Pecan Grove - Planting Trees 2

Today, my son and I finished the job of planting the pecan trees. We planted the Nacono first.  The hole was quite easy to dig and was sandy loam soil without any rocks.  

We then planted the Waco variety a little deeper into the trees.  There is a small path to it which will need to be expanded some.  This area was also sandy loam with no rocks so it should be a good spot.

We saved the hole with rock at the bottom until last.  I was unable to dig up or break the rock so we moved 10 foot to one side and dug a new hole.  There was a large rock at the bottom of this hole also.  I believe I'm just hitting super compressed sand that has formed a layer of sandstone.  I was able to break through some of this with a breaker bar so I imagine the tree root should be able to as well.  The Oconee was planted in this spot.

The area I selected to plan the trees is very near my tank so I can get water there for them if needed.  There are very few decent trees in this area.  It is primarily cedar and youpon.  My plan was to plan the pecan trees in the area and slowly clear out other items as the pecan trees grow.

In the picture below, I have the Oconee in the foreground with the Cheyenne in the background.

Looking almost 180 degrees in the other direction, I have the Oconee in the foreground and the Pawnee in the background.

The following picture is not great but shows the location of each of the pecan trees I planted.  

Pecan Grove - Planting Trees 1

While I'm not a tremendous fan of pecans, I do enjoy eating some every now and then.  My grandfather, however, was crazy about pecans and would eat the all the time.  We would pick them up under some trees near a stream on some family property when I was really young.  I've been planning to plant a few pecan trees in memory of my granddad since he passed away last September.  Today, I started that project.

I placed an order with Womack nursery for four varieties of pecan trees.  The order arrived on Thursday evening but included five trees.  They did not have the Choctaw variety so they gave me a Waco and Oconee instead.  With those changes to the order, I now have a Cheyenne, Oconee, Pawnee, Waco, and Nacono.  

The Cheyenne, Oconee, Waco, and Pawnee are all protandrous (early pollen shedding).  The Nacono is the only protogynous (late pollen shedding).  I'd originally ordered a Choctaw to have a pair of late pollen shedding trees which bloomed at the same time.  
  

The trees arrived packed in moss type material and then wrapped with plastic to keep the roots moist.  I added a little water on a few occasions while working so they would not dry out. 

The following two charts show the pollen shed and receptivity for the various pecan varieties.  The top chart is from Texas A&M.  The second chart is from LSU.  They don't exactly match but that could be because of the different regions.  I'm not sure what to trust so the more varieties the better. 

The first tree I planted was the Cheyenne.  The soil is mostly sandy loam but at about three feet down it is rather compacted red sand.  I first thought the red sand was clay but it just breaks apart in your hands so it is definitely sand.

The next was the Pawnee.  The soil is mostly sandy loam but it has a fair amount of little rocks.  While it should not matter, I tried to avoid putting larger rocks back in the hole.  I then put in half a bag of Sta-Green Tree & Shrub soil.

I started on a third tree but once I dug about three foot deep, I hit a really large rock.  The rock covers the bottom of my two foot round hole.  Most of the rocks are sandstone but I could not break this one and was a bit too tired to dig it up so I left it for now.  

For lunch, I had another ribeye.  They are becoming a bit of a tradition.