Varieties and Layout

The layout of the farm is finished. Depending on availability, the plans now are to have the farm mapped out in 4 zones for different varieties and for irrigation purposes.
We divided the farm with each block within a zone representing 36'x36' for each tree. From East to West and North to South, the first zone is almost 400' wide x 360' long. The second zone is about 680' long (also 400' wide). Both of these zones are on the Eastern side of the farm with neighboring woods to the East and a dry creek bed (wet only during rainy times) to the south of the second zone and we have left about 72' of "buffer" where we will plant ground cover, put up an electric fence and use to spot "pests" that need to be hunted on both the east and south sides. We plotted the orchard in these two zones (East to West) 2 rows Pawnee (54 trees) , 2 Kiowa (54 trees) , 4 Pawnee (108 trees), 2 Kiowa (54 trees). The winds are usually west or northwest to east/southeast so we have the Kiowas on the Western side of the Pawnees. The rows are almost exactly north/south.

The remaining two zones are broken into one large area (360' wide x 680' long) and one small area that is actually part of our "yard" on the 2 acres surveyed off with our home. The smaller area is only 18 trees, 6 each of Cape Fear, Stuart and Nacono; sort of our "test" area for these, none of which we chose to be a large part of our commercial production (for now) but wanted to have to see how they do. The larger area is planted with (East to West), 2 rows Oconee (34 trees), 2 Sumner (34 trees), 4 Desirable (68), 2 Forkett (34). There is also another 70+ feet buffer on the west side of the farm that adjoins a less densely wooded area. Again, we chose to have the Forketts to the west of the Desirables.


Total tally: about 400 trees (after taking away those rows that will be shortened due to the southern ravine), 136 Pawnee, 86 Kiowa, 6 Cape Fear, 6 Stuart, 6 Nacano, 34 Oconee, 34 Sumner, 68 Desirable, 34 Forkett = 400. Right now supplies of most varieties except Pawnee and Stuart are very small so unfortunately rather than dealing with one source we will have to deal with several. In addition, our main supplier no longer sells bare-root and we now have to decide whether to go with a less reliable supplier or spend almost double the amount we planned to purchase container grown, and if the latter we also have to figure out a way to get that size and weight of a load from Texas back to NC! Stay turned to see what new problems arise in the next episode of "As the Pecan Turns".......