Native Pecan Field Day In Okfuskee County Signals Start Of Harvest Season

Pecan growers from across Oklahoma are getting ready for harvest season, which is just around the corner.

The OSU Extension Office met with producers in Okfuskee County for its Native Pecan Field Day on Thursday.

Hundreds of acres along the Deep Fork River are rows of wild pecan trees.

It’s one of Oklahoma’s leading crops, averaging about 17 million pounds of pecans per year.

OSU’s Associate Extension Specialist Becky Carroll says farmers must watch out for many threats to the crop.

“They are learning about thinning, about insect management, disease management, and how to take a forested area and improve that to become a managed and productive grove,” Carroll said. 

Carroll says one of the most detrimental threats is overcrowding of the trees.

She says if there are too many trees within an acre, all the trees risk dying from malnourishment.

Overgrown areas like this will be cleared out to make sure the Native Pecans will be able to thrive.

Only the trees marked with blue ribbons will be left standing.

“We want to reduce the numbers of trees. It’s just like animals. You can’t put a whole herd of cattle on an acre,” Carroll said. 

This area is already clear, and the trees are dropping signs that the harvest season is about to begin.

“A lot of pecans are starting to drop on the ground already. When those shucks start to open up, it signals that it’s almost harvest time,” Carroll said. 

Carroll says harvest season is just a couple of weeks away. That’s when the pecans will be shaken from the trees and processed for distribution.

This grove will supply about 15,000 pounds of pecans that property owner Leon Bailey says he will sell locally.

Carroll says other groves' pecans may end up much further away.

“A lot of our native pecans are sold wholesale. So, they'll go across the country and maybe in ice cream or cereal or granola or something like that,” Carroll said. 

Carroll says thanks to greater rainfall this year compared to last year, the state expects to produce more than 22 million pounds of pecans this season.