Pecan - seedling grown

[applestar]

My latest craigslist freebie -- a little pecan seedling that a squirrel planted in someone's flowerpot. She preserved the long taproot -- about 4 inches.

I've temporarily planted it in -- what is this 1 gal nursery pot? (It's equivalent to 1 gal vinegar bottle).

It looks like it lost its growing tip, but hopefully will be OK. She said she will be offering more as she finds them -- huge tree in her front yard -- and she also gave me about a dozen pecans she had frozen last fall. I wonder if they will sprout if planted?

---

Before, when I was thinking about buying a couple of compatible trees, I was thinking of planting them in a pair. But I might get away with just hoping the local Shagbark Hickory will serve as the pollinator....

I would say I have ONE obvious location for pecan though I might be able to squeeze another one in...I would have to cut down a young 8 ft red oak -- not my fave since it retains its leaves over the winter, looking raggedy, then drops them in spring when nobody wants to be raking leaves.

There is one other location in the front yard that is currently being occupied by a Norway Maple which has always been intended to be cut down -- about 15 ft right now. It's a little bit iffy location because it's near the farthest NE corner, maybe 25 ft in from the property line, which I feel is too close to the edge for edibles and particularly in this case, a big nut-dropping tree might become a nuisance. I had always intended that location to be utilitarian tree -- maybe a windbreak ...possibly (because I can't help thinking in terms of edible landscaping) something like Korean or Siberian pine nut tree....

[Lindsaylew82]

We have 2 volunteer pecan trees in our yard from our neighbors trees. One right next to the big garden, and one that our neighbor let grow on the fence line.

Neither one of them produces pecans worth eating. One has indiscernible nuts inside tiny fruits, the other has slightly larger pointy shelled nuts. Neither one is worth the trouble...

I would just warn you... A lot of the pecans around here (even the ones like my neighbor's who are 50+ years old) are hybrids, and they're likely to give you something not worth the wait.... That's a long time to wait for something that won't produce like its parents.

[Lindsaylew82]

They ARE beautiful though! and very very stately!

[applestar]

Hmm... I hear you. The lady had indicated on the ad that she didn't want to interact and the seedling should just be picked up off her front steps (in the shade of the big pecan tree), so I hesitated, but didn't knock or anything so as not to bother anyone, just waved madly at the window (even though I couldn't tell if anyone was there), mouthed "thank you" and prepared to get back in my car. But she came out of the house and called out to say "enjoy!" So I went back and thanked her properly. We got to chatting, and she pointed out that her tree is a "pair" with the tree in front of the next door neighbor's house.

So the advantage here is these are probably the only two original pecan trees in the area except for their seedlings. And presumably someone planted these two. I gues the question is whether the two are the same cultivar....

I suppose to increase my chances of success, I might buy and plant a grafted known cultivar, then this one can help to pollinate even if it turns out to be a dud. It would still save me from having to buy two, and at least then the resulting nuts are more likely to be pollinized pecan rather than hican. Regardless the resulting seeds/nuts will be a hybrid of the two varieties and it will be up to chance for next generation's quality.

[applestar]

One of the things she mentioned is that the nuts have to be spilling out of the husk to be completely mature.... She picks the good ones up from the ground under the tree in front of the house, she said. Just wondering out loud about yours. (Silly to think I would know anything better )

Fwiw -- one clear point in favor going with this seedling is that the parent is producing mature nuts in this area -- in fact, the location is ever so slightly further north where they happen to experience similar abnormal dips in temperature compared to surrounding areas as my garden does. In fact I use the local citizen weather stations in that area as reference for both WeatherBug and Wunderground. So whether this is a northern pecan cultivar or southern (for which this area is borderline), it's more likely to be adapted to bloom after last frost and and mature before first frost.

[Lindsaylew82]

Our neighbor rents the property now, and they have zero interest. The fruits open up in quarters like flower petals. I grab them off the branches I can reach, not many, and then make Big Kid think she's having a "who can pick up the most pecans off the ground" contest! he he he!!!

She wins EVERY TIME!

[Lindsaylew82]

All the trees in this photo are pecans. The ones in the back are the original, and the one in the front is the resulting offspring. The squirrels usually clear that one. We call the pe-corns. Because they're like acorns, but pecans. The trees in the back make big FAT PECANS, and they're delicious!

They usually make a big crop one year, and a small crop the next year.

[tomc]

Get your pecan into ground (or our of peaty mix). Illinoensis farts around for the first 3 or 4 years. And can fart around growing slowly just fine in the shade of other trees.

Pecan is tap-root dominant. so while the crown isn't growing much the tap root is. Supplimenting water during drouth will make for a happier tree (even if it does not speed things along)

[applestar]

Tomc, you are going to be disappointed in me -- I FINALLY got around to planting those two pecan seedlings. One of them, about 1 inch of the tap root had started to come out of the bottom drainage hole of the one gallon pot and kinked a bit, but it had n't been too badly deformed and I was able to coax it back without breaking it. Hopefully they will make it over the winter. I might have planted a third pecan -- I've lost track...either that or I planted a squirrel-sown hickory. I have one back up pecan seedling in a two gallon container.

...oh! I don't think I mentioned this -- I planted biggest of the pecans from her freezer that she had given me to try eating, and I ended up with two more seedlings... maybe three more.

(I also planted a chestnut seedling that grew from store bought chestnut. Italian or Korean... I can't remember. I think more likely to be winter hardy here if Korean. What I really want is to grow American Chestnut hybrid that is resistant to the ...what was that disease? blight?)

[applestar]

Yay! The nut tree-lets survived the winter!!

The hardware cloth tube to the left has the original seedling in it as well as a chestnut seedling that grew from store-bought chestnut (red stem). The tube to the right contains two seedlings that grew from the freezer-stored pecan nuts the lady gave me to try.

[Lindsaylew82]

WOOHOO! Pecans a plenty in a few!

[applestar]

Cross linking this thread for future reference

Subject: Does young pecan tree look similar to tree of heaven?

[rainbowgardener]

A little off topic, but your mention of someone giving baby trees away through craigslist related to a concern I've been having.

Our property clearly "wants" to return to being mixed deciduous forest. This spring we have had HUNDREDS, maybe even thousands, of baby tree seedlings popping up. Obviously I have destroyed most of them. But some of them have already turned in to pretty little baby trees, oaks, maples, walnuts, redbuds, and others I'm not sure of. It kind of hurts my heart to keep destroying them, but I really don't want our little half acre to revert to forest.

Do you think people would want these seedlings if I potted some of them up and grew them out for a year until they were a little more impressive? I presume many other people's yards around here are full of tree seedlings too...

[applestar]

Maybe it could be an Arbor Day or Earth Day project? ...offer them prior to that sort of significant Day is what I'm thinking...

[Allyn]

....Do you think people would want these seedlings if I potted some of them up and grew them out for a year until they were a little more impressive? I presume many other people's yards around here are full of tree seedlings too...

If I may speak as a member of 'people', if you were local, I would be interested.

[applestar]

Found these munching on one of my pecans

...cluster feeding so moth caterpillars or? Do they look like sawfly larvae to you?



I didn't feel like taking any prisoners today so these -- all I could find -- went into the buckets with goldfish. But I might have missed some. Help with definitive ID would be greatly appreciated.

[applestar]

Having received some thoughts and ideas about them, when I was outside, I looked to see if there are more.... but it turned out that the Garden Patrol had already deployed


-- this was a good find because last year, I killed one of those without definitive ID. I could tell it was a stinkbug of some sort, but I was either too busy or too tired or both and didn't have the energy to go get the iPad to take a photo or get something to capture it in. Now I know it's a predator.

[Allyn]

...-- this was a good find because last year, I killed one of those without definitive ID. I could tell it was a stinkbug of some sort, but I was either too busy or too tired or both and didn't have the energy to go get the iPad to take a photo or get something to capture it in. Now I know it's a predator.

OMG, I killed one of those! Note to self, don't kill anything without proper ID.