We process and sell our own pecans, but also buy good quality pecans from local growers. Growers wishing to sell their crop to us should contact us on 02-66291418 to make an appointment. Pecans to be sold to Eltham Valley Pecans should be cleaned of sticks and leaves and other field debris, and if possible, dried to a 7% moisture level.

They should be picked up from the ground immediately after harvest. A 1kg representative sample of your crop will be cracked and tested to determine quality and hence price paid. Deliveries of pecans can only be made to us on Mondays and Tuesdays between 10am and 3pm. Growers delivering pecans should do so in a vehicle not greater than 4 tonnes in weight. Feel free to ring us if you have any questions regarding the above, or questions relating to growing good pecan nuts. Below is a brief summary of the main points involved in pecan nut growing. For further information, the CSIRO publication “Nut Growing in Australia” has an excellent chapter on pecan nuts.

Pecan trees are native to North America, and have been commercially grown there since the 1850s. They belong to the walnut family, and their botanical name, Carya Illinoensis, the fact that they were once known as the Illinois nut. They are long-lived and can be massive. Some still-productive trees are well over 100 years of age and when mature at age 30, need to be top-pruned at 20 metres so as to be.

There are approximately 100 pecan growers in Australia and plantings exceed 180,000 trees covering 1500 hectares. The Australian Pecan Growers Association Inc. ( www.nutindustry.org.au ) was formed to represent and support growers and improve pecan production through educational and research activities.

World consumption of pecans is growing, and world production regularly cannot meet demand. This is one very good reason to plant pecans.

Opinions differ as to the best pattern in which to lay out a new orchard.

Some prefer rows 10m apart and trees 10m apart within those rows. (10 x 10). Others go for a 20 x 10 layout. More recently, Stahmann Farms, Australia’s largest grower and processor, has planted trees 5m apart within the rows. This will turn the rows into hedges. The right layout may ultimately have more to do with the amount of land you’ve got, the amount of money you’ve got, how soon you want a crop, how badly you need a crop and other factors. Some growers plant on a 10 x 10 or a 10 x 5 pattern. This is to get as many trees into their land as possible, in the knowledge that at year 15, they will very likely have to pull half their trees out due to overcrowding. This heartbreak is eased by the 8 years of extra income they will have earned as a result of having more trees in production from years 7 to 15 than someone who started with the more traditional 20 x 10 spacing. The valuable timber may well be able to sold profitably.

Rows are best sited running north to south.

Alluvial river flats are best, with a good deep top soil.

A climate which has over 220 frost-free days and plenty of those above 30 degrees celsius is ideal. Pecans also need a good winter chilling, however, summer heat is a priority.

What is certain is that you will need a mixture of pecan varieties.

Most varieties do not self-pollinate. They produce male flowers, catkins, and female flowers called pistelets, on separate parts of the tree. In most varieties, the male flowers are not shedding pollen at the same time as the female flowers on the same tree are ready to be fertilised.

You must therefore plant pollinators, or trees of a different variety whose pistelets are receptive at the same time as the next row’s catkins are shedding. They are wind pollinated. Orchards are usually planted with three or four varieties to ensure good pollination.

If you are planting a new orchard, plant grafted improved varieties. Planting the nuts off several different varieties rather than a selection of certified improved varieties grafted onto a good rootstock will lead to decreased yields.

Pollination generally occurs between mid October and mid November but this period may be earlier if the weather is hot and dry, or delayed if the weather is cool, rainy, cloudy or foggy.

Pecan trees are tough. If you live in an area with a reasonable rainfall, you can harvest them in May of one year, lock up the paddock and go fishing for 12 months, and they’ll be there waiting for you on your return with another crop. It may be a smaller crop. There may be fewer trees. There may be more carpenter bugs happily ring-barking your trees as an entrée before boring into the heartwood for mains. The shucks may be covered with little black spots, which become big black spots in the kernel. The leaves will almost certainly not be as green as you remember them. There may well be large branches scattered over the orchard floor.

The lesson is simple. Like any living thing, pecan trees need food and water. The more food and water, the bigger they will grow and the bigger the crop they will bear.

Once again, it comes down to the time and money resources available, and to what you want from your orchard.

Give them as much water as possible, especially from September to November, when fruit set is occurring.

Until January, the nuts are growing to their final, external dimensions. From February until harvest in May, they are filling out those dimensions internally with kernel. Without irrigation, your rainfall pattern will determine the size of your pecans. Plenty of rain through spring and early summer will result in lots of good sized nuts. But without further rain through autumn, they will be poorly filled inside, and the tree will shed what it cannot fill in the water-stage in January-February. The reverse applies. Poor spring and early summer rain but a wet late summer and autumn will produce a smaller crop of smaller but well-filled nuts.

Many smaller growers may not have an irrigation system. They may not have an irrigation licence. It is difficult to water large trees by hand in this case, but do make the effort to water and mulch young trees while they are getting established.

It is easier to ensure trees are well-fed.

Composted chook manure is readily available and can be spread quickly and quite cheaply by commercial spreaders.

Nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium are the main nutrients needed, and these are readily available and can be spread manually. The easiest way is through an irrigation system, and this is called fertigation.

Smaller amounts of trace elements should also be added, but the best idea is to get a leaf check done on your trees. This will tell you exactly what they need and will quite often recommend how to apply it. Leaf test prices have come down recently, and at the time of writing, a basic leaf test costs around $50.

Small applications applied at monthly intervals through the growing season are more effective than one large annual dose. Many growers find that 30 g / tree of urea per application at year one is adequate and this amount is doubled each year following. Zinc deficiency can result in poor growth of young trees and a dilute solution of the trace element zinc may be required as a foliar spray in spring.

Pecan trees can be pruned in summer, autumn or winter with the aim of training the tree to a central leader with strong lateral branching.

Keeping the trunk free of branches up to chest height enables easy access to the tree and stops painful whacks in the face while mowing around trees.

In the first season the strongest growing shoot at the tip of the tree is selected as the central leader and other competing branches are removed.

After the first year, the central leader can be cut back to a strong bud each winter. All competing branches are removed. Cultivars that produce wide-spreading branches are more difficult to train to a central leader. If a tree fails to grow, it should be mulched well but left unpruned. Best results are achieved when tree training is combined with good irrigation and fertiliser management.

Make the effort to keep the grass down in your orchard. There are not many pests of pecans in Australia, but the few that do bother them will survive and multiply much more successfully if there is a lot grass around your trees. This applies especially for the Green Vegetable Bug (GVB). It breeds in long grass around the trees from July to September.

Keep an eye out for twig girdlers. They are tiny bugs that ring-bark smaller branches of the trees. Remove them manually.

Carpenter bugs are bigger, and do the same but to the main trunk. After circling the trunk, they bore inside and do lots of damage.

The biggest and worst bug is the Longicorn beetle. They lay eggs in cracks caused by splits or large pruning wounds, the eggs grow to be huge grubs in 4 years. While growing, they virtually eat the centre of the tree. The grubs hatch out in November as enormous bugs that fly off to start the cycle again. Unchecked, the way you will find out that you have a Longicorn infestation is when your trees fall over in high winds.

Prevention is better than cure, so any wounds from pruning or splitting should immediately be given a thick coat of paint to seal the wound and deny the bugs access. Special tree wound paint is good, but anything is better than nothing. Check these wounds regularly as the seal will need to be repainted until the bark has grown back over the wound.

Detection of pest problems is easy if you visit your orchard regularly. As Confucius said, “the best fertiliser a farm can have is the footsteps of its owner.”

The most important lesson to learn about harvesting is to get the nuts up off the ground as quickly as possible. Pecan nuts are thin-shelled, and will readily absorb flavours and moisture from the earth. This could taint the kernel inside.

Mature pecan trees are mechanically shaken. When the shucks have opened, and the nut is suspended by a thin web of brown material from the shuck, it is time to shake. Three seconds of shaking is enough to remove nearly all the crop from a tree.

Some growers shake onto weed-matting, or just onto the ground and then pick up manually. Small nut-nabbing hand-pushed trolleys, adapted from the macadamia industry, are available and efficient.

Larger, mechanized version of these nut-nabbers are available. Of course, it all depends on the scale of your operation as to how much to spend on equipment.

Efficient drying is critical to nut quality. Nuts that lie moist on the ground for days, or nuts that are dried too slowly or at too high a temperature may develop off-flavour, darkened colour, mould and they may soon become rancid.

Dryers are mostly of silo or mesh-bin construction with fans blowing air through the nuts. Smaller quantities of nuts may be dried in hessian bags stacked around a heater and fan that circulates warm air through the stack.

Be careful not to go above 38 degrees Celsius, as this may burn the kernel.