We have several pecan trees on our lot -unknown variety-appear to be seedlings- so far only two dropping nuts are close together 20ft and about 30-50 ft high. had a big crop on the way but most from thesse trees are on the ground and dropped in a couple of days -
what should i be looking for? trees are green and appear healthy
Biloxi Mississippi
thanks

Probably worms in the nuts.

MrTexas - thanks for reply - i opened a few of the dropped nuts - didn't find any worms, the pecans(nut) appear to be developing normally but they are full of water.
I read that lack of water would cause shedding but didn't expect this - we have had lots of rain so far this season - do you think that might be the cause?

The nuts are in the "water stage" which is followed by the "jelly" stage when the water starts to thicken. It will stain your hands very badly and is nearly impossible to wash off. Its not really water but it has tannic acid in it. You hands will get better with a little time. Check the husk around the nut and there could be signs of the case bearer. Not much you can do about any pest without spraying which will upset your neighbors and my father used to say" you will have to prove you did not kill the neighbor's cat" ! Too much water or too little water can both cause pecan trees to throw off some nuts. Hopefully there are many more nuts left in the tree but there is really not much you can do to stop the shedding. If the trees have a pattern of wood pecker holes like a checkerboard then it is a Stuart pecan tree. This was the first variety to be grafted succesfully in Ocean Springs, Mississippi... by a black man a long time ago. Stuart was the #1 planted pecan tree for a very long time, maybe still is. The pecan tree varieties with indian tribe names are USDA released varieties that have been through an exhaustive research and culling process. The ones that sound like a persons name are named after the person that "found them" as a chance seedling. I think you are very close to the home of the Stuart pecan !!

Thanks Tom - this has been quite an education
We are about 5 miles from Ocean Springs - our property was part of a pecan grove years ago - our pecans are smaller than Stuarts - i think the trees sprouted from seed years ago
We have been on the property since 1987 - some years the crop is good and others not so good - but this is the 1st time that so many nuts have fallen early.
So- if we have case borer, does it get worse each year?
Seems it would be next to impossible to spray them with conventional garden sprayer.
Anyway - thanks for the info - and BTW my hands are stained -

I have a seedling that is very similar to Stuart. As for varieties, Elliot is my favorite--very full, sweet and oily, shells out clean and whole meats and is a good disease resistant variety for the Gulf coast.

As for the dropping nuts, my brother is more knowledgeable than me but if I remember correctly, there is a variety that at one time was highly reccommended for this area that almost always drops all of it's nuts due to scab--a fungus that infects the nuts especially in wet weather.

If the nuts that are falling off are covered with scab leisons,black fungus like disease, that will definately cause the nuts to fall off. The Stuart was resistant to scab long ago but is very susceptable to the disease now so is probably not on recomended list for home owners any more. I have heard people say there are at least two different nuts/trees that are both called Stuart and one is smaller. I also know of an orchard in Alabama that was planted by seed [nuts] of the Stuart variety and they say the trees are true to type and experts say that is impossible. Woodpecker holes in a pattern and very upright structure of limbs as well as nut characteristics [size, weight ,shape] would be the way to identify the tree variety. Average maybe 45 to 65 nuts per pound of good nuts running less than 50 percent meat-45 or 46 percent normally. A paper grocery bag 4 inches from completely full would weight about 20 pounds normally. I might be able to identify the variety from a picture but there are many many varieties unknown to me. Extension agents or even a neighbor might be some help. My guess is still Stuart, with out seeing it.... A pollinator for Stuart would be Success and they are definately not recommended any more. They have a twisted limb stucture, huge nuts ,usually too many nuts, and they throw off their crop right before it is mature. They will break your heart b/c they look great right until they throw off most all their crop. A good Success nut is very good but pretty rare.

Elliot is my favorite nut too. It is very sweet even raw and still more resistant to disease than most. They are pretty small but taste great !
Another old variety is Froetcher. Large, sorta slender nut that taste very good-nutty but they often fail to fill out because of excessive crop and the meat of the nuts has dark specks that look like a stink bug bite the nut in the development stage which would make nut taste very bitter. Froetcher is not bitter but it looks like it would! Very thin paper shell too. The Stuart is called a paper shell but I don't really agree unless the buyer says so ....

I googled Stuart pecan and "they" say it was named by Colonel Stewart. I found his name spelled both ways in different places. Earliest date I found was 1874 and three different people were listed as working with Stuart pecan in the early days. #1 planted variety ever [so far] and biggest complaint is it takes at least 12 years before meaningful production. I saw no mention of it being 1st sucessful grafted pecan variety but I am pretty sure I read that long ago ! I was wrong about place. "They" now say started in Pascagoula Mississipi. Same town made famous by Ray Stevens in the song "A Squirrel Came To Church..."very near you also. I read about Jackson variety from Ocean Springs and named after Andrew Jackson and I think the county where Ocean Springs is...?

We bought a pecan tree for my wife's parents that was suppose to be highly recommended--not sure but it may have been Success--it never made a pecan! It would look like it was going to have a great crop and drop all of them every yr! My brother --the pecan expert--said it could be sprayed with fungicide to keep it from dropping all the pecans, but that for 1 or 2 trees it would not be worth it.

My brother has a pecan business--Just Elliotts--and he sells both picked Elliott pecans and bags of cracked Elliots. He has pecan harvesters, cleaners, crackers and shellers. I have 5 Elliots in my yard that I grafted onto seedlings planted in place--they do not blow over in hurricanes like trees that were transplanted.

Check with your local county extension agent. He should have a recommend spray schedule for pecan trees. Pecan case nut bearer, pecan phylloxera and pecan scab can be controlled with a good spray schedule. All of these are detremental to pecans.

Good advice...I am thinking you might work with an excellent nursery there in your home town. My grandfather planted over 2,000 trees from there in about 1929. Stuart, Success, Moneymaker, and Schley. All were highly recommended at the time and was and maybe still is about the third largest pecan orchard in Alabama but it is owned by a real estate developer now...thats ok with me but I do miss it ! They plowed one row east and west 60 feet apart then came back at 90 degrees every 50 feet and put a tree at every intersection. X marks the spot ! The varieties were shuffled like cards to help with cross pollination. We kept the varieties separate as much as possible when picking by hand but with machinery it was impossible to keep separate. If I were planting now I think it might be Elliot and Desirable but I would try to have a pattern to keep them separate but they would probably be easy to separate by size at a cleaning plant. I would probably have to try Pawnee too... I still keep up a little bit and good pecans may be worth five cents each in Georgia this fall. Oops I thought you were from Lumberton Mississippi.
Regards !

Sorry – haven’t read email in days – thanks for the responses

I am going to gather up a few and take some pictures of nuts and trees – some of the dropped nuts have black sooty residue, others appear clean. Normally, we do get bag worms but haven’t seen them this year.

We only have 8 trees - ranging in size – I’m pretty sure they all grew from seed. – the smallest were only 6-8 feet high when we moved here in 1987 , now they are probably about 20-25 feet and barely produce.
Larger trees do pretty well but took a beating from Katrina and now have bare patches where limbs broke - we don’t sell – normally gather Nov-Dec for family use and put some out over the winter for the squirrels. Seems like an industrial sprayer would be needed for large trees? Fortunately, the nut dropping seems to have slowed and we still have fruit on the trees.
Pascagoula is only about 30 miles east of here. I know Stuart variety is very common around my parents’ home in Foley AL - never seen it spelled differently.

Will take your advice and visit a nursery and contact extension office.

If your trees grew from seed, they are seedlings and will each have their own set of characteristics--some may be more or less susceptible to diseases. The good thing is that a pecan that grew in place is very unlikely to blow over--they have a tap root that goes half way to China by the time they are 4 ft tall--you loose that when they are transplanted!

They can be topworked to graft them if you want a named variety, but in many cases seedlings are very good tasting pecans--wholesale buyers always pay less for them just because they do not know the characteristics.