By Clint Thompson
Just because pecan harvests have begun across the Southeast does not mean growers should stop applying water to their trees – not with the prolonged drought that has impacted the region, including pecan-producing areas in Georgia and Alabama.
That’s the message that Lenny Wells, University of Georgia (UGA) Extension pecan specialist, wants producers to remember. Because the dry weather, which immediately followed a wet summer, is causing pecans to be lighter than expected, growers should keep the irrigation going up until about a week before shaking their trees.
“I’ve had a lot of calls over the last month asking, ‘Can I go ahead and turn my water off now?’ I said, ‘No, do not turn it off.’ We’ve been just trying to get the word out that they definitely need to leave it on,” Wells said. “As dry it is, they need to continue watering just until they get close to shaking.
“They need to cut it off a few days ahead of that, so you don’t risk damaging the bark and that type of thing with the shaking.”
UGA Extension Pecan Blog
According to the UGA Extension Pecan Blog, the rains this summer led to the trees growing accustomed to plenty of soil moisture. But when the rains turned off in August, and have mostly stayed off since, it shocked the trees’ systems since only a portion of the root zone was receiving water. This led to premature leaf drop and some shuck decline in multiple orchards.
“When they go from being used to getting a lot of rain all the way up to August and halfway through August, and then all of sudden it cuts off, that’s a shock to the tree,” Wells said.