After a not-long-enough winter break, we have finally gotten fully underway into the Spring 2014 semester. Some students are planning for spring break, some are anxiously ordering overpriced textbooks, and I am enjoying a beautiful day in the Texas A&M Pecan Orchard.

This was my first week on the job and it was refreshing to get some hands-on experience to pair with concepts I had been learning since 2012 in Dr. Reed's HORT 201 course. This week we pruned a group of trees planted and grafted in 2009. Dr. McEachern had strict instructions for myself and another student as to how he wanted these baby trees pruned.

The idea was to remove all lateral shoots below the graft with circumference of 1 inch or more in order to funnel all nutrients toward the graft union and ultimately to the tip of the tree for maximized vertical growth. We left the small lateral shoots, or "suckers." These will grow leaves and ultimately provide the food needed for growth.