flowers bloom while the female flowers are on floral spikes in a greenish-yellow hue from mid to late spring.
When planting pecan trees, plant more than one of the pecan varieties to ensure cross-pollination takes place to produce nuts. After wind pollination, the female flowers yield clusters of 3 to 6 yellow-green seed husks turning brown, and they split open after the seeds ripen.
So for nut production, you will need two pecan trees to enjoy the tasty nuts. Inside each husk is an oblong nutshell in a light brown to reddish-brown hue.
Inside the nutshell are the legendary pecan nuts. Still, as with most walnut forest trees, it produces a toxic chemical that can poison ☠ nearby plants, so be mindful of the flora nearby when planting pecan trees
Pecan Cultivars to Select
When it comes to pecan varieties, you can find many pecan trees available.
So, if you are a Missourian or Kansas dweller, look at planting pecan trees like the Kanza, Hark, or Shepherd.
For the Southern United States, like North Carolina, consider the Amling, while Caddo is ideal for growing in Texas.
The Elliott does well in Zones 6 to 9 for the Georgian and Louisiana, and the Mississippians can consider Kiowa.
Further north, look at the Pawnee to grow in Michigan, Rhode Island, and Washington. The Pawneed pecan trees tend to reach heights of up to 30 feet tall with a trunk diameter of up to 25 feet.
Another variety is the Candy pecan cultivar which reaches maturity before most other trees.
Lastly, you have the Desirable pecan trees planted mostly by commercial growers as it is self-pruning and grow fast. But remember that mature pecan trees in this variety can reach heights and spread up to 100 feet.
Propagation Pecan Trees
So, are you nuts 🤪 about pecans? Then you can grow your own, and it is best done from the pecan seeds, budding them or grafted pecan trees or just by young trees to transplant into the garden.
Growing Pecan Tree Seed
The problem with seed growing is that the tree grows not true to the type, and you could end up with a different plant from the parent. But if you have the time, you can play around with seed sowing, and you may end up with unique pecan nuts. Follow these steps:
First, collect seeds from the trees around you in the fall. Or purchase seeds and ensure the parent tree can grow in your area.
For fall seed collection, harvest the ones that fall to the ground and do this before any bugs or pathogens harm the seed.
Store the seeds in a dry, cool place until you see the moisture of the kernel inside is 5% and will know this when the nut is dry and snaps when bent.
Then place the untracked nuts in bags filled with vermiculite and keep them moist to stratify in the fridge until the last frost in spring.
Then remove the seeds, rinse them off, and leave them to soak up to 48 hours in water to stimulate germination. You can do this by placing them in a bucket with running water with the hose left on.
Then plant the seeds in a bright spot and deep in well-drained soil at one to 1 1/2 inches deep.
Work some compost into the planting site to ensure the soil pH is between 6 to 7.
Keep the soil moist; your saplings will reach about five feet tall after two years.
Grafting/Budding Pecan Trees
Now if you are a seasoned grower, using a grafted pecan tree or budding is a great way to create a clone from the mother plant.
Both methods entail combining a shoot tissue with a desirable pecan fruit from a parent tree or a scion with roots and a lower shoot tissue with another tree rootstock.
You will have a true-type specimen that can grow fast and yield what you want.
Planting Pecan Trees
When you plant pecan trees, remember it has a deep taproot and can make transplanting challenging. The best is to transplant-bought saplings instead of a mature pecan tree.
Do transplanting in late fall after the leaves drop to early spring before you see the bud break.
Prepare deep, well-drained soil with compost and space your sites at least 30 feet from foundations and structures.
Provide the pecan tree cultivar with the recommended space needed to spread.
Dig the holes as deep as the root system and broader.
Soak the roots for three to six hours before planting bare-root pecan trees. Check out this exciting article on bare-root trees.
For container-grown trees, lift them from the pot before planting.
Place your pecan tree in the hole to expose the root flare above the soil line while keeping a grafted pecan tree about two to four inches above the soil line.
Fill up half of the space with soil and water it well and fill the remaining space with soil and water again.
Bringing the roots and shoots of your grafted transplant into balance helps to lop off the top 3rd of the tree when planted. But only do this if it has not yet been done, like with a nursery-grown pecan tree.
Tips: Plant container-grown trees immediately after lifting them from the pot. And for bare root trees, provide them with good watering before transplanting them.
Pecan Tree Care
Great, now that you have your young pecan trees growing from the ground, how do you keep your young trees healthy to grow into mature pecan trees? We are here to help!
Temperature and Humidity
Pecan trees can grow in the USDA hardiness zones 5 to 9. However not all gardens can support the needed temperatures and humidity young trees need.
To produce nuts, pecan trees need heat. According to a former Pecan Research and Extension Specialist, William Reid, a newly planted tree needs warm summer temperatures during the day and night to ripen.
So, while you live in zone 5, the minimum temperatures will not mean the night stays warm to grow pecans.
Therefore, before you plant trees and are in doubt, consult with your local county extension agent to determine if your region is suitable for the nut trees you want to grow.
While pecan trees can tolerate moderately cool winters, they cannot withstand freezing temperatures and will need protection. But with enough full sun exposure, you will not end up with a primo nut production.
Soil and Fertilizer Needs
The best soil for planting a young tree is a few feet deep and filled with three feet of well-drained soil. So the best is to remove any barren rocks from the ground before planting your nut trees. To add fertile soil, use a balanced fertilizer per inch of trunk diameter once a year.
We recommend a 20-20-20 NPK feed. Alternatively, you can have leaf samples taken to do a leaf analysis to determine what nutrients your tree needs.
Water Needs
Pecan trees thrive on water; a young tree will need up to 15 gallons of water per week from irrigation or rainfall. Thus for the first few growing seasons, keep them in moist soil. Established trees producing nuts only need about two inches of water per week during the growing season done at the drip line.
Growing Tips For Carya Illinoinensis
For nut production, direct sunlight is essential.
Provide bare roots to container-grown trees with fertile soil that drains well.
For pecan tree care, provide young trees with enough water until they become established trees.
Ensure you have more than one tree for pollination to bear nuts.
Plant trees a few feet deep, and when growing, pecans have a leaf analysis done to determine what nutrients your plant needs.
A mature tree needs two inches of water weekly during the growing season.
Pruning Pecan Cultivars
While a mature tree gifts you a lot of nuts, it can drop leaves and twigs, and the husks can split open, causing a mess. For this reason, remove the debris regularly to compost or dispose of it to prevent insect and disease infestations.
You only need early spring pruning to give young trees a strong central leader. Mature trees need little pruning; you only need to remove the root suckers to dead and diseased branches. You can add a layer of mulch around the trunk diameter to help suppress weeds and retain moisture while protecting the roots.
Managing Pests and Disease
Your main concerns with pecan trees are insects, pathogens, and herbivores.
Herbivores
While the furry and feathered friends are cute, the novelty will wear off once they munch on your crops.
When pecan trees bear fruit, birds love to eat the nuts like turkeys, crows, and blue jays. Thus it helps to protect your young to mature trees with visual repellents from banging metal and sound machines to glittery tape.
Deer enjoy munching on a nut-bearing tree, especially the young leaves. In contrast, young trees can suffer the most as bucks rub off the velvet of their antlers on the trunks. Thus investing in a deer fence is the best protection you have.
A nut-bearing tree can also become the home of raccoons and squirrels that love the nuts. The only way to ensure pecan production is to remove the mature trees’ climbability. You can wrap a metal sheet around the trunk diameter of up to three feet.
Also, adjust the metal as your tree grows.
Nut Tree Insects
The main concern with a pecan nut tree is pests that bring along diseases when they feed. Still, by controlling the insects, you can prevent diseases and enjoy good pecan production.
Fall webworms wrap cotton of webbing around pecan nut tree branches and are irritating. These black, reddish caterpillars are an inch long with green-black stripes and white hairs covering the body. They overwinter in the bark and consume leaves near defoliation, which becomes a disaster.
Removing the cotton webbing using a stick to drop them in soapy water is best.
You can also find twig girdlers with a grayish-brown body with long antennae on a pecan tree. The larvae are soft and white. Both small to adult girdles will chew on twigs to reduce the yield of nuts.
The best is to remove the infested and broken twigs to reduce the borer population.
A huge pest of pecan trees are wevils that emerge from the soil in early fall, and they have slender snouts with beetle bodies in reddish-brown. The female travels to a mature tree that produces nuts to lay the eggs. This causes the nut to fall from the tree prematurely.
The larvae feed on the nut and then leave to burrow in the soil to turn into adults, and the cycle continues. Use a weekly spray of carbaryl insecticide from middle summer to middle fall.
Pecan Tree Diseases
Anthracnose spreads during rainy conditions on your pecan trees and can affect the nut husks to leaves. It dents your nut trees as the husks look cream to light pink with ringed spores. If the disease is present, removing and destroying your plant is best.
Powdery mildew does more damage to young nuts and leads to stunted growth of young trees but does not affect mature nuts much. Ensure to prune away infected branches to prevent the spread.
Pecan scab is a fungus that affects young foliage to the nut husks before it reaches maturity. Furthermore, pecan scab can also develop twigs into male flowers on occasion. The pecan scab fungi produce spores in spring to spread through the water or wind.
Foliage with pecan scab displays with small circular spots that will darken and sink with age, and the infected nut husks will drop and crack open, ruining the yields. To prevent pecan scab, you need to rotate three different fungicides at the bud break with evenly spaced applications per growing season. Remove and destroy infected foliage as well.
Another fungus on pecan trees is stem end blight that forms black lesions on the nuts and can wipe out an entire crop.
Lastly, you have twig dieback caused by a fungal disease in the Botryosphaeria genus. Early signs are wilting branches, and they will have raised cankers, that is, the fruiting body of the fungus.
Harvesting, Curing, and Storing Pecans
Depending on the pecan trees you grow, it can produce nuts in ten years. Remove any fallen debris around the trunk diameter when your pecan cultivar becomes a nut-bearing tree to see the ripe nuts.
The nuts start falling over three weeks; you should gather them once they fall on the ground. If some nuts take longer to fall, you can shake your pecan trees to dislodge the fruit. Once you gather all the nuts and clean them off the debris, discard the ones with signs of infection, infestation, or damage.
After a while, the kernels within the nuts are ready to consume. You can cure nuts by leaving them in a dry spot with good air circulation for two weeks. Spread the nuts out on a wire rack or trays. You can increase the process by placing them close to a fan.
When the shells break easily with the kernels snapping crisply, they are ready to enjoy 😋. You can store them whole or remove the kernels inside for storage. The pecan nuts will be good enough to keep in a freezer for nine months or up to two years.
Refrigerate the nuts in airtight containers, and the ones in the freezer should be shielded in a plastic baggie. The thawed kernels can be kept at room temperature for two months. You can store the kernels in the shells at room temperature for six to 12 months but keep them in a cool, dry place.
Frequently Asked Questions
No, you cannot eat a green nut that fell from a mature pecan tree. It would be best to leave the nut to ripen as it will break open when ripe, turning reddish-brown.
To grow young trees to reach mature trees takes very long. It can take four to ten years before a pecan tree produces nuts.
The best time to prune a pecan tree is during the dormant season in winter before it bears buds.
The pecan falls into a tree nut category where peanuts grow underground and is considered legumes.
You can grow pecan trees as bare-root trees or container-grown, but your bare-root trees must be transplanted when they are dormant, and you will not be able to grow them in a container for very long.
A type 1 pecan tree is one where the catkins appear first, known as tassels, with golden strands hanging in clumps throughout the tree. While a type 2 pecan tree has female nutlets that become receptive before the catkins shed pollen.
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