This is an excerpt from the Book Called “NATIVE TREES FOR NORTH AMERICAN LANDSCAPES ” .Continue reading to learn more about Pecan – Native American Tree, thanks to the author.
Carya illinoinensis
PECAN
DESCRIPTION: The pecan is our largest and most commercially valuable hickory and is the state tree of Texas. Many people who love its tasty nuts don’t realize that it is a hickory; in fact it is the closest relative of those hickories with some of the most bitter fruits. Excluding the taste of its nuts, the pecan shares many characteristics with bitternut hickory. It is a tree of river bottoms, and in the rich, moist soil of its fertile habitat it grows more quickly than any other hickory. While grafted orchard pecans sometimes stay small, wild trees can be immense.
One very tall pecan I saw a few years ago growing along a rural roadside in Cocke County, Tennessee, was 143 feet (42.9m) tall with a trunk more than 6 feet (1.8m) thick. That tree has become the U.S. national champion. Several huge old pecans growing in Maryland and Virginia owe their origins to famous early gardeners like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson old tree in open. Sunny locations may have spreading limbs that span more than 100 feet (30m), even forest grown trees will form broad crowns of long, arching primary limbs.
LEAVES: Pecan leaves are pinnately compound, as are all hickory leaves, and can have fifteen or more narrow, sickle-shaped leaflets. The foliage has a dark brownish green cast when seen from a distance, so this species is easy to pick out from its bottomland associates. It turns yellow in fall but not as impressively as other hickories.
FLOWERS AND FRUIT: Pecans have catkins similar to other hickories, but the fruits are in a class by themselves. They are so thin-shelled that many kinds can be cracked barehanded. And they yield large kernels of superior nutmeat. Most, if not all, horticultural selections of pecan have been chosen for the size, taste, abundance, hardiness, annual bearing, or ease of shelling of the nuts. Many species of wildlife appreciate them too.
BEST SEASONS: FALL (when the tasty nuts ripen) WISTER (the brown, shaggy countenance of the pecan is interesting in the landscape). SUMMER (an old, spreading pecan will offer lots of dappled shade for hot southern backyards).
NATIVE AND ADAPTIVE RANGE: Pecan is restricted in the wild to the valleys of the lower Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and their larger tributaries. It extends along the Mississippi River corridor from the Gulf Coast north through Illinois and reaches westward well into eastern Texas and Ozark Plateau. Although not native to many areas east of the Mississippi Valley, it is widely planted throughout the south eastern United States. Provenance is crucial if fruit production is of concern, since northern forms have very small (but sweet) nuts and require a winter chilling period to grow properly, while southern forms their crop. As a landscape tree, with no concern about fruit production, it can be planted with relative impunity north through USDA zone 5.
CULTURE: Like bitternut, pecan is one of the easiest hickories to transplant, which isn’t saying much. The taproots of seedlings can grow 5 feet (1.5m) deep in two years, unless cultural techniques such as root pruning or root growth control devices are used. It grows easily from seed planted in fall and can be grafted to propagate good nut-producing individuals. Pecan likes rich moist soil and can tolerate considerable short-term flooding.
PROBLEMS: In very humid regions, the nuts are sometimes ruined by sprouting while still on the tree, and the scab fungus Cladeosporium caryigenum sometimes affects the leaves and fruits. Zinc deficiency can be a problem in some pecan orchards. Like all hickories, pecan is affected by various borers, cankers, and decay organisms, but most are secondary problems that are serious only on trees weakened from other causes. See Carya cordiformis for additional discussion of hickory problems.
CULTIVARS: The numerous pecan selections available have been chosen almost exclusively for fruiting characteristics. Almost 900 square miles (2331 sq.km) of North America are devoted to cultivation of pecan cultivars. Most commercially sold nuts are harvested from the old
TOP LEFT: Pecan (Carya illinoinensis) nuts grow in thin husks, LEFT: Some pecans develop nice yellow fall color. RIGHT: The U.S. national champion pecan (Carya illinoinensis) in Tennessee.
Standby, ‘Stuart’, or the newer ‘Schley’. ‘Wichita’ and ‘Hopi’ are good cultivars for the famous irrigated pecan orchards of the dry Southwest, where scab disease is not a big problem. ‘Mahan’ and its improved offspring ‘Mohawk’ bear huge, long nuts, easily the size of a Vienna sausage. Northern growers frequently plant ‘Colby’, ‘Giles’, or ‘Major’ because their crops mature in a shorter growing season. The USDA selection ‘Creek’ is said to be very resistant to scab, and ‘Kanza’, a similar disease-resistant USDA release, will mature commercial grade fruits (albeit small ones) as far north as northern Kansas. ‘Pawnee’ is a newer selection reported to be widely adaptable in both northern and southern climates.
Pollination of pecan has been studied in depth due to its commercial importance. It and other hickories are affected by dichogamy, which basically means that orchard pecans need cross-pollination from other compatible cultivars for best nut production. For example, ‘Kanza’ is protogynous and will benefit from pollination by protandrous selections such as ‘Pawnee’, Major’, or ‘Giles’. Some commercial selections develop into trees of predictable from and vigor and therefore could be useful for horticultural purposes.
SIMILAR AND RELTED SPEDCIES: See the listings for Carya cordiformis. Pecan can cross with other pecan hickories (section Apocarya), but to little advantage, producing relatively bitter-fruited hybrids like C ‘Pleas’. The hybrid between water hickory (C. aquatica) and pecan is named C. Χ lecontei and is common in areas where the parent species grow in adjacent areas. Pecan will also cross with some hard hickories (section Carya), producing more tasty “hicans.”
COMMENTS: The first pecan cultivar, ‘Centennial’, was propagated by a Louisiana slave in 1848. Since then more than five hundred additional selections have been made. Many of these are adapted specifically to certain localities where they perform best. In older neighbourhoods across the South, pecans are often the principal shade trees. The value of the pecan to wildlife should be a primary consideration in planting or managing trees in a landscape or forest situation.
Giant pecan trees once grew in the flatlands adjacent to the Mississippi River along the border between Missouri and Illinois. My family members who harvested those wild pecans each fall during the Great Depression have recounted how the navigation dams built by the U.S. government in the 1930s raised the water table in the pecan flats, even behind the levees, and slowly drowned those great pecans and other hardwoods. Unfortunately environmental assessments were not required for federal projects in those days, so no one had a forum to speak for the ancient trees.