Looking at the seasons grafts - Pecan

It is time to start keeping an eye on the grafts done earlier in the season and making sure development is on track. In an earlier post I talked about grafting I had done earlier this year on pecans, persimmons, and peaches. Almost all of my pecan grafts were bark grafts where I cut off the top of sizeable young trees and grafted 'Kanza', 'Major', and 'Yates 68' pecan scions onto my native rootstock. These trees I grafted them onto were wild trees that had grown up in old field and pasture areas and had just been left to grow by previous owners.

I had good luck this year with bark grafts on pecans and most of them are growing quite well (would probably be doing even better if we had some rain!). The one in this picture has grown from both buds, has already grown over a foot since it was grafted in May, and has produced catkins AND female flowers. These female flowers are what later turn into pecans if they are pollinated. Grafted trees will begin producing nuts MUCH sooner than pecan trees grown from seed, especially if they are grown on a desirable site to help them grow quickly and given some basic care and attention. Since my tree is so small however I don't want it using all of it's energy in flowering and attempting to produce a few nuts, I want it to grow large and tall as fast as it can. So I will go through and cut off all of the female flowers. Attached is a picture of the graft and male catkins (see that organ in the lower half of the picture covered in pollen = catkin).