Pecan Stick Tights

WHY DO I HAVE STICK TIGHT WITH MY PECANS?

Each pecan season is different; a friend of mine told me he had been farming in Eddy County for more the 60 years and that it would be easier if there was two years the same so he would know what to do.  This year is not the same as any other year except I have received calls from all over Eddy, Lea and Chaves counties asking about pecans still in the shuck or stick tights and it is all the nuts on the whole tree. In the other articles I’ve written on this subject is was not all the nuts on a tree and when you cut open the nuts that were stick tight they were less mature and not as filled as the non-stick tight nuts on the same tree.   This year is different because the black shriveled shuck is around every nut on the tree and when you cut them open they are filled and fairly mature.  The varieties that mature earlier, like Pawnee are open and dropping nuts and later maturing varieties are having stick tights.  That is my observation in my orchard and I have a number of varieties that are all fertilized and watered the same.   The shuck split occurs with the production of ethylene, which is the same natural chemical that turns tomatoes and chilis red and bananas brown. I have taken a few pecans and put them in a paper sack with a few green bananas and in a few days the shucks open up.  Pecan produces ethylene when the nuts are completely filled in the kernels as the nuts mature. However, as I said every year is different.  Reading articles in Pecan South and Georgia Pecan there is a lot we just don’t understand yet in pecan physiology, but we are working on it.   Dr. Heerema and New Mexico State University Plant Pathology has recently confirmed bacterial leaf scorch in pecans and this has been associated with stick tights because of reduced water movement in pecans.  There are numerous articles on drought induced pecan stick tights.   

If the nuts are filled and shuck still stick tight you may have 2^nd or 3^rd pecan nut case bearer larva between the shuck and the nut.  As they feed they cut the pipes that deliver nutrients to the shuck and nut.  This prevents the water pressure from opening the shuck or interferes with the production of ethylene. 

If there are lots of black on the shuck and on the nut shell this can be from the case bearer or more than likely from stink bug damage.   Again this is a result of broken pipes and loss of pressure to open the shuck or some interference in the production of ethylene. 

Then there is stick tights that occur when under hot dry wind in late July early August during the water filling stage of the nut, trees do not receive enough water to fill the nut.  Often stick tights are associated with an “on” year when there are lots of nuts and therefore lots of demand for water.    Physiological drought in pecans can occur even when the producer applies sufficient water to the soil.   So if as a home owner you put your pecan in a bag with bananas and they still do not open, it was one of those other causes, and what was the cause this year; but may not be there next year.   This year my personal thought as a grower, because it is so wide spread in the valley and early maturing varieties that have a much lower occurrence in this weather.  This year we had an early hard freeze. We normally get a light freeze 30-32 F the first week of November but this year we had a hard killing freeze below 28F the first week of November, which breaks the pipes as the insects do and breaks cell walls so ethylene is released or not produced.  As we know a number of things can cause or work together to create similar symptoms.  This is my thought on the stick tights this year, which is different from what I had for last year.    Dr. Heerema told me, “At this point though, I’m still hopeful that as the shucks dry down they still might pop open.  One grower I talked with on Friday said that exactly that was happening.”     

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NMSU to add new degree option, plant health management

NMSU to add new degree option, plant health management
DATE: 11/07/2019
WRITER: Victoria Balderrama, 575-646-1614, vbalde@nmsu.edu
CONTACT: Brian Schutte, 575-646-7089, bschutte@nmsu.edu
The New Mexico State University Entomology, Plant Pathology and Weed Science department will add the plant health management option under the agricultural biology major beginning in fall 2020.

The curriculum committee of EPPWS has made it a top priority to organize this option. One member of the committee, Brian Schutte, associate professor of weed science in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, said there is a high demand of students interested in learning more about plants.

“The department recognizes there is a career opportunity that is not being addressed,” said Schutte. “Our students can piece this together on their own but we can help them get into these fields. So, we are keeping to our mission as a department and as a university to help students.”

Similar to the pest biology and management option, plant health management will focus more on plant health and teach the skills necessary for identifying and addressing problems in plant health management.

Students will gain understanding of the impacts of diseases, insects and weeds on plant health, become knowledgeable on environmental consequences of management strategies for improving plant health and acquire problem-solving skills that will enable them to develop sustainable solutions for preserving plant health.

With these proficiencies, students will be able to pursue careers in the crop protection industries, supervisory positions in the landscape maintenance industry and graduate education opportunities in pest biology and management.

The plant health management option is for students interested in learning about sustainable strategies for promoting the health of plants that are foundational to strong agricultural economies.

Students majoring in agricultural biology will be able to select the plant health management option beginning fall semester 2020.

NMSU researchers drive agriculture into the future with big data

NMSU researchers drive agriculture into the future with big data
DATE: 11/05/2019
WRITER: Carlos Andres Lopez, 575-646-1955, carlopez@nmsu.edu
CONTACT: Natalie Goldberg, 575-646-3125
Researchers in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at New Mexico State University are working to solve an array of real-world challenges – from tracking livestock behavior to improving agricultural sustainability and developing artificial intelligence for agriculture – by using big data.

Big data is a loosely defined term for large datasets collected and analyzed by researchers to reveal patterns, trends and associations, and predict behaviors and interactions. Many industries, including agriculture and farming, use big-data and supercomputing methods to identify solutions for some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

“With the world’s population expected to grow to more than 9 billion by 2050, there is an urgent need to produce more food on less land with less water and fewer inputs,” said Natalie Goldberg, College of ACES interim associate dean and director of the Agricultural Experiment Station.

“The ability to collect enormous amounts of data is a reality,” Goldberg added. “Big data science moves that information to data analysis, machine learning, the development of decision-making tools, and the use of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, including robotics. Implementation of big data science into agriculture will move technology development into solutions that will help solve some of agriculture’s most complex problems.”

By implementing big data and emerging technologies, Goldberg said, agricultural producers can maximize efficient farming and ranching, save water, reduce chemical use, solve labor problems, and reduce food waste and contamination.

Currently, 10 faculty members in the College of ACES and the Jornada Experimental Range are leading collaborative research efforts that utilize big data and supercomputing.

Derek Bailey, a professor in the Department of Animal and Range Science, is using GPS tracking and other sensors to monitor the welfare, productivity and sustainability of cattle and sheep on rangelands.

“Our lab is testing real-time and near real-time GPS tracking systems, accelerometer ear tags and other sensors that have promise for use by ranchers,” said Bailey, who has been tracking cattle since 1998. “We combine these on-animal sensors with satellite imagery to simultaneously monitor forage resources and livestock behavior. Our group is working with animal breeding scientists at Colorado State University to identify genetic markers associated with cattle movement patterns grazing rugged rangelands.”

Bailey also plans to develop genomic-based breeding values for cattle terrain use. This will allow ranchers to select animals that use steep slopes and roam areas far from water sources, which are typically avoided. His goal, he said, is to use GPS tracking, sensor monitoring, satellite imagery and genomics to develop “precision livestock management” systems – an approach that requires collecting, processing and analyzing large datasets.

“In the past, we could rely on conventional software and desktop computers,” Bailey said. “With technical improvements of sensors and associated reductions in equipment price, we can now track entire herds of cattle and collect movement data from accelerometers at a rate of 24 hertz.”

In future studies, Bailey hopes to start using drones to collect data. When that time comes, he will join other faculty members, including Niall Hanan, who are already using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, in their research.

Hanan, a professor in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, and his research group are working on environmental and ecological data analysis using cloud-based computing as well as the high-performance computing facilities available at NMSU.

“Our work includes analysis of satellite imagery using Google Earth Engine to better understand vegetation change in the drylands of the southwestern United States, Africa and globally,” Hanan explained. “We also carry out computer-intensive analysis of UAV images and terrestrial lidar data to derive detailed three-dimensional vegetation structure information relevant to the productivity of shrublands in the southwestern U.S. and globally,” he added.

Lara Prihodko, a college associate professor in the Department of Animal and Range Science, works with very large datasets in her research centered on regional and global-scale ecology. Two of her current projects include mapping and modeling tree cover and woody biomass for the entire Sub-Saharan Africa region and modeling regional land surface fluxes, including water, energy and carbon, over the Jornada Basin.

“Our data sets include large geospatial and climate data, such as optical and radar satellite imagery and global climate re-analyses. As satellite systems have developed, data volumes have increased exponentially, Prihodko said, “so we increasingly rely on big-data analysis techniques, high performance computers and cloud computing to process and analyze it.”

Earlier this year, College of ACES Dean Rolando Flores established an interdisciplinary team of 12 researchers from four colleges – ACES, Arts and Sciences, Engineering and Business – to collaborate on a white paper focused on developing artificial intelligence for agriculture.

“Over the next several years, these technologies will become increasingly prevalent in farming and ranching operations, which will likely lead to the greatest increase in farming and ranching since mechanization,” Goldberg said. “These problems are complex, and development and implementation of big data and artificial intelligence into agriculture requires researchers from across diverse disciplines to work together for solutions.”

Jennifer Randall, a professor in the Department of Entomology, Plant Pathology and Weed Science, was part of the research group that drafted the white paper. She also oversees research in the Randall Lab, which she founded to focus on the genetic and molecular mechanisms of plant development and plant-microbe interactions.

Randall is specifically interested in pecan development, including the molecular mechanisms involved in floral initiation, nutrient acquisition and salinity tolerance, she said.

“We are working with large RNA-sequencing datasets for gene expression elucidation,” she said, noting the big data methods used by her and her students. “Our lab is involved in many collaborative efforts with pecan trees, including genome sequencing efforts, genome-wide association studies with large data sets for marker development.”

At NMSU, Flores said, scientists and engineers are working together in the College of ACES to solve the challenging problems facing farmers, ranchers and food processors in New Mexico.

“Those problems deal with environmental issues, accentuated by global warming, lack of farm and ranch labor that makes our products more expensive and less competitive in global markets, and a plethora of issues that only advanced science and new technologies can solve in agriculture in the years to come,” he said. “However, the College of ACES has taken the challenge and is getting ready to develop solutions to the problems.”