At the beginning of the year it was believed that Hurricane Helene would put our pecan trees in alternate bearing. Although, from visiting orchards in the county the past week it has been noticed that some orchards have a decent amount of flower set and catkin. With this observation, be encouraged to check your orchards to determine what your crop load looks like to decide on how to continue to manage your trees this season. See below a newsletter from, UGA Pecan Agent, Andrew Sawyer on the flower crop he observed last week touring SE Georgia. Also, below are a few things to be considering for managing your orchards this May as well as some questions the extension office received last month.
Irrigation: As we move into May it is common to begin pumping more water to the trees, although do remember that Dr. Lenny Wells cut back on the recommendation for water in May to mature trees. See the slide below.
Weed Management: A question came to the office last week about preemergent herbicides in pecan and what options do they have. See the slide below for results from a Preemergent herbicide study done last year by the UGA Pecan Agent, Mr. Andrew Sawyer. Notice when looking at percent control that the highest control percentage is 50% this is because this data was recorded 160 days after the treatment (DAT) , percent control was much higher for all treatments 30-60 DAT as can be seen in the second slide. Also, to go along with weed management I would like to touch on mowing row middles. In tight pocket years like we are in now, we could save money on diesel fuel by reducing the number of times we are mowing row middles. Row Middles do not have to be super clean and tidy for Pecan trees to do well. Although, go ahead if you just like to have a beautiful orchard.
Managing Orchards with tight spacing: Another pecan question that came into the office last week was about hedging an orchard with tight spacing. Here are the recommendations Dr. Lenny Wells gave on hedging at the Pecan meeting earlier this year. Two points that Dr. Wells gave on hedging orchards with tight spacing, that is not listed in the slide below, is to begin hedging on year 6 with row widths <30′ and that it will eventually need to be hedged E to W rather than only N to S.
Insect Management: Last week Dr. Apurba Barman sent out a Pecan Nut Casebearer Update, this can be found here: https://site.extension.uga.edu/pecan/2025/04/pecan-nut-casebearer-update-for-growing-season-2025/.
Disease Management: Looking at the forecast we have a lot of days with a chance of rain. These type of days can make conditions highly conducive for disease such as pecan scab. During these conditions it is important to stay timely on your fungicide sprays for the moderately to highly scab susceptible varieties. If you are wondering where on of your varieties falls in regards to susceptibility to scab see the chart below. The first fungicide spray should have been applied last month in mid-April for all varieties. For low to moderate scab susceptible varieties we should be able to get by just fine with one phosphite or 11+3 fungicide in middle May. As fare as moderate to high scab susceptible varieties we should have two fungicide sprays going out this month, a phosphite in early to Mid-May with an 11+3 following in mid to late-May.
