Black aphids can be one of the most difficult pecan pests to manage because they often slip in, do their damage, and are gone before you know they are there. For this reason, they require pretty intensive scouting on susceptible varieties like Schley, Sumner, Oconee, and Gloria Grande. Anyone growing…
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Leaf sampling is the most important tool pecan growers have for determining their fertility needs. While soil samples are helpful for checking soil pH and determining any potential problems with competitive uptake between nutrients in the soil,  leaf samples tell you the fertility status of the actual trees. Using soil and leaf…
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Its the time of year when a few insects may rear their heads and cause some nut drop in the orchards. I refer here mostly to nut curculio and hickory shuckworm. The nut curculio attacks immature pecans from late June through early August.  Adults make shallow crescent shaped punctures with their…
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Dr. Katherine Stevenson’s fungicide sensitivity testing program is a wonderful service for Georgia’s pecan growers and I would encourage all of our growers to take advantage of this opportunity. It is free to the grower and provides orchard-specific information about the potential risk for scab resistance to the most commonly…
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I’ve seen a number of young orchards recently with trees suffering from die-back. While much of this has been related to cold damage, some trees are feeling the effects of a subtle problem that often goes unnoticed until it becomes severe. Botryosphaeria canker or “Bot canker” is caused by a fungus…
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It seems that every year we see something new on pecans. This year I have seen two or three orchards suffering from May beetles feeding on the foliage. Normally even if you see a May beetle here or there in the orchard, its no cause for alarm but I have…
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  I’ve had a lot of calls over the past couple of weeks regarding the dropping of green, healthy-looking leaves on ‘Desirable’. Looking back in my notes, this is something that seems to happen every year but we often have short and selective memories and choose not to remember seeing…
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