Episode 8 - Late July Happenings in the Orchard

Should you sample leaves for a fungicide sensitivity test in 2026? How do you determine the best time to fruit thin your orchard? What is the mechanism in fruit thinning that mitigates alternate bearing? What is the latest date to apply fertilizer in pecan orchards? 

Dr. Lenny Wells and Southeast Georgia Area Agent, Andrew Sawyer, give an update on the current pecan crop conditions in east and west Georgia including developing scab issues, late-season fertilization decisions and the right or wrong decision to fruit thin.

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 and scientists to county agents and industry representatives and growers. Brought to you by the University of Georgia Pecan team. In a nutshell, the Pecan Podcast. I'm pretty sure we're episode eight. Go ahead. In a nutshell, the Pecan Podcast. I'm glad you're with us. We are on episode eight. My name is Andrew Sawyer. I'm the area pecan agent in Southeast Georgia. I'm Lenny Wells, Extension Horticulture Specialist for University of Georgia. And we are your host. Well, Lenny, we are now at the end of July. So we're recording on the 23rd. And there's a lot that we're seeing in the orchards. We have almost a uh one topic today I think we're going to cover is there's a major difference right now in West Georgia and East Georgia. I think that needs to be covered. So we're going to tell everybody what we're seeing. That's a difference. And another subject I think we need to hit on possibly is fruit thinning. I got a few questions that have come from the audience that we can go through. I think that would be good. And then, of course, possibly just an update, you know, from the West and the East, from you and I myself, and just kind of go from there. That's that's what I'm thinking.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

You want to start with that?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Yes. Uh, you want me to go first? Yeah, go ahead. So I'm actually pretty pleased overall with what I'm seeing in terms of the crop. I got to see we got a lot more Oconies over here, so I'll talk in some detail, just kind of going through my mind what I remember seeing. But um seeing more crop on them than I originally saw, so I thought we were kind of in low crop. But there's a number of uh orchards this past few weeks I've seen where, you know, they're probably at least, I would call it 50%. You know, I look at the terminals. And um nut size is going really well. Saw some more Excel's this past week that had a crop. I have heard from others that they haven't had as much on Excel, but um overall, I would put them saying that we probably actually have a crop of them overall. As far as what I'm seeing over here, we're getting close to fruit thinning. So every Lakota that I see that's in that eight to ten year range, they're your typical 80-90% crop. And so those growers are interested in fruit thinning. We're gonna be fruit thinning some this week. We've actually already tried, didn't knock off a lot, so we felt like we might wait a little just a few days and see if you know they sized up. But in my opinion, the size is there, you know, we just got to get it before the shell hardens. And that's on Lakota. Don't know how much we need to fruit thin anything else. Uh, but something else that I could tell you, you know, we could use a little rain. And Lenny, it ain't really by the time you get to Mount Vernon, okay, so I kind of live in the almost the middle of the state, but I go east, Davisboro, Mount Vernon, uh, especially as you go further to Glenville. But they all say we need some rain. And when you drive that direction, you'll see it, right? So I would say one good news that I'm seeing on our side is, you know, where nut crop actually looks good in terms of scab pressure. So I've looked at a number of Pawnees this weekend. They are gorgeous. But I also manage one of Dr. Oliveira's on farm trials in the county west of me. Okay, so we're just talking 40 minutes to my west versus 45 minutes to my east. But when I go out there and, you know, do the sprays for the fungicide on the terminals, you get to see every terminal is a different spray. And the grower don't spray the trees, so right above what we spray with, right above that, are the clusters that have no spray at all. I can see a major difference in that trial. So that's kind of my main report from the east right now. Our nut crop is sizing up very well. Most growers are honestly complaining about needing a little bit of water. There is one uh gentleman that I went to see this last week, Lenny. I couldn't believe this. He said, I'm about to put on my third fungicide spray. And you would hear that and go, Oh wow, you must be growing low input. He had Lecotis, but guess what else? Yeah, Caddo and O'Coni. And uh when we rode the orchard, I was just amazed, you know. So he's on a little higher, but uh still right at the 280 line. So um, but I'm when I say higher, I mean terrain, you know, maybe that was it. But I think it's more indicative of our difference in weather conditions. So I might kind of lead into that as you do your report.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Yeah, yeah, that that's great to hear that those guys over there are having good weather, uh, at least for for scab, and have a decent crop over there because they after that hurricane a couple years ago uh and being off last year, they really need a good crop over there. So I'm I'm very happy to hear that. Here in the oh, you know, over, you know, I covered the whole state, but I with you being in the east, it kind of helps me be able to kind of stay over in the west a little more. And I went over and saw you a few weeks ago and we we looked around some, but um, you know, here southwest Georgia, really from you know, even from like Valdasta all the way up to to Fort Valley and everything west of there, it's been a lot more pressure for scab. Uh the rainfall has been has not let up uh really since June started. You know, we may have had a a a week at a time in there where it kind of dried off a little bit and you may have only got one rain that week. But a lot of for several weeks uh through the summer here we've had rain, you know, some places getting rain every day. And that is extremely challenging when it comes to managing scab. That being said, you know, most varieties are pretty clean, look, look, look good. You know, growers have been staying on top of those sprays and trying to keep them covered, and and that's working out well in most cases. Am seeing uh and hearing more for pawnee than desirable, but certainly to some extent for desirable, but but mainly for pawnee, that scab is uh working pretty pretty extensively on some of the pawnee on the western side of the state. A lot of different reasons for that. You know, when you this time of year, the nuts are sizing so quickly. If you spray today, those nuts are growing so fast that three days, four days later, you're gonna have a lot of unprotected tissue out there. So if it gets rained on then, you know, there's gonna be that that's easier for scab to get get moving. So you got that situation. You've got the fact that it's raining every day, so if you do spray today, it rains this afternoon, certainly within an hour or so of of doing it, then it's gonna wash some of that fungicide off. And that means you're just gonna have to, when it's raining that often, you have to tighten your spray interval. And then just the the pressure, the rainfall in general just creates ideal conditions for scab. So there's a lot of things, you know, driving the the scab epidemic that we're seeing. And I won't say that, you know, there's a lot, even over in southwest Georgia, there's a lot of clean pawnees and desirables. But there are also a lot of scabby pawnees, especially. And it's not that growers aren't spraying them right, they're tightening the spray interval, they're using the right products, uh, as far as what we know, but still getting scab. And I'm not gonna go too deeply into this right now because I think later on we'll have Clemen back on when he has more information and can talk a little more freely about it. Um, but we are seeing some issues with resistance, uh scab being resistant to in some places to uh one of our primary fungicides. And so that's very concerning. And you know, we've only got a we've got a limited number of fungicides anyway, for for you know, to control scab on pecan, you're looking at probably five or six chemistries, and uh if we lose one, that's a big blow. So, but it looks like we are seeing some of that. Um we don't know yet how widespread that is. Know for sure that in one orchard we've got full-blown resistance going on. And uh we've we've got suspicions on some other orchards, and I would say that if you are a grower that has more, you feel like you're seeing more scab on your pawnee or desirable, especially, uh, those two varieties. Uh you feel like you've got more scab on them than you think you should have, based on how often how much you've been spraying and what you've been spraying. If you've got some concerns there, I would urge you to send in some samples for the fungicide screening program here on the UGA Tifton campus. I just put something on the blog a day or two ago, UGA Pecan blog. If you just Google UGA Pecan blog, you'll find it. I put something on there kind of explaining the procedure for taking the samples, and there's a form on there that you fill out that shows where to send the sample. So if you have concerns, I would urge you to do that. Because then the cost of the of the screening, because it's pretty laborious and and and is expensive because they have to buy the chemicals to test, you know, it's a $200 fee for that screen. Yeah. But honestly, if you have a resistance issue out there and don't realize it, and you're using the wrong fungicide at a very critical time, $200 is nothing compared to what you're gonna lose or what you could potentially save by using the right fungicide in that in that situation. So I would urge people to uh to send those samples in and get your scab tested to see if you have any resistance issues in your orchard. That's a great service that that Clemen and Alejandra and the and their lab uh is offering. But in general, this this the uh crop looks pretty good here. You know, it's uh again, I would say that it's not an enormous record crop, but it's a good crop. Um, but we do see with this scab situation we are gonna have some scab losses this year. So so that's gotta be taken into consideration too. But yeah, in general, I would say that it's a good crop. Trying to think, oh, one thing I want to mention too, you know, we're kind of right in the period now. It's really critical at this time to pull your leaf samples. Uh this is the period July 7th through August 7th is the time to pull it. I usually pull mine. I pulled some yesterday. Um, we usually pull them toward the end of July. We do that at this time because the nutrients are most stable in the leaf at that time, and that gives us the best reading for what's going on in the tree nutritionally. And then if you have your leaf samples and soil samples, uh next year when it comes time to apply fertilizer, we will be able to better tell you what you need to apply. And you can potentially save a lot of money if you've got good good leaf and soil samples. Just want to mention that it's time to do that.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Leaf sample topic, this is a very important topic. And if you don't mind, I reiterate. I mean, this is what you created this, and some growers that you work with for many years, y'all created this um in East Georgia. You know, there's a few people, you know, in the in the consultant world and also the growers who really love doing this. So I might take the opportunity myself to say, you know, I've sat down and done the samples with them, like in terms of looking at the results and trying to develop the program. And Lenny, what you have with that soil fertilizer calculator, it's it is a very simple to follow. Um, but right now, if you're listening, it is so critical to get those samples. If you don't have your leaf tissue samples, you just you're you're truly guessing. But if you have your leaf tissue samples, you know, Lenny, you have the numbers for nitrogen, the numbers for phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. You have everything there. And uh you compare that to your soil sample. Lenny, here's a question that's a common one from growers. I always answer it as best that I can. What age of the trees would you start actually taking leaf samples? I mean, this is a this is a every year thing. This is annual. This is part of a program. So I'd love to hear from you on that.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Yeah, I'll usually start taking them the second year, because the first year it doesn't really matter what what they are. I mean, most first year trees have plenty in them, you know, from the nursery to get them through that first year. And uh, although a lot of growers will fertilize them the first year, I think for phosphorus, potassium, zinc, it's good to do that. Uh nitrogen, they don't need so much that first year. The second year, it's gonna be starting to be based on what you're doing in that orchard. So uh usually the second year, but it really doesn't become critical, probably for what we're talking about here, until you start to get into bearing on those on those uh trees. So, you know, it starts becoming really critical about year six or so, five, six, somewhere in there. That's so from there on, I would I would do it.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

What's funny is I don't think uh I've ever talked to you about that, to be honest. But uh when you said second year, I said, oh gosh, I'd need to call a bunch of people back. But uh now that we've you know going into conversation, I'm trying to make it funny too. You know, I always tell folks because you have the non-bearing base fertilizer program, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

You need to be doing that anyway. You need to do that.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

That's what I that's what I tell people. But honestly, Lenny, I did that at the farm. That was at the Bidel Union Research Farm. I said, you know what, I'm gonna stick to the base program. And then when I get to the, I might have did my first one in the fourth year, it was either fourth or fifth year. Then I went ahead and did it. And mine, I was very pleased to see the zinc. It was really, really in a high, almost high, probably satisfy definitely satisfactory. And all I did, all I did honestly, was two pounds per tree for three years. I didn't even go to the fourth, you know, and we've you've adjusted them. We've actually kind of lowered a little bit now. But my leaf samples showed, I said, wow, you know, just following that, had them where they needed to be right before these trees started producing. You know, and your nitrogen, it's gonna flow through the soil. So you're gonna have to, you know, you're gonna have to give that nitrogen every year, especially when you're bearing. Um, the one, to be honest, the one I have to really watch is potassium.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

Yeah, that's uh that's the tricky one, really.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

I what I've learned working with them on their soil samples. What did what uh and you can comment on this please, because uh my knowledge I'm getting there. I'll actually see the potassium numbers, Lenny, in the leaf sample good. And then the soil, potassium, is actually moving toward low. So we actually have to sit there and talk, we go through and I say, all right, we're gonna need to put potassium in the soil, even though the sample's got it. Can you explain that?

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Yeah, so the potassium is is a really important one for pecans because that kernel development, there's a lot of potassium involved in that. Most of our soils where we're planting pecan trees, if it's you know, a newly say if it's planted in a row crop field or something, usually the potassium levels are gonna be decent. But if it's a real sandy soil, you're gonna get a lot more fluctuation in the uh potassium that's there. If it's a heavier soil, it'll generally hang around a little bit longer. And young trees don't use it as much because they're not producing nuts. You know, they'll they're they're picking it up and it's just kind of they're kind of accumulating it, and then it'll kind of stay there, and then when they really start to produce nuts, that's when you kind of start to see more of those fluctuations. But if you're seeing low in the soil, high in the leaf, especially on young trees, um, that's good that it's high in the leaf. Yeah, you know, or at the levels you want it to be in the leaf, that's good. But you still need to build those soil levels up because when they start producing that crop, they're gonna need it. They're gonna need that availability of that potassium in that soil so they can pick it up and and use it. I've got a I think I just wrote an article for the next Georgia McConnell magazine coming out that um kind of talks about how the nutrients what's going on with the nutrients in the tree at at different times. So for really until you get to shell hardening, un until kernel filling, basically. And until those kernels start to to fill, so we're talking mid-August, until you get to that time, most of the nutrients that are moving from the leaf to the nut, so you're talking about nitrogen, potassium, you know, that's the main one we're main ones we're talking about or concerned about here. But off there's some others, calcium, magnesium, some of that too, but they're not as big of an issue here. They're moving from the nut or from the leaf to the nut, but they're also being replaced in the leaf faster than they're moving to the nut. But when you get to kernel filling, it's moving to the nut so fast that it's outpacing the nutrients going to the leaf, because the physiology of the tree is kind of changing at that time. It's starting to direct more energy into that nut than into the rest of the tree. The fertilizer that you put out in a season that goes to the is used for that season's crop, most of that is what we apply in the spring. And that's why we say you need to put out three-quarters of your fertilizer in the spring. Anything you put out after that, you know, say from June on, you know, June, early July, some of that will probably make it into this year's crop. Probably from mid-July on, most of that is going to be going uh for next year's crop. And to some extent, a lot of what you apply in June will go for next year's crop. So it's that spring application that's going for this year's crop. Everything else is is helping the tree be able to produce a crop the next year or or take care of the quality and all the next year. You know, that's kind of why we do it the way we do. But yeah, those potassium levels can fluctuate a a lot more than say phosphorus and zinc. Um so you need to keep an eye on those a little more. And especially if you're on a sandy soil, uh, you're probably gonna have to apply some potassium more years than not. Um if you're on a heavier soil, uh, you're probably gonna have to apply less potassium uh or less frequently anyway.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

The that potassium answer, it it's and that's very clear, it makes sense. It's it's it comes down to that soil, likely, you know, from a chemistry perspective.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

And uh that's why I'm so adamant that when you plant an orchard early on, you need to work on getting the soil right with phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. Because once you get those levels up, especially for phosphorus and zinc, they're gonna stay there for a while. Potassium, like we say, they'll stay there longer than nitrogen, but they're gonna fluctuate a little more. You just gotta keep an eye on, but build them up early.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

You know, a few questions actually from growers, and one was similar on this, so we just talked about potassium. Again, more probably uh managing those leaf tissue and soil samples coming down to your sandy versus heavier soils, but back to nitrogen, you might can explain that later application. I was called said, Can I do a liquid nitrogen injection right now and then probably another one right after August just to build up some of that? Can you explain what you would do in that case? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

So pecan trees prefer, seem to prefer being spoon-fed, a little bit of nitrogen all along the way. And uh the liquid through the injection system is the the best way to do that. So I think that's a great way to fertilize them. And normally kind of the general program that we use is um we'll start in April and uh do about 25 units, and then 10 days or so later, do another 25 units, 10 days or so later do another 25 units, and so that usually gets us into like early May, early to mid-May. And then uh we do one in June, and then we'll do another one in late August. And so that way we're putting out a you know most of what we need in the spring, we're giving it a little bit in June, and then we're giving it a little bit in late August. And again, most of that June and late August, the late August especially, is going for next year's crop. And this is on trees that have a let's say have a big crop on it.

unknown 21:59

If you

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Have a crop, those first three you do in April and early May are going to be plenty. Yep. But yeah, late season applications, if you got a heavy crop, that's good to do. Now, if you got clover out there, if you got a good thick stand of clover, uh and it's been there for three years or so, you could probably get by without that August application of nitrogen because it's going to you're going to be starting to get the benefit of that clover at that point, and it's available later in the season. So it could probably replace that 25 units of nitrogen you would be injecting in in August.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Yeah. In that situation. That's right. And these are mature trees, so yeah, and and you know, it really comes down to that crop. And and um is there s is there a time too late? You know, we always say end of July, first of August. For nitrogen.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Nitrogen application. Um, yeah, I would say honestly, I don't think it really matters that much. It's more about you know, when you get into the fall, like we said, in in mid-August, the physiology of that tree starts to change. So they're probably not absorbing as absorbing it from the soil as easily in the say in October uh or even September as they would say in June, July.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

And you know, Lenny, sometimes even I'll complicate something like that when we talk with growers, but in the end, maybe the answer is sap flow.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

I think so, based on those studies that we did on uh, you know, with that eddy covariance tower looking at uptake and and the sap flow we looked at. I mean, they're just not moving. Once you get past kernel filling, they're just not picking water up as much as they are earlier in the season.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

And uh, that that later application may not hurt the tree, but it but the point is that it really is that sap flow study that showed, I mean, they're not even gonna take it up. So that's why we need to fit in this window where we're talking about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

And and I've seen studies where there's been a lot of timing studies done on with fertilizer on pecan. And honestly, the later fertilizers, whether they're looking at doing it in June or July or late August or October, September, doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference on the exact time there. The and in some some studies, maybe one year it showed something, but there's just nothing consistent there. Uh that we can say for sure, yeah, this is going on.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

I I got one I'd love to throw at you from left field. Gotten a number of pictures coming in of like terminals right now, you know, that and it I'm gonna assume, you know, it's that second probably flush, but that flush should already be out. But the point I'm making is it's just terminals that on some trees are just very yellow. It's a lot of leaves, it's just very yellow. And in one sample I looked at, Lenny, in the leaflets, the edges of the leaflet had more yellow. Okay, so I'm looking for rosette in these types of photos. And now, I had you know, we're on this, and and there's no prep for this. So maybe you could elaborate if you've seen some of these photos coming in more yellow terminals or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Yeah, this time yeah, and that that's a good sign to see because you that means you're having that secondary flush of growth, which means the tree is healthy. And a lot of times those terminals can will be can possibly bear fruit, you know, the following year. So that's a good good thing to have. And some varieties are gonna have more of a secondary flush than others, and and it and they also vary on their exact timing of when they do this, and it's a lot of that's related to environmental conditions and all. But one thing, like if you're pulling those samples for that scab screening that we talked about, you need to pull young, tender, new flush of growth. And you need to be pulling tissue that's that's got the scab on that young flush of growth. But one thing we're finding is especially for pawnee, because it's it's hard to find the new flush on pawnee right now. And you know, the nut scab is there and you're concerned about the nut scab, but then it's hard to find the scab on the foliage, you know, on that new flush coming out. So you have to hunt and hunt and look a lot in that situation to find it. Usually you can find some if you look hard enough, but yeah, the varieties differ in in when they put that flush out, but it is a good sign to see. Good. It may be uh and and also on getting back to your point about the zinc, but also, yeah, you can see some sometimes some of those curly leaf edges in these secondary flushes, too. Anytime you have a new flush of growth on that tree that you get a lot of tender leaves out there, it's not a bad idea to put some zinc in the tank for that flush.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Okay, that's a good question. Because I'm thinking of the older leaves that I would assume are hardened off, but you still got all those flushes. Yeah. So that is okay to do that right now.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Yeah, anytime you have a young flush of of a new flush of tender leaves out there, it's a good time to put some zinc out. Um because as they're putting out more foliage, you know, um, there's gonna be more demand for the zinc there too.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

So Okay, so that answers a that's a really good point there to make. When I first looked at that, this is a different photograph in my mind, but when I first looked at that one, he's you know, hey, any thoughts on this? Years ago, you know, I seen this when there was zinc deficiency. So in that flush, it'd be very yellow if you looked, you'd see the rosette. But then if you looked up the tree in the darker leaves that were already set out, you still could find the rosette. So I said, we may need to double check zinc. Well, then he came back and said, My leaf tissue showed my zinc is low. It's 30 ppm, needs to be 50. So that actually may have had something to do with that. But that may be, I guess, my point is, you know, if you have a lot of those terminals that are super yellow and you can find some rosette, look up in the tree, and there might be, you know, you might just have a complete zinc deficiency on those few trees that are doing that. But you answer the next question which came to me, should I just apply some zinc? And this this orchard, the zinc is great in the floor, but has it had to spray a lot of fungicide because it's low input? So has it actually been doing the zinc in the fungicide sprays? So I kind of had that more of that maybe conversation about putting it in those first few sprays, but you just answer another critical question. When you get that second flush, it's okay to put that zinc out even if you're past that hardening phase of those leaves in June. Yeah. Hey, I got something we can mention. Um, you got to come over uh with me and see the Vidalia on your research farm. Last year I did a scab rating, and uh that was my first scab rating I did. I think there's some good news. Last year I, and I've rated scab before, but I think some of the spots are such, it's such a little bit, you know, tiny spots on the branch. You know, I might have rated one that, you know, might have been a bug damage or something. And so that's kind of good news because it really wasn't as much pressure as I thought. And remember last year, Lenny, I mean, even the Lakota had scab. So, you know, I would I would take off 10 uh compound leaves on each of the varieties. I think I did six trees within the varieties and then you know counted everything. But nonetheless, when you came, it actually looked very promising, didn't it?

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Yeah, yeah, it was pretty clean.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Everything was clean except Cape Fear. I have Cape Fear's pollinator, it's kind of a good check plot. Yeah. We had a lot of scab or a little bit of scab on that that second flush, but the others look pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

Yeah, so you can definitely see some differences there in the varieties.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

You and I were able to uh go look at a very, very small orchard that had something interesting. And I had another call yesterday. It sounds exactly the same. But Lenny, I'll I'll describe it and I'll let you possibly answer it. But these trees, they're about 10 years old. They might have been up to 15, but you know, they're the 25 foot, 30-foot tall trees. They made it through the hurricane. Couple were leaning, they're still there, they're managed appropriately, but we're seeing like these large branches just completely dying in the up in these trees. The the branches and leaves that are alive look fine. But then there's like another branch over here to the side that the entire thing has just died back. I got another call yesterday describing this exact thing. Is this something you're seeing over there or after possibly 2018 when Michael came through?

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Yeah, yeah. I think what what what you're seeing there with that is sometimes when these hurricanes come through, they beat those trees around so much and push and pull them and wallow them back and forth, even if they don't go down, those roots under the ground can get stretched and pulled and broken. And when that happens, sometimes they may look fine for a while, and then you just get some root die back. Uh and when you have that root die back, you get limb die back uh from it, if there's not enough root system there to support the rest of that tree. And so in those situations, the thing to do if you've got limbs that are are looking poor like that, looking weak, dying back, go ahead and cut those off and kind of let that tree let that root system catch up to the top of that tree. It's kind of like planting a new one, you know. If you got more tree there than the root can support, uh, it's gonna you're gonna see some dieback. So it's the same type thing, just different thing causes it.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Yeah, very good. And if you're listening, I like symptomology, you know, just what did it look like? Well, I mean, it was basically a branch with no leaves on it, but we did find a few where the leaves were dying back. But Lenny, to me, it did not look like the disease we call leaf dieback. Didn't look like that. Yeah, where it was like at the very tip terminal going back on a compound leaf. It didn't look like that at all. And it didn't really look like the anthrachnose where you see that, you know, that brown spot come across. Yeah, that pattern. Because you know the anthrachnose when it hits that tree and it starts taking leaves, it'll almost look like that branch is dead. It's a naked branch. But it but you'll find leaves on it didn't look like that at all. So this is just true branches.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Leaves wilting and dying.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

That's it, wilting and dying.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

So Usually you can see that after a storm like the one that occurred over there. You may see it for five years after that storm, you know. Interesting. Just depending on the size of that tree and how much was damaged and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

I have a, you know, I have to kind of I feel like when I see things, understand them more. But now with everybody's got cameras on their house, you can, you know, watch when they post the video of like a storm blowing through. And, you know, you can see a 25-foot-tall tree in these hurricane type winds, you can see that tree nearly tip over and the top branch touch the ground and then it comes right back up. But when you when I visually saw that, you know, an image, I said you understand how that, even though the tree looks normal right now, that went through a major stress. That's a lot of stress.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

And sometimes, like you say, I thought I think there's more of that going on in the east right now than over in West Georgia because that's where the storm hit, you know.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Yeah, and then you know, if you're listening, another separation I need to make is some of these tall trees, they'll lose I've you'll lose some branches under like big, big trees that have no shade. And that's kind of what that comes from. Yes. Uh, not it, it won't be like the large branch. Think of those old stewards. It's not that branch, that large, heavy branch. It's these smaller branches, you know, that you could put two of your hands around. They'll die just from that shape. This is not what we're talking about, though. We're talking about, you know, 25, 30 foot tall tree, 10-year-old, 15-year-old, that'll lose one of those type of yeah, those size branches.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Yeah, up in the top. So, so yeah, this clears that up, but uh more calls coming in about this. So this will be something to share. So that, you know, just touching on that.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Um, another subject that uh, you know, we got a lot of the low-input trees over here, Lenny. And you know, I really like Lakota. You know, it obviously from your perspective, the net return when you look at how much it produces and the low fungicide applications. I mean, you're basically at this point having to spray a Lakota for a secondary disease like powdery meal, dude. The the scab resistance is is pretty good on it, right? So, but the downside about this lakota, and that's what I'm seeing over here in East, you know, we got a lot of those in that eight to 10 year range. And it seems, Lenny, that they'll just in this age, they'll have every single branch will have a nut cluster. Every single. You're looking at 95, 100%. And we got the opportunity uh two years ago to do fruit thinning, and they had never done the fruit thinning. They said, we really want to try it because we hear what you know Lenny's seeing and the growers are seeing over there, and Patrick. And uh so Lenny, what we did was we fruit thinned a 95% Lakota, and we only did half of it. Okay, so the other half of this orchard didn't get touched. The next year, Lenny, which would have been last year, I think I'm right about my year. Anyway, what we fruit thinned came back to 40% of a crop. It's actually a little bit under that. So it wasn't even half. What we didn't fruit thin, there was nothing out there at all on those Lacodas. So I bring that up. I think people have heard us mention that, or you can help us with that fruit thinning timing. I've been cutting a lot of shucks out there in the orchard on different varieties. And the eclipse, I'm finding I'm getting a hard shell, you know, in the eclipse.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

But um, yeah, let's let's talk for uh first, let's talk about the background on all this and and what's going on why we're doing this. You know, pecans are known to have this tendency to alternate bear, where they'll have a big crop one year, no crop the next year, or a light crop the next year. This varies a lot by variety, and the response to how you handle that alternate bearing situation can vary by variety. But what's going on there is the tree basically determines what kind of crop it's gonna have next year, basically in the late, depending on the variety, late July, early August of this year. So we're right at that point, and so the way that is all determined, and there was a big debate among pecan scientists for a lot of years about what's causing this. Initially, it was thought that it was the carbohydrate reserves in the tree. So if you weren't fertilizing your trees and managing your trees well enough that they kept that foliage late into the season and all that, um, that's how you built up good carbohydrate reserves in the tree. And so that was going to help you produce a better crop the next year. But there were some situations where that wasn't always true, and so people started looking at other aspects of it. So there's basically a theory that that plant hormones control alternate bearing, and there's another theory that carbohydrate reserves control the alternate bearing. And what's now kind of the generally accepted uh belief on this is that it's actually both of those things that affect it. The primary control is the plant hormones. So think of it this way: the leaves on that tree produce plant hormones. Let's we just kind of generally we'll just term promoters for this discussion. So promoters that promote fruiting the next year. So the leaves on the tree are producing those. The nuts on the tree produce inhibitors or hormones that are going to inhibit production the following year. So it's all about the the ratio of leaves to fruit on that tree. So the heavier crop you got, the lower that leaf to fruit ratio is. Or if you have a just if you don't have an enormous crop, but you got a crop there, and then you lose a lot of leaves and get some defoliation from some black aphids or something like that, or some mites, you know, that situation also will reduce that leaf-to-fruit ratio. So if you got more leaves, you're producing more promoters. If you got more fruit, you're producing more inhibitors. And that's the primary driver of it. But even if you got your leaf to fruit ratio right, and those trees are set up to make a big crop the following year, based on that leaf to fruit ratio, even if everything's right there, if something happens and those trees get stressed, a hurricane comes through, shreds all the leaves, breaks a bunch of branches, breaks those roots up. So that tree is heavily stressed. It puts out a lot of new a new flush of growth after the hurricane. That's using up more energy. And so you're depleting those carbohydrate reserves. And then you get to the following spring, it will just basically, as those buds are coming out, you'll have abortion of those buds that were going to be reproductive and produce fruit, they will abort and kind of revert to being vegetative because they don't have enough energy to to produce those nuts and carry them out. So it's two things. But the primary thing, as we mentioned, is the leaf to fruit ratio, which is basically plant hormones. So that's why we fruit them this time of year. Because as I mentioned earlier, the physiology of that tree changes about the time you get to shell hardening or uh the beginning of kernel filling. So that's about the time that the tree is making that determination of what it's gonna do the next year. So right before that is when you want to target fruit thinning. And you have to wait late like that because if you do it too early, the nuts are too small and you you're not gonna shake off enough nuts, or you're gonna have to shake the tree too hard to get those nuts off, and it's gonna damage the bark more easily. You know, I would say for for things that are in that ripening window of that's say steward, sly, desirable, you know, the normal varieties, early the first week of August is usually about the time. And it's gonna vary a little bit from one year to the next based on how fast the the crop has progressed, when bud rate was and all that. Um, but usually about that first week of August. For earlier varieties like Pawnee, I'm sorry, but it's probably needed to be done last week or the week before. For Lakota, it probably I cut some Lakota this morning and looked at them. They were right at the tail end of you, you better if you need to thin lakota, you better go do it now. Um and what you're looking for, you you cut those nuts, and if you look, you turn you pull the nut off the off the branch, and then if you look at the base of that nut where it was attached to the tree, you want to turn that nut so that that oval scar for where it was attached, you're kind of looking at it long, it's it's long ways. It's it's it's long left to right as opposed to up and down. So you turn it that way where you've got that long axis of that scar going left to right, and then you slice across that, and you open that open that nut up, and you're you're basically looking inside that nut, and you can see a U-shaped cavity. And that's basically the ovule where the the kernel is going to fill inside that. If that U-shaped cavity extends to about half the length of that nut, that's about the time you want to start, you can start fruit thinning at that time. Um, they're usually gonna be heavy enough that they come off. If it, if that U-shaped cavity, if the ends, the tips of that U-shaped cavity have have gotten to the very end of that nut, the very tip of that nut, it's usually gonna be too late. Uh, you can still fruit thin them, and it's gonna help you on the quality for this year. It's gonna lighten the load so you don't have so many broken branches. But you if you've waited that late until the tips of that U-shaped cavity are at the end of that nut, you may not get the benefit of the uh return crop the next year. So it's all about the timing of when you do it. As I mentioned, the then the ones I cut, the Lakota I cut this morning here in Tifton, were I would say by Saturday or Sunday, it may be too late.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Um well that that's what it looks like over here. Um we looked at some Monday and it They look very close, you know. Um for Lakota, here's here was a question. I I'm used to seeing a lot of nuts fall off. You know, when you're fruit thin, you feel like it's a lot anyway. You know, you shake a couple seconds, we'll get let you talk about the time here in a second. But um one of the complaints this year was don't feel like there's a lot falling off. And we I was thinking of a weight issue. Okay, so maybe you you can help me out with that a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

Yeah, it dep it depends on the uh and this was Monday, by the way. This is very recent. It depends on the structure of that tree. You know, different varieties put nuts on in different places on that tree. A good example is that is Excel that puts them all out at the ends of those branches. So if you try to go and fruit thin XL, my experience with that has been when you do that, you're gonna shake a bunch out of the top, but nothing's coming out of the bottom because you're not able to generate the force to get them off the bottom. Um with Lakota, it's a little more evenly distributed in the tree. You got in internal branches and and you got some out on the ends and that kind of thing. So you're generally gonna get a better shake uh in that situation from a lakota. But um still, any variety you're probably gonna get more off the top than you get off the bottom when you do that. The good thing about Lakota is my experience doing it, you don't have to really shake off a whole lot to get the benefit you're looking for. So when we did it the first time here, uh we were looking to see how the telakota would respond. And basically the trees we did not thin ended up making like 150 something pounds per tree. The ones we did thin made a hundred and ten pounds per tree. So we ended up getting about forty pounds per tree off of there. But when we shook them, you just again it goes back to the right timing. Yeah, when you hit them, you don't want to have to shake them hard because that bark this time of year will break really easily because there's so much sap and water moving through that trunk. Normally, you just if you just bump them three, four seconds, you'll get plenty off. But again, this fruit thinning thing is a there's more of an art to it than uh in in practice than than science. But after you do it a few times you'll get a feel for it. It's just I would say if I went and bumped them and they weren't coming off very easily, I would wait I would wait a few days and try it again. Okay, well that's that gives me confidence, that's exactly what we are doing. And I will say the the the first time we thinned Lakota, um, I cut the nuts before, and they were about this stage that I was describing from this morning. And I was worried it was too late to help them come back. But they did indeed come back with a really as big or bigger crop the next year when we did that.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

So here's a question from the orchard, okay. I see the ovule, you know, I see the cavity moving down. I think I struggle with finding that final point. So here's a question from standing in the orchard. If you don't feel that shell in your knife, if you don't feel it, are you okay? In other words, if you feel that shell in your knife, because you know when that shell starts forming, like you can barely feel it. Yeah, is that too late? I would assume once you feel the shell in your knife, you are definitely.

SPEAKER_02 47:40

Once you got some resistance from the shell hard.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, that's getting late. That's basically late. That's getting late. So you really want to be before you feel that shell. You know, if you cut a bunch of them and you don't feel a shell and all of a sudden you feel one, you just better go shake. Yeah. Because you now have a percentage there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:57

That's a huge thing I want to point out here with this is that different varieties, I mentioned earlier about there's different ways you manage it for different varieties. So Creek, for example, and Cape Fear would fall into this too. They both respond to fruit thinning very well, but they also respond, I think, just as well to hedge pruning. Hedge pruning on Cape Fear and Creek to me seem to seem to do the same thing as as fruit thinning. You can manage the alternate bearing on those varieties and some others just with hedge pruning. Lakota is not one of those. Even it produces so many nuts. Even if you hedge prune it, um, you still need to fruit thin Lakota to get them to come back with a crop. The hedge pruning alone will not solve the alternate bearing problem on Lakota.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

You know, you're in a program and you're taking one side of that tree.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

Basically, hedging can be used to manage the crop load. So if you're in a regular hedging program, you're gonna manage that crop load by in that way. But then let's say you're in the year, in the off-year of uh your hedging, your normal dormant season hedging, right? Right and you have a really big crop. Well, you can go out there and summer prune or summer hedge something like Creek or Cape Fear. Sure. That'll take care of the issue. Because you're whether you're pruning dormant or summer, you're taking nuts off of that tree, you just don't see them yet. You know, if you if you don't dormant.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

And and and you know, to go maybe a little deeper, if you can you might can rem I'm I think you'll remember this. This winter, in your presentation to all of us in all the counties, you listed you, you know, you changed that hedging slide, but you did list these are the varieties that and and I didn't know if maybe some of that goes into that fruit then benefit, but I remember Creek and Kim here in that list.

SPEAKER_02 50:06

Yeah, yeah. The certainly in there, Sumner uh O'Coni, I think, was on there. Um yeah, most varieties I would say are gonna respond pretty well to it. Yeah, uh, but Lakota, you got a fruit thin hit even if you hedge it. So super important there. And another warning on on this about Lakota, you may not notice it so much when it's eight, nine, ten, eleven years old. But when that tree gets to be twenty years old, if you don't fruit thin, it's gonna make a huge crop one year, and the quality is going to be horrible. They may not even be marketable. Um, and then the next year you won't have a crop. So if you're gonna grow Lakota, you need to go ahead and get it in your mind that you need to be committed to to fruit thinning when you have that heavy crop load.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

I mean, we're kind of seeing this as we go. When I first started, I don't know that we saw how much Lakota was gonna need that fruit thinning in the eighth, ninth, tenth year, and of course what you just said in 20, you know, is this is how much. We now consider that when we talk about what varieties we we call them low input, Lenny, but when we use the term low input, mostly we're thinking about scab. So when you have to fruit thin every year, like a Lakota, it becomes in my mind, it becomes a higher input because physically you have to go out there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

There's a lot to that. I mean, you go out there and it's 99 degrees and you're in that shaker. Yeah, you know, it's it's rough. Yeah. Even though you got some air conditioning, the heat coming off of that motor and everything is is pretty rough.

SPEAKER_00 51:43

You know, and and so you know, this is something that it all of us have to think about with the Lakota. We got an exceptional scab resistance right now. We will still apply fungicide to, you know, hopefully hold on to that. And but this uh we cannot ignore the need for fruit thinning there.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

And to help with that bark busting issue, uh shaking them this time of year, be sure to lubricate uh between the flap and the pads so that if you get some slippage, it's gonna happen there instead of on that bark.

SPEAKER_00 52:17

Actually, I forgot about this, but if you're on listening, if you need to see this, we actually uh Wade Parker and I have a video on YouTube that shows this. The lubricating that flap. Wade covered that, and so thanks to Wade, um, he's our extension East Georgia agronomist, but he's pecan grower in Jenkins County, and him and his brother and his father, they got a lot of crop over there. And we did the Sumners back in 2019, and they came back well the next year. That was the first time he had done it. Probably uh one last thing on fruit then, Lydia. This is a fun one. You know, people say, How many seconds should I do this? So we I could tell you what we went through, but you could I I'll just say we we started out with two. We realized that this is a 90% terminal crop, so this is one of those heavy. This is gonna be like your Lakota. But this, but not your sumners may not have this kind of crop every year. I think this was actually 2020. This is when the whole state, but but anyway, had to end it up doing pushing at three seconds. You're gonna see a lot come off, but you gotta look up, not down. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

When you first bump them and you see all that drop, you'll you'll think you're really screwing up, but uh you're not. Just like you like Andrew said, just keep looking up. But you you'll see those limbs just lift, you know, when you do that. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 53:48

Yeah, yeah. Well, that was good on fruit thinning. Um, so you know, obviously, uh in in a nutshell, got developments going on with the scab, and and this is in the west right now, it's in some hot spots, but are seeing some resistance. So, in a in a nutshell, if you're fighting scab and you say this is the same program been doing, and it was all everything was great until right now, you are at a benefit of sending those leaf tissue samples off to let Dr. Oliviera and Alejandra look at those in the lab. So the information's on the blog. Okay. You know, make sure you get your leaf tissue samples before August 7th. Okay, so that was today. We need to reiterate that. And, you know, if you're in the east and you start seeing these branches let go, we are seeing that coming from the hurricane. You know, check yellow leaves for zinc as well. That's a bigger long-term issue. But your potassium and all that would be indicated in soil sample, leaf sample. If you're fruit thinning or you need to, on these pretty much past us, Lakota's gonna need to be done right now. Uh, our mid-season varieties, we just got to get it before shell hardened.

SPEAKER_02 55:00

So Yeah, and I would say stuff like Creek, Keddo, Oconey, all that, uh, you know, is gonna be probably next week, the week after. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

Very good. All right. Well, thanks always. You know, until next time, we'll be back here together. Sounds good. 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.