Episode 7 - 2026 Mid-Season Crop Update & the Physiology of Nut Drop

Hosts Andrew Sawyer and Dr. Lenny Wells discuss the 2026 Georgia pecan crop and current pest issues pecan growers are managing. Dr. Wells shares the first 2026 crop estimate originally presented at the Tri-State Pecan Conference last week.

The two discuss the physiology of nut drop and how to distinguish it from mid-season insect pests. With black pecan aphid damage becoming more evident, at what point should growers spray? Should growers add more nitrogen to this year's crop? If so, when? What is the best way to manage irrigation through the nut sizing period? And, is it too early to discuss the pecan market?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Whether it's pecan or pecan, we cover it all. Orchard management, growth and development, pest management, economics, from extension specialists, scientists, county agents, industry representatives, and growers. Brought to you by the University of Georgia Pecan team. In a nutshell, the Pecan Podcast. All right, in a nutshell, the Pecan Podcast, episode seven. I am Andrew Sawyer, area agent in Southeast Georgia.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

And I'm Lenny Wells, Extension Horticulturist for Pecans at the University of Georgia.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

We are your host, and we are glad to be back on for our seventh episode. Lenny, we've been off for a while. I think there's a lot going on. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Um, we've had a lot of weather issues over the last few weeks since we've talked last. And uh you've been on the road a lot and had a lot of a lot of things happening.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Yeah, I got to be at the uh Alabama field day back at the end of May. That was great. That was a fantastic field day at Brands and um be with the people, always great food. And uh then got to go to the tri-state meeting in Alexandria, Louisiana. I'm with them on the uh My IPM working group. That'll be something we need to uh have them on. Um talking about all the information. And I actually brought back a lot of stuff that uh Dr. Rebecca Melusson is leading that. You know, they've already printed up a lot of scouting material type stuff for growers. It's more than just you know printed stuff, but it's online tools, but stuff to really try to pull the industry, all the recommendations together.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Yeah, that's great. Um and their growers are they got kind of a different set of growers than what we have. They definitely do it in some ways. Yeah, they definitely do.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah. You know, some I I get to be with people that has a lot of acres and has small acres or does something else, and pucan. And um, but the majority, you know, probably um smaller or you know, maybe it's spread out. The people there were similar to that, you know. So I felt like, hey, I can talk to y'all.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Yeah, yeah. I mean, nothing nothing against our growers, but sometimes I like going to states and areas where there's you know the growers, a lot smaller growers, and uh they just don't get as much information as as a lot of growers here have access to, and uh it's always fun to talk to them. They they always seem to be real thirsty for information.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Oh wonderful, wonderful time. Great food over there too. So it was a it was a good time being there, you know. So, but you know, um a lot of people, Lenny, they're asking about our crop. Yeah, yeah. We're asking about our crop too. I mean, it's feel the same way.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

I feel the same way. Um yeah, I mean, we'll we'll talk some about what we're both seeing, I guess. I mean, I'm over here, uh, you know, early on it looked pretty strong, the bloom looked pretty strong, and then we had that really dry May, and then uh pollination conditions were good. I don't think that was an issue. And then uh really since June got here, it's been pretty wet, and uh so we're seeing some scab issues now. And for the most part, what I'm seeing is that the newer, the younger trees of newer varieties seem to have a pretty strong crop, and you get outside of that, it's it's really hit and miss. And what I'm seeing and hearing is that you know, a lot of the old Stuarts, Slides, Moneymakers, things like that, a lot of those are kind of having look like they're having an off-year. Okay. But again, it's kind of hit and miss, and and most of those that I'm seeing that don't have much of a crop on those had a pretty good crop on them last year. So, you know, some of that going on. But yeah, I would say it's just kind of a it's a good crop. It's not a great crop. Yep, not a huge crop, but it's a good, a good, strong average crop, kind of from what I'm seeing over here, you know. And I'm hearing as you get up around Fort Valley from what I've seen up there too, it's it's a little more hit and miss up there as well. So that's that's kind of what we're seeing kind of across the board. How about you?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Well, yeah, the best summary that I could say, uh, your words are exactly how I would say it. It's a crop, it's probably not huge. To me, this time last year was a little more. You know, we obviously had a lot of hope last year, and it would have been a big crop, or a good crop at least, minus the uh weather and likely the stress in the trees from the hurricane. But over here, I see the Oconis I've looked at are probably a little off, but there is a crop, you know. So I'm counting. You don't see them on a lot of terminals, but if you keep counting, you'll I can get up to 30% of terminal counts on those. My pony are hit or miss, but these are also in hedging programs. So I've seen Pony with a lot, and I know that you know, probably it may have to do a lot with a hedging. The old ones, I'm gonna go into those. Um, I've talked to some people and done some look into Stuarts. You know, I've counted some on Stewarts that you know you can look up there and see them. And we'd rode through a few days, did a lot in uh the real middle part with Reidsville's at and a lot of Tacno County and Evans and all. And we had Stewart with some counts, but then there's others that tell me theirs are probably off. So those are hit or miss, just like the ones you're saying. And that the most consistent counts I got so far are excel. They're hitting, and I'm just gonna say the numbers 40-50 percent terminal, which again, that's not an absolute knockout, but that's gonna be something.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Yeah, yeah, that's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Yeah, so I was pleased about that.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Yeah, this it's kind of we're in kind of a strange period or something here where you know normally when we have one of these hurricanes, the the following year there's a you know, really light crop, and then the next year there's usually a pretty heavy crop. And I don't know that we're really seeing that. And it may, you know, in in the end, it may turn out to be bigger than what we think. Maybe not. It's really hard to say, and that's one of the problems with putting a number on the Georgia crop nowadays, because we've had so many disruptions to the to the acreage and to the bearing acreage and to our production from from hurricanes. You know, we we had all that planting that took place after China, after 2010, you know, had all that planting, and then we've had a couple of pretty bad hurricanes that have taken out of chunks of of uh the acreage, and and then a lot of those younger plantings are still coming into production, you know. So a lot of our varieties are changing over, some of our production practices are changing over. We got a lot of young trees in the ground, we've lost a good many older trees. So it's just in a state of flux, and it's hard to pin it down to a number a lot of times. But and that's why I'm always so hesitant to throw a number out there myself, because I really don't think anybody really knows exactly. It's hard to estimate Georgia's production at this time for those reasons that I mentioned. Um, but the industry does put crop estimates out there from time to time. And you just got back from one of the meetings where they uh actually the first crop estimate is made at the Louisiana meeting. Used to be made for years by a grower there named Ben Littlepage, and uh he somehow had a real knack for this, and he was always his numbers were always turned out at the end of the year more times than not. He was the closest of the estimates. Of course, he passed away a few years ago, and now uh Charlie Graham of the Noble Foundation has been saddled with that responsibility, probably unfortunately for him. Yeah, yeah, I got to them out there coming up with that crop estimate. But um he sent me the numbers. If you don't have them handy, he sent me the numbers that he came up with for all the states. We can run through those if you want to. Yeah, let's go through them. And so he, of course, he talks to growers and people in the pecan industry all throughout each of these states, kind of trying to get a gauge of what the crop's looking like. And so so this is what he's he's he's got for this year so far. So at Alabama, he's got at 3 million pounds, Arizona at 40 million pounds, which Arizona's coming on. Wow, yeah, pretty strong. Arkansas, he's got it three and a half million, California at three million, Florida two and a half million. I'm gonna skip Georgia and come back to that. Kansas, Missouri together, he's got it three million, Louisiana, he's got it at four million, Mississippi at three million. North Carolina and South Carolina together, he's got it at four million pounds. New Mexico kind of kind of hitting right where they seem to seem to hit, usually is around 75 million pounds, Oklahoma at 12 million, and Texas at 39 million. And then he's got Georgia at 115 million. Wow. Which you know, there's gonna be people out there that hear this that say, oh, that's way too much, and there's gonna be people that say, Oh, that's not nearly enough for Georgia. But like I said, uh who really knows at this point. But so for the whole US looking at with those numbers, 307 million pounds. Which is you know, that's kind of an average crop. You know, you you want 300 million pounds, you you kind of need 300 million pounds in the U.S. and that's kind of right around that number is where we are. So um I don't think any of those numbers or anything to disrupt the market too terribly. So that's kind of kind of where that first estimate shook out. And if anybody has a problem with that, don't call me, call Charlie Graham. I'm just the messenger.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Well, you know, Lynn, it makes me think of last year. It was it, I mean, we had a crop on the trees, and I mean we carried that cop through August. And uh, you know, we just we lost it all. And um with the dry window.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

We did in places. We did in places. Um we still, you know, I I have not when I was talking with Charlie, he because I have not seen a final number from USDA for Georgia yet. He was telling me that he thought it was somewhere, I think he said around maybe 108, something like that. Gotcha. And so this number that he gave for this year at 115 would be, you know, right in that same region, maybe just a little higher. Sounds reasonable to me. You know, I I from what I see over here, most in mostly what I've looked at since southwest Georgia, I would say it looks a little bit better than last year, but not not a whole lot different. So that's kind of where we are. And we got a long way to go. You know, we got a lot of scab weather to get through the last uh month, really, with the exception of a couple of weeks ago. You know, we've had a lot of rain uh since really the end of May, the last week of May, first week of June, and then we had some dry weather, and then this last week has been incredibly wet. You know, we've we've had I've talked to growers who've gotten anywhere from six to ten inches over the last week, and it's just raining every day. So in that situation, it's hard to keep those nuts covered, and we're right here at a critical time when nut sizing is beginning. So it's a battle right now. You know, we'll see how that turns out.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

I think uh the same thing will be in the east right before our leaving. I looked at a number of varieties. Joanna that's working with Dr. Oliveira, she came over to get scab samples, and and I thought we're probably not got a light yet, but I could see it coming, but she needed to get this go ahead and see some locations. So we looked at bird pawnee and desirable in a few hours and going around and then believe it or not, on Monday, we she couldn't find it on any of them. But yeah, when I've been gone, it it's been raining here every single day. So you know, when I get back out, I got a feeling. But I can tell you the pressure leading up to this rain, we were actually okay. You know, so uh the biggest thing we've been struggling with is you know, they're nervous about their rotation. And that podcast we did last really helped that. Yeah, understanding those different group numbers. But when it rains so much, you get that Tenn and E last, it just doesn't want to stay on there. And so we have to juggle, you know, the importance of rotation versus you know that uh that rain fast. I'm just thankful that we probably haven't had it as strongly, but I bet after this week I'll start seeing it. So at least my report now is actually uh fair, you know, pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

Yeah, and I would agree with that. I mean, like you were saying, week or two ago, you didn't see a whole lot of scab out there. If you look hard enough, you make it find a little bit, but there wasn't a lot. Over the last week in the orchards I've been in and around in different places, I've I'm seeing more and more starting up. It's just um because it's not that they're not spraying or not spraying the right thing. It's just timing and getting that rainfall right after you spray sometimes, washing it off, gets wet, you know, stays wet all night, and uh it's just hard to keep up this time of year. I tell you another thing where um I've had a few calls on, and we've actually uh the diagnostic lab has confirmed at least one of these, but a little bit of anthrachnose out there on some leaves, and that's another one that uh you know most growers were spraying the phosphates or something with the group three in it early on, or a combination of those, and that's what you want to spray to protect from not just scab but phosph um from anthrachnos and all that too. But also, you know, there's times when we try to stretch the sprays a little bit when we got uh dry weather, and sometimes, you know, those secondary diseases like anthracnose can get in there when you're doing that, even if you've got even if you're using the right right stuff. It's just a matter of timing. And that being said, even if they're even if they're seeing some, if they've been using the phosphite, it's been using the group threes, it's probably still helping. It's probably not as bad as it would be had they not sprayed that. But that's it's out there, so that's something to kind of keep an eye on to.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Yeah, I hadn't seen it yet, but um I have learned from that stretching in the spring, you know. I've always liked the idea of cutting one, but if you look at our textbook, um, you'll see that that infection period for anthrachnose is kind of a wide period. So you're late April all the way to the first of June.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

And you know, it's it's one of them things where uh yeah, it it's and it's a latent infection too. So you may get infection uh and then it's several weeks before you start to see the symptoms develop. So once you see the symptoms, it's too late to do anything about it.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Oh, it's definitely too late. Usually I see it in July, and then August can be a really bad month. That's something that you know we've had to over here for sure. I've I've had to come back around and say, look, we we don't probably need to stretch, you know, that uh second and third spray as much with that anthrachnose. But what you're saying, Lenny, is really it it's not that we're spraying the wrong thing, it's that when you got a little bit of opening, that's when that infection's setting in. It's got a wide infection period. And uh so but I I didn't know we'd see the the leaves of it already, which of course that's confirmed in the lab. So that's something I'll keep the watch out on.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

But yeah, and shuckworm, you know, it's just getting time for shuckworm too. I've had some reports of some people finding a little shuckworm drop with that white residue on the nut. Certainly, pawnee, you probably should have already sprayed those and then maybe even some of these earlier varieties like crete. But certainly uh if you haven't, it'd be good to get out and and put one on because that's one of those pests that can creep up on you before you know it. Especially where you've had phyloxra. Yeah, especially where you've got phyloxra and they've been developing in those galls too.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Not a pest in every orchard, but I'll say this, you know, growers they say you a lot of times learn your chuckworm problem from the cleaning plant. And then, you know, if you it's hard this time of the year for me sometimes to see that spot on the nut that that drops. I've been seeing the drop, but I make sure I pick up a few and check for that little white spot.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Yeah, that little white residue. And and you know, this time of year, if they hit them, you know, they're just gonna knock the nuts off. It's that second generation later on into July, late July and August that uh that's the ones that'll be there and you not even know it until you harvest, and then shucks aren't opening up and you find them in the cleaning plant and causes a big problem there. So, you know, from here on out, stay pretty vigilant on that and and make those shuckworm sprays uh as you need to. Well, you mentioned the drop. What you see about the drop, you know. Yeah, I've looked at some, but yeah, so I think it we should probably just cover pecan drop in general because there's a there's a lot of drops that occur. There's bate there's basically four drops a year that pecans go through that are considered natural nut drops. So the first one happens right after bloom, and it's going to be mostly a result of just not having enough energy in that tree. So if you have low carbohydrate reserves going into the fall, that's the drop that's going to happen right after bloom. Really, the nuts are so small, a lot of times you don't even notice it. Then you have another drop that occurs, you know, about the time those fruits start to just elongate a little bit, about 14, about two weeks after they've been pollinated. And that drop will continue up to about 40 days or so after after pollination. And usually these are nuts with that second drop, those are nuts that just don't get pollinated. They don't pollinate well and they just fall off. Now the third drop is the one that we're having right now and or just coming through, is that everybody calls the June drop, which is the big one. And this one is related to it's kind of secondarily related to pollination, I guess, but it's more about fertilization of that embryo. And a lot of this sort of coincides with what you see with when pecans self-pollinate. And pecans produce so many, so much pollen, and it's all dependent on, you know, the the pollen shed and pistil receptivity is all dependent on weather in the spring, and and of course when bud break occurs, which is related to winter weather conditions. So all that together kind of determines the timing of of pollination. And every year's different, you know, sometimes you have a warm winter, sometimes you have a cold winter, sometimes you have a cool spring, sometimes you have a warm spring, sometimes it's wet, sometimes it's dry. So you got all this playing into it. But there's always gonna be, to some extent, probably a certain amount of self-pollination in every orchard. And not every one of those is going to drop off. Uh, some of those will make it uh usually self-pollinated nuts are not the best quality. So if you have a lot of self-pollination, you generally have a you have more drop, and then the ones that do make it, the quality is lower. But you're gonna have some level of it every year. Most of the time it's just not enough that you notice it, you know, in the quality. But when there's a big June drop, a lot of that is considered to be from self-pollination. And if you want to get specific about it, it's related to the basically the fertilization of that embryo and the basically the development of the endosperm that feeds that kernel. To really get an understanding of this, we have to kind of dive into some of the details of pecan pollination. So every mature pecan pollen grain contains three nuclei. One of those basically develops into the pollen tube uh that grows down through that female flower style to that egg, basically. And then the other two nuclei, one of those is the sperm that will travel down that pollen tube to fertilize the egg to create the kernel. And then the third one also travels down that pollen tube, but it doesn't form a kernel, it forms the nutritive endosperm that feeds that kernel. And if you say if we get to like a lot of times you know, we'll get into July. Or August, and you cut those nuts open, and all that liquid pours out, that's the liquid endosperm, and that's what's feeding that developing kernel. So this June drop that we have, a lot of that is related to problems with that endosperm development. So you just have some failure there. And of course, you probably you're likely to have more of that with self-pollination. So that's where a lot of this June drop comes from. And some years it's heavier than others. And when you have a heavy crop on that tree and you go out there and you've had a big drop or you've had a drop, it's gonna look like more than if you had a light crop on there, just because you got more nuts up there to deal with. But the thing we try to keep telling growers is to just keep looking up in the tree and don't look down at the grain. But desirables, of course, are notorious for this. They're gonna drop every year, and it's probably most noticeable undesirable. You may go from having three or four nuts in the cluster down to zeros and ones per cluster or twos per cluster. So when you go from three or four down to zeros and ones, it's a can be a pretty big drop. Most varieties are gonna go through some degree of this. It's worse with others than on some than others, but it's most noticeable on desirable. There's not a lot we can do about it, about the drop. Boron sprays have been proven to help reduce it a little bit. And the reason for that is that boron helps with that germ tube, that pollination pollen germ tube development that that grows down into that female flower so the pollen and and the other nuclei can drive, you know, find its way down in there to fertilize that egg and then feed the feed the developing kernel. But if you don't have that germ tube, the whole process kind of falls apart. And so that's where boron comes in. You need boron uh for that germ tube to develop properly. Um you don't have to have a lot of it, but it needs to be out there at the right time. And that's why we say after pollination, there's no need to spray boron. But you know, that's one thing you can do to kind of help some with this. It doesn't completely eliminate it, you're still gonna have some drop. And like I said, you know, some varieties you may drop 30 to 60 percent of them some years. Uh it just varies from one year to the next. And then some varieties don't drop near as much. A lot of that probably has to do with the pollination window, how long that's open, if it happens to overlap when the with when they're when they have uh you know male flowers and and mature pollen out there, too.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

So one thing I hear in all this is I think it's important for people to hear that physiological process. It's almost the term pollination. It's like it all has something to do, each of those drops, with something in pollination.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Yeah, yeah. And then the fourth one we didn't I didn't get to yet, but you know, that fourth drop occurs later on in the early stages of of expansion of the seed coat and kernel development. You know, so that's and that one's a little less noticeable too, but it's really that June drop that's the one that that's most common. But yeah, they're all to some degree related to pollination in some way. It's not that pollination conditions weren't right or something like that, it's just the compatibility a lot of time of the pollen grain that happened to land on that female flower is not suitable for one reason or another. And and some of those nuts will drop. And uh the tree is kind of the tree's way of knowing, you know, that you know, this isn't a compatible fertilization here. It's just so there's gonna be problems, so it drops those off. And and again, it won't do it with all of them, but certainly there's a there's a degree uh every tree probably drops some of those.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

When I've been in the orchards last week, I'm seeing that drop, you know, that third drop. Um so because that third drop correlating with insect, particularly shookworm, you know, you want to check those. So from a practical perspective, just pick them up, you know, make sure you're not got too many that evidence that that white spot, you know, from the shuckworm. And um, but I'll say this, Linnya, it's important to look up because I went and looked, and then I talked with them, and they said, man, that's some kind of drop. But to me, on one Friday in particular, I really had to look for them, you know, and um it's e it's always, you know, you always get a little scared when you see them on the ground. But the other ponies, wow, I found even less on the ground. If you walk enough under them, I'll find them, and I can confirm, yeah, that's a drop. But I sometimes you had to really look for them.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Pawnee is a strange creature. I mean, it you know, they're they're harvested much earlier. But often you don't see that June drop like you normally do, like on something like desirable. But then sometimes in July you'll see a drop on Pawnee. And it's it's just really hard to each variety is just a little different. So you gotta treat them all a little different. But uh, but yeah, there's all kinds of things aside from the just natural physiological drops that pecans have that that are gonna cause them to drop to insects, like you mentioned, shuckworm, but then also, you know, um stink bugs, leaf-footed bugs, you know, if they they hit them this time of year, they're just gonna drop off. So that there's other things out there that can lead to drop aside from from the physiological drops that we see.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

And from a scouting perspective, it's really hard to put a number on that. And one I'm also thinking of is nut curculeo. And uh to me, I don't really see that probably a little bit later than now. I would say on the end of July. The nuts usually are a little bit bigger, but uh, it'll have like a tobacco stain on there. You know, in the effort of entomologists trying to find thresholds, you really gotta have a lot of them, you know, falling off to confirm insect like that before you make a decision.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Especially for curculeo because of what it takes to kill those. If it's shuckworm or something like that, you know, we can spray Intrepid, which is a targeted caterpillars. But if you're spraying for curculeo, you got to use something like, you know, we used to use Lor's band, but that's not labeled anymore. Um, but even that can pose other problems. Now bifinthrin would be the choice for that, or any or any pyrethroid, but you got to use a broad spectrum insecticide to kill curculeo. Well, if you go out there to do that, you're gonna disrupt everything out there. Aphids and mites are just gonna tear you up the rest of the season. So you really got to weigh, is it worth, you know, this little bit of drop that I'm seeing from curculeo, is it really worth going out there and spraying? Is it gonna cause me more harm than good to go out and and spray these? Most of the time, unless you've got an orchard with the history of it that it that it's bad, uh, usually curculeo is not gonna be enough of a problem to really worry about. I'd worry more about the aphid and mite problems I would bring on spraying them than I would about the the curculeo. 100%. And you know, if you've got a heavy crop on there, it may be good to just let them let them take a few off, you know. Yeah, each grower's gotta kind of gotta kind of weigh that for themselves.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Lenny, we're talking about physiology of nut drop and that third nut drop is what we notice, but it can correlate with some insects. Now I'm gonna take the insects, let's take that word and let's move with that because the past 10 days numerous calls of more black aphid damage in orchards and a very strong concern to spray so far. I think mine calls have concerned only susceptible varieties fly being one of them. But I am concerned about our rotation of sprays. If you are seeing heavier damage, we know the adults remember a purple is on already. The adults fly in and out of those orchards. We got thresholds for this. How do you feel on this subject?

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Yeah. We're getting to the time of year where you really gotta scout and check to see what's out there to really have an answer whether you need a spray or not. A lot of times this time of year, this early flight will be mostly just adults that come in, they may spot up those lower leaves on the bottom and then move on. And they're not really establishing populations that are gonna do serious damage. Um, but we're kind of getting into that time of year where it could kind of go either way. So you need to be checking those susceptible varieties to see if you've got any nymphs there. If you got nymphs, you need to spray. If you're just seeing adults and just seeing a few spots on those lower leaves and the suckers and lower leaves in the tree canopy, I wouldn't worry that much about it. But if you're seeing nymphs, there you're generally going to be getting ready to go. And so you need to be ready to spray those. That being said, if you decide to spray, there's different options for what to spray. I mean, you got transform is one of the more common ones. You got closer, you got full fill, you got carbine.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Another one we used more last year is Safina.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Safina is another one. Yeah, Safina's good. And I think there might be a new one out there. I can't remember off the top of my head, but Perba could could tell us. Another thing that that works well if you're set up to do it, and actually, I need to check the label. We may be past the date to do this, but I think it's actually June 15th. Now that I think about it, you need to do it by June 15th, is to get uh you can inject imidocloprid in the tree, and um that'll work for a while. A lot of times that'll help kind of put them off. And and actually, foliar emidocloprid still works pretty good on black aphids in a lot of cases. I've seen some growers do that, and it's worked pretty good, but it's not something you want to do over and over and over. So, yeah, rotation of these chemistries is important also, and even if you say even if you made that injection application of emidocloprid on June 15th, and you know, if you're putting them on trees of any size, it's gonna be a couple of weeks before that stuff really gets in there and starts working in the tree because they're taking it up from the roots through the irrigation. And so, in the meantime, you may still have some black aphids that move in. If you see that, then you need to treat those if you're seeing nymphs, even though you've already put the aminoclopid out, and then just let the aminocloprid carry you beyond that for a little ways. Uh, a lot of times it'll take you on into August if you've done that. And then, of course, those August populations are the ones to really worry about to treat then. And I would save save your heaviest hitting chemistries for that August population.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Something that I was wanted to ask you too, you know, NIMPS is what we want the everyone to hear. That's that's your dead giveaway. And uh, once they establish reproduction, then you know, this is this is an issue. The second issue with the aphids, obviously the direct damage is the problem, but the second issue is that insecticide rotation. And so here it is, June 22nd. And on non-susceptible varieties, I love making it into July before you have to make these decisions. However, for the susceptible varieties, more and more growers that who are managing, even if they don't have a sumner or a sly, they might struggle with a different variety like Oconee. It's common for me in that middle part of East Georgia, but also Caddo and moving toward Augusta. That's the number one problem. With black aphid, again, they don't have the sum right there, but Lenny, in those situations, progy is it's become it's economical, it helps uh not kill the aphid, but it's keeping them from damaging that leaf and slowing down that damage. Well, what do you like? You know, I mean, this was researched years ago, but you might can explain a little bit about how you use that and target the set susceptible varieties.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Yeah, so so progy is a plant hormone, basically gibrylic acid, and it's gonna have other effects on that tree aside from what it's doing to the black aphid. So you need to be aware of that, and there is a window to which you can apply progyib, and that's usually gonna be from mid-July through early August. So you got about, you know, you could do up to three sprays at two-week intervals through that time. And what progyb is doing is as you mentioned, it's not killing the aphids, but what it does do, a couple of things. One, it slows down their feeding and slows down their development, slows down their reproduction. So that it takes them longer to develop from one stage to the next, and then it takes them longer to reproduce. In addition to that, and the main benefit we get from it is that it sort of uh masks the damage. So basically, the leaves normally when when black aphids feed, they inject a toxin uh in their saliva into the leaf. It turns that leaf yellow, or you get yellow spots developing, get enough of them, the whole leaf turns yellow, falls off. But what the progyib does is it prevents those yellow spots from forming. The leaf basically stays green longer. And one of the biggest advantages of this is it gives you more time to find those black aphids. Because as we mentioned, you're you're looking for uh nymphs. And so if you may go out there one day and scout and not really be seeing a whole lot, two days later, you may be covered up. And so this gives you a gives you a little more time to find them and effectively scout for them and be able to get out there and spray them when you need to. Um, it just kind of uh gives you a little cushion, a little insurance policy against them, I guess, is is the best way to put it. So if you've got a variety like Schly or O'Coney or Caddo, Sumner, even Avalon to some extent, Lakota to some extent, any variety that you've had a problem with them in the past, and that problem a lot of times is just being able to be there enough to scout them and find them in time, then progyib is a is a good uh a good thing to use, a good tool to help help you get over that hunt with black aphid.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

And to be clear, I I like the you know those practical scouting procedures for black aphid. It the threshold, I mean, there's other numbers, you know, before and after, like, you know, uh August 1st or July 15th, where you got 25% of the leaves are present with an adult. You have a lot of the different numbers in this, but for for growers who are, you know, say we stretch, but we do we need to get out there and look. I love the nymphs when the presence of nymphs are immatures, is what they are, and you've got to make a decision. Now, that being said, the practical part of this, you may say, well, I've kind of relied on you know some people down the road that I'm confident with that they could see, and and uh, but I need to look myself. It's actually very easy to tell. The adults are jet black, you'll see the wings on them. They'll even jump off, they'll fly away. But the nymphs, Lenny, to me, the best description is they're kind of dark green and they don't have wings, they look like frogs. It's the easiest way for me to describe it. And when you see that, they're gonna all be together, and they're gonna be on one of those yellow spots on the other side of the leaf. When you see that, that's what we're referring to when we say we need to watch for the presence of immatures, nymphs.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna read this. This is straight out of the pecan spray gun. So it says prior to July 1st, treat if 25% of terminals have two or more black aphids. After July 1st, treated 15% of terminals have more than one black aphid, and nymph clusters are found. And that that nymph clusters is the key thing because those adults, you know, they're not gonna hang around long, they're flying around, going here and there, but those nymphs are settled down on that leaf, and they're gonna stay there and feed and cause damage. So those are the main ones to to key in on. So if you see those nymphs, get ready to spray. One other thing I will mention, you know, back in the spring, uh, fertilizer prices were through the roof. And um, you know, our recommendation was to to, you know, you need to go ahead and put some some nitrogen out. But we always recommend splitting those nitrogen applications where we generally do 75% of it in the spring and then do the rest later in the year. I don't really think it matters if you do it in June or July or August, all going to be about the same result. But because fertilizer prices were so high at that time, you know, a lot of growers put out a little bit less than they normally would have. Still fertilized, of course, uh, but put out a little less than than than normal, and I think that's perfectly fine. It's a good decision to make because fertilizer prices were so high. But we're getting to the point in the season where the growers may be needing to make that decision about do I need to put out more fertilizer? If so, when, how much, that kind of thing. And then that's that decision is based mostly on your crop load, you know, of what's out there on that tree. And if you got a good crop, yeah, you need to come back with another nitrogen application. Most growers are kind of what my recommendation was in the spring of this year was to put out, just go ahead and put out 50 pounds an acre on mature barren trees, and then just kind of hold up and let's kind of see what develops. Now that we're getting close to the time that needs to go out, I talked with the fertilizer dealer the other day uh about this and you know, about what prices were doing at this point. And he had told me that prices basically were starting to come down. And and his comment to me was if you can wait, just wait, because they're probably going to come down even more. Um, so this was last week, let's say like last Tuesday or something, when I had this conversation, and he said from that point or from the previous week to that point, prices on nitrogen had dropped like $40 a ton, I think it was, just in that one week period. And he said, We're seeing it continue to drop, and we expect it to drop more. So he said, if you can, you may want to wait about a month or so and put it out then. You know, and so I think that's a good way to look at it. Most growers, you know, certainly if you've got a crop out there, you're gonna need a little ex a little more nitrogen. You know, if you put 50 pounds an acre out early, you know, another 50 pounds an acre is probably fine. Um, most of the nitrogen that you put out in that second application is going for next year's crop anyway. It's not really helping this year's crop, um, but you want to keep those trees healthy so they can put on a crop again next year and not have a lot of that first drop that we mentioned earlier. So just look at your prices. We should see prices, fertilizer prices continuing to fall over the next month or so, and uh, you know, just try to try to get as low a price as you can on it going forward.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

More people are injecting, and so even in that situation we're adding that 50 pounds, you might tell us if you like us still to split that into 225s, or you can we just do it all.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

What do you think? And so if you're injecting fertilizer or if you're injecting nitrogen through the irrigation system, a lot of times you'll when you're doing that, you're doing more applications, but you're doing smaller amounts each, you know, when you do it. And so most growers that are in Projecting probably got a lot of the material they needed for the year early. If not, over the next month would be a good time to fill those tanks back up as those prices fall. But you'll still, you know, not a lot has changed there in the way you're gonna put it out. You're still because you're just kind of spoon feeding it a little at the time, I wouldn't do a lot of variation off what you normally do in that situation. But but you know, total rates uh for the year uh for pecan, mature pecan, should be around 100 to at most 125 pounds of nitrogen per acre.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Right. Lenny, uh you know, we may not need to mention a whole lot about irrigation with all our rain. Everybody's following the checkbook method, but here's a question I got. As the nuts are starting to size, over watering now might be a bigger issue, you know, than uh than then as much as not having water later, should we stay to the checkbook method? But water every day still, or how about every other day uh still in even in a mature orchard? We don't talk a lot about that.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Yeah, so exact numbers are gonna vary some from you know, one soil type to the next, one irrigation system to the next, but let's just say you've got a 15 gallon per hour microsprinkler on on your trees, uh, or you've got you know eight two gallon an hour emitters on each side, um, or I'm sorry, total on a on a tree. In that situation, yeah, if you've gotten an inch of rain, you need to cut it off for three days. A lot of places have had a good bit more than an inch. Uh the soil's only gonna hold so much and then it's gonna run off. Yes, if you've gotten those these rains recently, and most people have, you can cut cut that irrigation off for a few days, I would say at least three days, and then kind of check back and see maybe what your soil moisture is, and then you know, you can you could turn it back on. Pecons are, you know, once we get to nut sizing where we are now, that water demand has made a jump. Uh those trees are taking up a lot more water now than they were a month ago, and so you don't want them to dry out. Uh generally, I think we need to be for those systems that I mentioned, you know, micro sprinkler drip systems that are capable of putting out 3,600 gallons per acre, 3,600 gallons per acre per day, running 12 hours. You don't need to run 12 hours right now. You probably need to run about eight hours every other day. And then if you get an inch of rain, cut that off for three days. Because as you mentioned, you don't want to overwater right now. The trees will suck up as much water as you can put out at the at the moment. But what'll happen if you do that is you're gonna make that those nuts get so big that they're gonna be hard to fill later on in August and September, especially if we get dry. So water them like we just mentioned, is going to get that nut size that you want and allow you to still be able to fill those kernels. And you need to go in July, you'll need to go up to like 10 hours every other day instead of eight. And putting it in hours can be kind of risk, you know, fishy and kind of you know, it'll may not always be exact, but that's gonna be close uh for most systems. But again, every one of them is gonna be a little different, so you need to take that into account. Let's see. So yeah, you need to be in June roughly at 36% of full capacity, and in July at 45% of full capacity. And I don't like watering every every day, so you could say if I'm saying eight hours every other day, some growers would want to do four hours every day. Same amount of water in a week, you're just doing it more often and less each time. I feel like for pecans, it's better to water deep when you can, uh, and then allow it some drying time and then water deep again. Uh I feel like that helps to have that soil moisture get down there a little bit, as opposed to just keeping it right there on the surface all the time. Because if you do that, that's where all your feeder roots are gonna be, right there at the surface. You're you're kind of training those roots to stay right there at the surface, and then guess what happens when we have a storm come? You know, they're gonna be more likely to fall over. So um, I like deep watering for pecan trees.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

Yep. Well, you know, Lenny, we definitely got a crop. We may not want to put a number on it, but we got a crop. Uh growers don't need to be worried so much about the drop. You know, that's physiological, and you've explained how that works. So, you know, let's continue uh with the rest of our fertilization. No more than 125 pounds of nitrogen, 125 pounds. Um, we really need to start scouting and really watch the black aphids at this time and um you know keep up with your rainfall and scab control is going to be a lot of our attention the next the next two months. So that may cover us for today. Anything else you can think of?

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Yeah, no, I think uh this point is just all about taking care of what you got out there and uh trying to keep keep them clean as you can and um yeah, let's try to get them to to market and hopefully the price will be be decent. I mean, what little you hear on price at this point in the season, and and probably anything you hear on price, you need to take with a grain of salt uh at this point. But you know, everything I've heard has been pretty positive so far about the market for this year. Um, you know, at least starting out, I think the prices will be decent just from what I'm hearing from buyers and everything. Uh it should be good to start out with. How long that'll last into harvest, I don't know. It may it may last right on. There's some some things in the works that we can talk about later that uh may have some influence on that, but we'll see as that develops.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

Between our you know, numerous trips and traveling, and growers are too, so hopefully you and I come back. Maybe we need to do one on uh young tree management. We might need to get uh Dr. Connor back on to do some varieties. So there's a number of things out there.

SPEAKER_02 51:04

Yeah, we got several topics we can cover here in the near future. So we'll we'll hit those when we can.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Thank you all for listening. Stay tuned for the next episode. You can get more information on the University of Georgia PCAN blog in a nutshell, the PCAN Podcast.