Pecans

Now is the time to be sampling your leaf for analysis on pecan to help determine how you will fertilize The most important thing to remember when sampling pecan leaflets for tissue nutrient analyses is to use a consistent method. If your leaflet sampling method varies, you will not be able to make season-to-season or block-to-block comparisons and will miss the opportunity to spot important nutritional trends in your orchard blocks over a period of several years. A uniform leaf sampling protocol has been developed that allows pecan growers to compare leaf tissue nutrient concentrations with those of New Mexico State University's published nutrient concentration ranges see NMSU guide H-658.

The consistent part is difficult for me because my one year old granddaughter was helping me sample this year. She just grabs leafs and put them in the bag. So we had to reschedule our technique and she got a bag and gandpa got a bag. Out of curiosity I am going to analysis both and see what the difference are. But it was a lot more fun sampling this year with my granddaughter, sorry Jake.

 For regular annual leaf tissue nutrient analyses, the recommended sampling procedure for pecans is to sample the middle pair of leaflets from the compound leaf in the middle of the current season's shoot in late July or early August. Collect leaflets from all sides of the tree that are exposed to sunlight and can be easily reached from the ground (in some orchards you may need to stand in a truck bed or on a short ladder). If possible, avoid sampling leaflets with wind or insect damage, evidence of disease, or other abnormalities. for next years crop. The concentration of nutrients in leaflet tissue varies with sampling time in the season, position of the leaf on the shoot, and position of the leaflet in the leaf, so it is not valid to compare nutrient analysis results to NMSU's tissue nutrient concentration values if your leaflet tissue was sampled using a different protocol.

 To diagnose a nutrient imbalance symptom or production issue in a problem area of the orchard, it may sometimes be useful to sample leaflets at a different time or in some other way not in accordance with the described protocol. In such special cases, sample leaves from both the problem trees and from healthy trees on the same day, and using the same method for both. This will give you a healthy or "normal" nutrient concentration to use for comparison in diagnosing the problem area. For routine leaf sampling, collect leaflets from each 10-acre or smaller orchard block for analysis as a separate sample. Collect a minimum of 60 leaflets per block, sampling from representative trees over the entire area. If there are different cultivars, extreme differences in soil type, or other obvious environmental zones within an orchard block, separately sample each unique area and each cultivar in the block. For an additional layer of consistency, some growers collect leaflet samples from the same marked rows or trees every year.

To avoid contaminating samples after collection, do not expose them to galvanized metals (which contain zinc), soil, fertilizers, or phosphate-containing detergents. If leaflets have been sprayed in the current season with foliar micronutrient fertilizers, external fertilizer residues must be washed off. Wash leaflets with 0.1% hydrochloric acid solution in distilled water, then rinse three times with distilled water. In orchards where there have been no foliar micronutrient sprays in the current season, leaflets may be simply washed in tap water and a small amount of phosphate-free detergent and then rinsed three times with distilled water. Leaflets to be analyzed only for macronutrients do not need be washed. Once the leaflets have been washed, blot them dry, place them in a perforated paper bag (to allow airflow), and air-dry them at room temperature. Put the dry leaf samples in fully labeled (date, orchard name, sample number) paper bags. Seal the paper bags with tape and ship to an analytical laboratory for nutrient analysis. Also found some signs of black pecan aphid in the Loving area. I have not seen any scorch mite to date.