Thread: How to Top Work a Pecan Tree to Change It's Variety

Originally Posted by SuperDave336

I can tell you after shelling years and years worth of pecans I prefer the papershell ones…lol.

A papershell won't even grow here or any pecan with a Indian name. The Scab literally melts the leaves off the trees. Almost liquefies them. Most low input trees are between 56-62 nuts to the pound if they are full except Excel, it bears early, heavy (brakes limbs), and at as low as 42 nuts to the pound, the standard is about 45 nuts to the pound it is the leader right now. A Type II so it needs a Type I like Gafford to produce well. The mechanical shelling of Excel is excellent too, very high percentage of Halves with a packing that releases easily.

How do you shell yours? Do you have a cracker or do them manually?

Originally Posted by SuperDave336

How do you shell yours? Do you have a cracker or do them manually?

I use a old school manual, one at a time cracker. I pick in a Jethro Stainless Bowl while watching TV in the evenings. Wine is on the menu during all picking sessions too. Vacuum pack in heavy mil poly bags then freeze (what I don't eat). They keep their flavor well into year 4 if kept at 0 degrees.

While mowing around the pecan stump I'm resurrecting I noticed it was time to train the Scion once again. The fatal tree strike that killed the previous grafted portion on the stump took a year to kill the original tree. So does the repair by Topworking. Your work needs regular attention once a successful graft has been accomplished. Preventing the scion from being broken out by a bird, wind, critter, etc is necessary as well as keeping Nurse limb growth in check.



First I cut away the extra growth of the nurse limbs on the same shoot off the stump that I grafted on. While the scion's vigor was low I left 2 nurse limbs but the scion is taking off so I want to send more sap to the scion, it has healed & grown enough that now more energy is needed. My goal is to keep the scion growing at a faster pace but not so fast that the scion outgrows the strength of the joint. Slow is better than fast.



To help our scion with the competition I removed the nurse growth shielding the graft from direct sunlight. Since the leaves make the energy now the scion's leaves get the direct sunlight first.



I bought a bunch of pine 1x2's for scion support but recently had 2 grafts break due to the 1x2 breaking at a flaw in the wood. This scion I just supported with a heavy, galvanized, potted tree wire. It allowed me to shape the wire in a vise so it fit the scion perfectly. Duct tape was used to attach the wire to the tree trunk and tree ties was used (3) to attach the wire to the scion for lots of support.

More attention will be needed till the growing season ends so updates will follow.

Looks good. How long does it take for the graft to be solid?