By Clint Thompson
Southeast pecan growers will soon have a new variety at their disposal. University of Georgia pecan breeder Patrick Conner discussed the ‘Golding’ variety at last week’s Georgia Pecan Growers Association Conference in Perry, Georgia.
“It’s selected for having exceptional quality, good yield and good scab resistance. We think it’ll be a general use cultivar for growers who are applying fungicides as most of our growers are,” Conner said. “We expect it to get good yield and better quality than most other cultivars on the market.”
Scab Resistance
Scab resistance is an important trait that Conner looks for in new varieties. 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, which has been the case for growers in Alabama and Georgia.
“If we compare (Golding’s scab resistance) to our previous releases, ‘Avalon’, which had exceptional resistance; and ‘Kalos’, which had standard levels of resistance, Golding is sort of in between those two,” Conner said. “You would not want to grow it if you were not applying fungicides, but we were able to grow it in orchards with four to six fungicide sprays a year which is about half of a standard spray regime. We only ever saw trace scab on those trees.
“We think we can use reduced amounts of fungicides and still get great control of scab.”
Conner said Golding has already been approved for release. Two nurseries have a license to propagate it. There is limited graft wood right now, but there is a large block coming into production. Conner estimates there will be large amounts of graft wood available over the next two or three years.