Trip from Texas

Friday, Dec. 26 - rose at 4:30am, was at airport at 5:50, flight to Atlanta then after sitting on the tarmac, left 2 hours late for Austin.
Arrived in Austin about 1:30pm, picked up at airport by Mrs. Lisa Berdoll who graciously fed our hungry tummies before giving us a tour of both their retail store as well as the orchard and some of the harvesting buildings. The Berdolls are some of the nicest people ever, and we got to meet their daughter (Jennifer) and son-in-law who are buying the store on Monday, as well as their son (Brandon) and his wife who works at the retail store.
After seeing the orchard and Hal's new sorting machine (which he designed himself to re-sort pecans to his own more stringent specifications), we stocked up on some fantastic pecan products at their store and got a few pointers from Hal about planting the trees. They had already loaded up our order (85 Desirable and 235 Pawnee trees that are 2 year-old grafted onto 2 year rootstock, as well as 12 young Pawnees that have been budded but not yet forced, and one large Pawnee that will go at the entrance to the farm).
We drove to the closest Home Depot, bought a padlock to help protect our lifetime savings packed in that truck!, and hit the road just before dark. We drove down to Houston, and on into Iowa before stopping for the night. (Yes, Iowa! - Iowa, Louisiana, that is :) !). Saturday morning we fueled up at Waffle House and got gas for the truck, and hit the road. We crossed Louisiana amidst scattered light showers, marveled at the acres and acres of rice fields, drove across the southern edge of Mississippi, and on into Alabama. From Mobile we headed up to Montgomery, then on to Atlanta by about 8:30pm Saturday night.
Derwin was feeling very achy and feverish by late afternoon and by the time we reached Atlanta was into a full-blown flu. I had thought I would trade off driving with him when needed but a 16' truck loaded with everything it had taken us 30 years of marriage to save, and our two lives at stake if I made a mistake on a rainy, foggy interstate was more than either of us wanted to risk. So we stopped for the night and although D got very little sleep between coughing and headaches, he hung in there to drive us the rest of the way home on Sunday evening (he's amazing!).

Plan for planting:
1 - Unload trees under garden shed cover where can be wrapped/covered if freezes below 15 degrees or so before planting
2 - Subsoil the tree holes where they've been dug with 3' auger in at least 4 places (2 times across each hole)
3 - Level off each hole if sunken
4 - Dig 9" hole for each tree
5 - Remove from pot and plant in hole, packing in well, and then watering
6 - Berm about 3' from trunk around each tree (to hold in irrigation during dry spells before irrigation system is put in); mulch inside the bermed area
7 - Put up electric fence to keep deer out
8 - Wrap tree protectors around each trunk and put up bamboo supports & tie them
9 - Get sprayers, insecticides, etc. ready for spring
10 - Mark varieities with more permanent markings at each row
11 - Log varieties and planting info (weather, etc.) in computer database
12 - Water as needed
13 - Determine/file tax information
14 - Continue to monitor and log weather and soil conditions throughout winter and in preparation for spring fertilizers, etc.

Layout finished (hopefully!)

Saturday we finished (hopefully!) the exact layout of the orchard, hand placing 362 flags in rows and columns up and down the hills to be ready for digging holes for the trees on the main portion of the farm. We still need to measure and flag the areas that will flank the drive, but that is a very easy task comparatively speaking. I was scheduled to take the two new soil samples we have (from the two areas where the millet didn't grow very well) to the CoOp Extension office in Smithfield today but Ethan has the flu, so we will hopefully go tomorrow or Wed., and take the tractor's radiator and fan to a "specialist" in Garner who will tell us whether it can be resurrected or we will have to buy a new one (over $400!).

The layout now includes:
235 Pawnee
12 Oconee
85 Desirable
15 Cape Fear
25 Stuart
9 Nacano
15 Sumner

(Shoshoni wasn't available from our suppliers so I have just left it out since we had more than sufficient of other varieties.) Here are my notes for choice of varieties and their location on the farm:
1 - Have enough varieties to withstand our "northern" conditions, including possibility of both drought and humid summers, early warm periods followed by potential late frosts, soil conditions, comparatively low wind speeds in spring when pollination is needed, potential for high damaging hurricane winds, rolling topography, minimum amount of topsoil, and natural pH and pests. We have set a minimum of 4 and maximum of 10 varieties, with the maximum due to the desire to have as consistent size, shape and color as possible between varieties.
2 - Have enough varieties to have some nuts maturing over several weeks, rather than all at once, in order to spread out the ability to utilize human resources and minimum amount of harvesting equipment, as well as spread out the availability of new product direct to the public for the longest amount of time, but preferably all before Thanksgiving.
3 - Have some temporary rows with varieties that are quicker (5-7 years as opposed to 8-12 years old) to come into production.
4 - Have mostly varieties that are at least moderately resistant to pecan scab, but balance the need for resistance to scab with propensity to break limbs, alternate bear, shell thickness, and tolerance to drought.
As you can see, the variables are almost endless and at the end of the day, we had to also consider the availability of the variety from a reliable resource. Their is no "perfect" choice because their is no perfect soil, or perfect weather pattern, or perfect world! But we have tried to consider as many factors as possible, and weigh each according to its value or distraction from what we want to accomplish with limited financial and labor resources. I'm sure in years to come we might play the "if only" game about varieties and layout, but we've done our best with as much information as we could get and with as much discussion with growers and between ourselves as we could. So for now,I have updated the spreadsheet, kept notes, and re-confirmed that our order this spring will give us more than sufficient of each variety. Actually, I really will miss this part, because it's like a big jigsaw puzzle and anyone who knows me knows I LOVE puzzles!!

Prepping the land

Praise for rain in the past few days but so far still no lift of the burn ban. In the meantime, D has spent all of his waking hours gigging the land and we now have lots and lots of rocks and roots to pick up to keep us busy while we wait for that ban to lift! Today I finalized the number count on the varieties based on our "master plan" and adjusted for the poor availability (many growers are saying they have the smallest stock they've ever had due to the drought, heat and late spring freeze). In other news, I have gotten prices for the nurse tank and trailer (looks like AgriSupply has the best price), a 24" auger to dig the holes, a sprayer that can be attached to the tractor or the ATV, various insecticide and herbicide prices, prices for lime and zinc, nickel (if needed), and a trailer hitch for the ATV in order to pull the wagon D bought today to use for many things, but for now especially to haul the roots and rocks we will be picking up for days (weeks?) to come! Moving along, just not as quickly as I'd like but then again I always said "Rome wasn't built in a day.... I think a few hours should be plenty."

Texas

D returned weary but happy very late Saturday night (technically Sunday morning). Where do I begin? There was so much to see and do and find out but the main things are:
1 - We will definitely get as much of our stock as we can from Berdoll's. He does not carry some of the "Eastern" varieties we want but he does carry Pawnee and Desirable, 2 of our 3 main varieties.
2 - Other nurseries in Texas don't even come close to the quality he has (and we want)
3 - We are more convinced than ever that the key is going to be not just in growing a great product but in marketing it directly to the consumer, often with additional processing being needed.
4 - We will have lots of headaches, problems and many, many hours of labor before we produce a crop but won't it be great to produce something that is healthy and of real value, not like so much of what is produced and consumed in this country (eg movies!!). Sure, we'll never be as rich or famous as movie stars but that's another good reason to do this!

On the home front, it looks like we will still have to wait on burning for now. Praying for more rain and for that ban to be lifted soon so we can finish prepping the land and get some of those beauties growing!

In the meantime, I'm having lots of fun "taste-testing" all the goodies D brought back with him from Texas!

Pecans and Bees

Interesting articles that I have read lately about bees and the "CCD" (colony collapse disorder -aka: nobody knows what's going on) and in two articles people blasted commercial pecan growers for trucking around the bees. FYI - pecans are wind pollinated, not bee pollinated so although other nuts and fruits and veggies are dependent on bees, pecans are not. That being said, I think we are seeing the results of long years of "artificial farming" where large corporate "farms" are so interested in profits that they have caused immeasurable damage to the environment and the consumers' health all for the sake of the dollar. Just another wake-up call to revert back to God's natural way of doing things rather than man's greedy way. We are seriously considering clover as a ground cover in the orchard (probably a white/crimson mix of annual and perennial as recommended by Oklahoma extension service and depending on the availability of local seed) because it is not only good for the soil but encourages beneficial insects like ladybugs and caterpillars. That being said, we really want to have hives not only for the clover and any honey they might produce but also to see if honey bees will do any better here than in other places since they are getting so scarce. It means more management on our side to make sure that any chemicals we do have to use, including fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides are "non-toxic" and as natural and organic as possible, which we would do even without bees. No chemicals? Not sure but we definitely will be very selective in both the choice of chemicals and their quantity if it becomes a necessity. We have now chosen 7 varieties whereas most new orchards are using 2 or 3 new varieties. We really feel that what we might give up in "mammoth size" is more than offset by having more native varieties that do not require so much chemical treatment and the cross-pollination of these trees is so much more natural than the "forced" ones in large orchards. (Photo above by Russ Creech)

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".......

Choice of Varieties

There are over 400 varieties of pecans in the world, but only about 100 that are commercially viable. So far we have researched in detail about 14 varieties that can be grown in NC and that we felt would produce the type of pecan we want to market. But with limited acreage at this point, we really need to hone it down further so after long talks with several "old timers" in the area, I think we have decided on the main varieties we will plant. Off I go to the spreadsheet to map out where/how many of each, taking into account wind conditions, lay of the land, size of rows, pollination production and receptivity, woods nearby, irrigation needs, size, color, shell strength and shellout of pecans, and a host of smaller variables. Good thing I enjoy jigsaw puzzles because this is like a giant 3D puzzle and I'm missing the box cover!