Pawpaw, over at Pawpaw's House is my blog-father. He gave me a few condensed bits of advise. One piece of advise was to publish something every day. Another piece I remember is that he advised me to put information on the blog I wanted to refer to later.
Pecans
Back in the late 1970s old-time, backwoodsmen in Illinois, Iowa and even Wisconsin realized that the days of the wild pecan trees growing along the Mississippi river were numbered.
The universities were not interested in the genetic material because the nuts were pee-wees. It was up to the amateurs to save the seed-lines.
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| Natural range of the pecan. It is believed that native-Americans spread the species along the Mississippi river. Nuts are an ideal food for canoeing because they are waterproof. Some nuts might get lost or float away, only to sprout and grow. |
I sent my $5 in to somebody in extreme northwestern Illinois and he mailed back some pecan nuts collected at what was then thought to be the extreme northern range of the pecan. The record low for Rockford, Illinois is -31F.
I now have 8 adult pecan trees beside my driveway and they produce viable pecans but the nuts are still pee-wees.
Seven of the eight trees produce pollen first and then the pistils become receptive. That means seven of my eight trees are protandrous or "Type I" pecans. That means if I grafted a pecan seedling that is upwind of my driveway with a high-quality, Type II pecan (like Kanza or Lakoda) many of the seedlings will be a combination of the super-early, extreme northern pecans with the possibility of being just a bit larger and easier to crack.
The small pecans are harder to shell but I find the taste and the oil content in the meat much better. I don't bother with picking up the thin paper shell variety except for using for garnish. By the way PawPaw lives where I was born lots of pecan orchards around I can still find quite a few tree around. In fact I have a medium size nut pecan in the back yard. I gets loaded with green pecans every year, but i do not get one mature nut off it, darn tree rats (squirrels) attack the clusters cut the limb half eat one and drop the rest then move on to the next and repeat. If I was in the country i would be having squirrel gravy. But living in city limits (Baton Rouge) a shotgun is not a option.
ReplyDeletehttps://northernpecans.blogspot.com/2011/06/setting-squirrel-traps.html
DeleteThanks Joe , That's a great set,very clever, I'll have to get some of those #110 conibear traps
DeleteBob, maybe consider getting a high powered pellet guns. Those are generally legal even in city limits and should be able to take out tree rats. ( Plus fun to shoot).
ReplyDeleteThanks John I just checked the parish ordnance and bb guns and air rifles are allowed but must not be used within 500 feet of a structure the tree is within my house and the neighbor's and the street out front. Ah the joys of subdivisions ( the wife is city I am country hence the compromise)
DeleteYep, the pee-wees are literally tough nuts to crack, but they are tasty. Deep south is mostly papershells of various varieties.
ReplyDeleteDo you think they would grow here in the Keweenaw where winter is not quite a cold as further inland? ----ken
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I wonder if these would survive up into Canada ... or would the extreme cold kill them.
ReplyDeleteI planted 3 pecan trees on my property in EastTN. Darn deer wore them straight out last winter. 90 bucks, gone! They are struggling to come back this spring/summer... and the deer keeps visiting!
ReplyDeleteI'll betcha he disappears once the season opens. I had 2 type I's and one type II.
ERJ, Did you get the last two boxes? -RTB
ReplyDeleteThat description is inaccurate. I owned nine acres in the Southern East area of Alabama and had six pecan trees on my property and the neighbor across the county highway had an orchard of them and there were pecans over the state line in Georgia. They are more wide spread then that graph shows.
ReplyDeleteI believe it represents natural range.
DeleteMan has planted seeds everywhere he can.
We smoke meat with the wood. Mouth watering good.
ReplyDelete