Pecan crop load management can be done in several ways. Hedging reduces crop in the short-term on the trees that are hedged. Since hedging is done routinely in the West, my discussion will focus more on crop load management by mechanical crop thinning. In this method, pioneered by Dr. Mike Smith and others in Oklahoma and Kansas, the excessive crop is controlled by shaking the nuts out of the trees with the same shaker used for shaking at harvest time. The nuts are removed between the time of half ovule expansion and full ovule expansion, which coincides with the beginning of shell hardening. The dates will vary by cultivar and season, as well as by location. In the Southeast on standard cultivars, the window is from late July through the second week of August.
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