By Clint Thompson
Pecan estimates have been released for Georgia’s crop this year.
Lenny Wells, University of Georgia Extension pecan specialist, said estimates are for 115 million pounds. But growers must take that with a grain of salt considering how the bearing acreage remains “in flux.”
“You know, we’ve got more young trees coming into production every year. We lost trees from the storms. I’m just not 100% confident on exactly where the acreage is and exactly where the bearing acreage is. That makes it hard to put a number on the crop,” Wells said. “I think a large chunk of that is from young trees, and that’s probably good in the long run for the Georgia pecan industry. We’ve got better varieties in place now and producing better quality and hopefully able to do that with a little less input cost too.”
Wells noted in the UGA Pecan Blog that this year’s crop looks a little better than last year. But it is also not meeting initial expectations.
“It may not be quite as good a crop as what it looked like originally. Some of that is just because we can see them better now. And it looks like some of the older Stewart, Schleys, Moneymakers, things like that, they are a little more hit and miss than it appeared originally,” Wells said. “But most of those that are way off on those varieties are in orchards that had a pretty good crop last year. So that’s to be expected to some extent.
“And then we had that June drop like we always have. It’s not an excessive drop, but there’s some drop there. And now we’ve got scab pressure coming on. So, we’ll see.”