CIRCULAR No. 20. FEBRUARY, 1920. 



PATCH-BUDDING LARGE LIMBS AND TRUNKS OF 

 PECAN TREES 



BY 



J. A. EVANS.* 



It is sometimes estimated that there are 100,000,000 wild pecan trees 

 in Texas. Certainly it would be within the mark to say there are half 

 that number, and possibly one-half of these trees are small enough in size 

 to make it practical from an economic standpoint to top-work them. 



A pecan tree to be classed as good, must, first of all, be a heavy and 

 regular bearer. After that, it must bear nuts of fair to large size, of 

 thin shell, full meat, and rich flavor, and the shell must crack easily 

 and part readily from the kernel. 



From time prehistoric to the present, every such tree has been known 

 and visited by the whole nut-eating range of the animal kingdom 

 from jaybird to wild turkey, from squirrel to wild hog, and from Indian 

 to sorry white man and very few, if any, of the nuts escaped to germi- 

 nate. It was the little hard nut that got by and produced the next 

 generation of trees. 



Thus it can be seen that the general trend in the process of evolution 

 has been one of deterioration in point of fruit. 



Out of all the millions of trees in Texas there are probably not more 

 than twenty that are really worthy of propagation by budding and graft- 

 ing that is to say, there is a very limited number of trees of surpass- 

 ing excellence from which buds should be taken, and from none other. 



Since it is possible by the use of these buds to transform a tree that 

 bears a light crop of poor nuts into a tree that will bear a heavy crop 

 of good nuts, something of the importance of this work may be com- 

 prehended. 



Realizing this importance, some of the pioneers in pecan culture set 

 about the work some twenty years ago, but with very limited success. 

 The universal custom in the beginning was to cut the trees back severely 

 in fact to mere stumps in order to force out new sprouts on which 

 to bud. Some of these sprouts were removed, being very numerous, 

 and the others were Dudcled when large enough. It was very weaken- 

 ing to the tree to be deprived of most of its leaves during the season, 

 but that was not the end of it. The budded sprouts must in turn be 

 cut back in order to force new growth from the inserted buds. Thus 

 the tree was deprived of most of its leaves the second season, and con- 

 tinued to suffer an in sufficiency for two or three years more. In their 

 weakened condition the trees fell easy prey to borers, and many of them 



*Pecan Specialist, Extension Service, A. and M. College of Texas, in cooperation with 

 Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. 



