Pecan trees that can produce in the North.

[Changeling]

I thought sinse most people on this forum like to cook/eat, this might be of interest to you and all.

I love pecans so about 10 years or so ago I did a complete search on the subject of getting trees to grow in Maryland.
I found basically all my information (no one else knew anything) from Texas University, I wrote to them and received responses and continuing help from there college Dean.

He advised that there latest research had come up with 2 varietys that were promising for the northern regions that had been developed in Texas. One is the polinator for the other, so one would have to have at least one of each variety.

The two trees are "Pawnee and Kiowa".
I purchased and planted the 2 trees, but I failed to take into consideration the prevailing winds and had very few nuts. They were planted about 80 yards apart. So I bought another and planted it closser. Last year is the first year the older tree produced nuts due to the closer polinator. I only got about 5 or 6 lbs of pecans ( about 8 lbs of squirrels though).

Thise were the nuts used in the Brownie Recipe .

Just thought you guys would like to know that you can grow and produce pecans in some of the northern areas now. Try pricing pecans! :idea:

[Shiloh]

This is good news. Pecans are great, and I always associate them with Texas.

Shiloh

[Freightman]

got the darn things coming up everywhere [smilie=l:

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

A worthy substitute in a very cold region, like Minnesota, is the Butternut. I think they taste better...but surely they taste equally as well. But they have an incredibly hard shell which looks like a Peach pit and just about as hard to crack. I had one in my yard til it got some disease and slowly died. Talk about a squirrel magnet. The summers when this tree was producing, I'd could shoot a couple squirrels everyday...new squirrels would show up the next day...One summer, I kept track, I think my pellet rifle took 47 that year...I make a tasty stew with grilled/roasted squirrel...it's really the only way I found to eat these tree rats.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/rsg/profile.html?action=elementDetail&selectedElement=PDJUG02030

[wv109323]

Where can you buy the Pawnee and Kiowa variety trees? I have heard of Hardy pecan and advertisements that a tree will grow well in the north but not this variety.

[Hickory]

Where can you buy the Pawnee and Kiowa variety trees? I have heard of Hardy pecan and advertisements that a tree will grow well in the north but not this variety.


http://www.starkbros.com/products/nut-trees/pecan-trees

[Changeling]

If you decide to plant these pecan trees remember this:

The Pawnee is the better looking of the 2 so plant a couple or more Pawnee and 1 Kiowa.

If you are going to plant more trees like half a dozen, plant 4 Pawnee and 2 Kiowa, so if any thing happens you have a backup.

Both trees have really great tasting nuts, not bitter in any way just really sweet pecan taste, I don't have a favorite, I rate them both as great.

Be sure to check with your states agricultuer department for suitibility in your area. As I said they grow in the north but how far north I don't remember. They are fine here in Frederick Maryland.

The "Hardy pecan will grow in the north (I have 2) However the nuts can't reach before the cold wether sets in. That has been the problem with northern grown pecans, The 2 I mentioned are early maturing varities developed by the University of Texas.

I bought my trees from a nursery in Washington state called "Burnt Ridge".

[DougGuy]

I grew up on the Mississippi gulf coast, 1/4mi from the Biloxi Bay. We had 110 trees in our back yard. There were Stuarts, Success, Mahan, I can't tell you all the varieties we had but there were a bunch. Production seems to be every other year. I can remember my dad paying 4¢/lb for picking pecans, we had no shortage of labor from the other side of the RR tracks for that task. I can remember quite a few years our front porch had half ton or more pecans stacked in 100lb sacks, some guy from NY would haul a trailer with his truck and buy all we would sell him every year, drive them back to NY where he would get $5/lb for them.

My dad used to fertilize them trees, he was INTO it lemme tell you.. He would call a "shaker" some years, it was a flatbed truck with usually a mil surp pump engine hooked to an elliptic wheel that they climb the trees and hook a belt around the limbs, pull a rope tight to the wheel and fire up the shaker motor, it would vibrate the trees and make the pecans drop.

Some years we got web worms really bad, and we would have to go out with long bamboo poles with torches on the end and manually burn the webs out of the trees. What a PITA!

He would take a baking sheet and line it with pecans, salt them and toss them in a 350° oven until they were dark and delicious, we call those "parched pecans" which btw, are pronounced PUH CONS and not PEE CANS.

These days I put chopped pecans in the brownies I posted the recipe for here, and I also put them in Thanksgiving stuffing, and of course I make oyster/cornbread stuffing like I grew up with, a mainstay of almost all Thanksgiving dinners along the coast.

We grow berries here in the back yard garden beds, and my gf makes the most awesome black raspberry and pecan pancakes, oh yeah, with some spicy deer sausage made by yours truly, breakfast at our house ROCKS! I still remember the days of my youth and pecans have always been a part of daily life in some way or another.

We buy North Carolina grown nuts now, which are really good, big, flavorful nuts, we always have some chopped in the fridge, and we keep a bag or two in the freezer.

[Changeling]

Hi Doug, I really liked listening to your memories of Pecans while growing up. I was raised in the country (Then), and we had (as kids) nuts called cheeky pins (about the size of the end of your thumb), and black walnuts! You haven't lived till your father says "we'll be cracking and picking the black walnuts this week" (meaning ME)! Your hands turned greenish/black from the stain. You couldn't wash it off, it had to wear off!
However when Mom would bake cakes/pancakes/cookies/ whatever out of those it all seemed to be worth it, It was!

Question: When your dad roasted those pecans on a baking sheet do you remember exactly how it was done? Those are my all time favorite pecans!

I used to order raw peanuts 20/30 lbs at a time from NC and roast them in the shell for 20 minutes TOP, Oh man they were Soooooo good. Not like those roasted to death commercial nuts one sees with a avatar of a human type peanut on the label.
However shipping costs killed the industry of shipping to the general public.:-(

Take care.

[DougGuy]

He put pecan halves spread out on a cookie sheet, and salted them. Stuck them in the oven until they turned dark and you could smell them. How hot the oven I am not sure but he kept going back to check on them every few minutes so I am thinking it's hotter than any 350 degrees.

We went on vacation to Charleston SC this weekend, and they served us boiled peanuts at the Hominy Grill. They were tiny peanuts, nothing like the ones you get from VA. On top of growing up with pecans most of my childhood, I also lived in Southampton County Virginia a few years, within a few miles of the "Jumbo Peanut Capital Of The World" and yes they had some humongous peanuts, I was surrounded with them. Think deer meat tastes good where they feed on alfalfa hay, ought to try some of the VA/NC deer that eat peanuts!

Surryano ham. World class gourmet cured hams that can hold their own with the famed Jamon Iberico. Berkshire hogs, fed VA peanuts, and cured by 3rd generation curemaster Sam Edwards, some of the best ham and cured meats you will come across. Try any of their stuff for a holiday treat, but I have had the Surryano ham, it is remarkable and even in the ham, yes you can taste the peanuts.

http://www.foodrepublic.com/2013/06/12/sam-edwards-tells-us-how-virginia-peanuts-are-key

[Changeling]

Thanks for the information Doug, now it's all up to the pecan trees. The Kiowa pecan I planted closer to my Pawnee is loaded with those 3 inch long polinator stamens for the first time. So I'm hoping this will be the year of the BIG harvest pecans or squirrels or both hopefully. I just love those pecan trees.

[Lloyd Smale]

since when is maryland considered north??? ;)

[Smoke4320]

Mason Dixon line .....civil war :)

[Changeling]

since when is maryland considered north??? ;)

For growing a pecan tree that will produce it used to be to far North, now with the new varieties we are Back In the South, LOL!