Well after a couple of BAD weeks of being sick and contending with poor weather, I am back to it! (To the orchard, of course.) Even with the weather we have been pruning and pressing on towards spring!

This week I spent some time in the processing room on campus. Another student and I processed graft wood that is now being stored for use very soon on our orchard. All of the trees we have been pruning the past weeks are grafted trees, so the graft wood supply is important.

Grafting involves taking two different varieties or species and combining them physically to become one. A grafted tree has two halves. The rootstock  is the bottom half. From this will grow the roots of the tree. It will provide support, nourishment, and sometimes disease resistance for the tree as a whole. The upper half of the tree is the graft or scion. Growers can take two trees suited for different areas of success and combine them into one tree that possesses all desirable traits. Different varieties perform better or worse in different environments compared to other varieties. One variety may be a strong producer of good pecans but have trouble with cotton root rot. However another variety may be mostly resistant. To produce a tree suitable for good production in an environment where cotton root rot is prevalent, growers graft the two trees together.

Hopefully soon, we'll get to grafting!

2014 Texas Pecan Short Course

This week in lieu of orchard operations I spent my time attending some of the 2014 Texas Pecan Grower's Short Course. Texas A&M Dept. of Horticulture and the Extension service hosted a room full of Texas pecan men and women for a week of pecan knowledge. Attendees ranged from full scale production orchards to men like Mr. Montel Rutledge, a College Station business owner looking to prepare for retirement.

Among the topics were varieties popular in Texas, root stocks and scions, pest and disease problems, grafting, and nutrient requirements. The students took many notes and also were able to construct a "Pecan Board." The boards showcase a couple dozen nuts from varying pecan trees for study, identification, or display. Dr. George Ray McEachern and Monte Nesbitt were two of the speakers. At the end of the week, the attendees made a trip out to Hwy 50 to view our Aggie orchard.

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.