Darrell Sparks

Pecan in Warm Climate

Pecan [Carya illinoensis (Wangenh. C. Koch)] production can be divided into two categories, production in dry and production in humid climates. Production in dry climates can be subdivided into production in low elevation climates and production in high elevation climates. The major pecan growing areas with a dry, low (DL) elevation climate are the Crystal City-Eagle Pass area of Texas, the Red Rock-Picacho area of Arizona, the Fresno-Visalia area of California, and the Hermosillo, Sonora and eastern Coahuila areas of Mexico. These areas are <460 m in elevation. The major pecan areas with a dry, high (DH) elevation climate are the El Paso-Las Cruces area of Texas-New Mexico, the Tucson area of Arizona, and the Chihuahua area of Chihuahua, Mexico. Elevation varies from ≈730 to 1220 m. Georgia is the major producer of pecans in humid areas with ≈40% of the United States production (Sparks, 2000). Native pecan groves (pecan forests from which other tree species have been removed) make up most of the total pecan production in some states, for example, Texas and Oklahoma. Because of the high water requirement of pecan (Miyamoto et al., 1995), native pecans are primarily in humid areas although groves occur in semi-arid areas subject to overflow from floods.