While activities have been significantly impacted in southeastern Georgia’s pecan region from the damage and loss inflicted by Hurricane Helene, some growers who had minimal damage and those West of I-75 have harvested Pawnee and are beginning to harvest the next mature varieties. Many are finding that there are still a lot of green shucks that have failed to open after the initial shuck split that was accelerated by the heavy rainfall throughout much of south Georgia just prior to Helene. As a result of this rainfall, many growers have turned off their irrigation. Given the amount of rain, that was fine for a week to ten days but soils have dried out considerably since then.
Pecan trees need adequate soil moisture in order for shuck split to occur properly. Many varieties undergo shuck split gradually over the course of a few weeks. The heavy rainfall got the process started but for many varieties, shuck split has slowed down considerably now that soils have dried out. Don’t be lulled to sleep and forget to turn the irrigation back on so that shuck split can proceed. Failure to do so may result in stick-tights, sprouting of the nuts inside the shuck and embryo rot if conditions remain hot and dry. You won’t have to irrigate heavily at this time. You should be able to maintain adequate soil moisture for shuck split with 40% of the full rate. This would be around 4 hours a day for systems with a 12 hour capacity of 3600 gal/acre/day. Continue irrigating at 4 hrs per day until you are 4-5 days away from shaking trees.