By Clint Thompson
Pecan harvests will begin soon across the Southeast. With harvest season on the horizon in Georgia and Alabama, growers are also winding down their fungicide sprays for scab disease.
Lenny Wells, University of Georgia Extension pecan specialist, talked about what fungicide sprays remain for growers, which largely depends on the variety.
“Pawnee, which is of course is one of the ones that need a lot of fungicide sprays, it’s also a variety that is pretty much the first to mature and be done. We’re pretty much done with those sprays,” Wells said. “The shells have hardened, and the kernels are pretty much filled in inside that nut. Fungicides are pretty much done on that variety.
“Most of our other varieties, even though they mature a little bit later and are undergoing kernel filling right now, the shells are hard on most of those varieties. At that point you can pretty much be done with the fungicide sprays, especially if they’re clean at this point. The one that we do recommend, probably one extra spray after kernel filling, would be Desirable. I would say most growers are probably at that point where they’re either making that last spray or about to make that last spray on Desirable. Thankfully, we’re kind of at the end of the fungicide sprays.”
Disease Background
Scab is a fungal disease that infects the leaves or nuts of pecan trees. If scab impacts the nut early enough in the production season, it can cause the nut to blacken and fall from the tree. It excels on trees that have received moisture. However, the disease’s impact is minimal once pecan shells start to harden.
“Once those shells are hard, you can still get scab developing on that nut, but that’s usually just going to be cosmetic. Desirable sometimes, you can see it jump on them late to the point that you can get some damage, but everything seems to bother Desirable. It’s just a really puny tree or a puny variety, it seems like. So that’s why we do recommend one spray after shell hardening on Desirable.”