Skip to main content

Pecan Associations with Mycorrhizae

It could be true if you were in a riparian area of Texas where Pecan grow naturally that the specific species of Ecto Mycorrhizae could be air born and therefore capable of inoculating a tree.   

However I’ve personally seen orchards in that region of Texas that did not have a mycorrhizal infection and suffered nutrient update inhibition.  Once we inoculated the trees with the proper species of mycorrhizal fungi the trees rapidly begin to benefit from the infection.   


In working with a company in Mexico that has the majority market share in agriculture for the distribution of fertilizers and biomimetic materials such as mycorrhizal products, we’ve seen the same thing.   


I recall a conversation with a pecan grower in Texas about 15 years ago while I was attending the Texas Organic Farming conference, where the grower noticed that trees across the road from his orchard growing in the nearby river flood plain did not show zinc nutrient inhibition.   He was curious why his trees had this problem while the wild trees across the road did not.  


 I theorized that his trees lacked the mycorrhizal relationship  so we treated his trees and solved the problem.   


Therefore I don’t put much stock in the academic world when they challenge this concept as they simply don’t have the years of experience or access to the science that I’ve had.     


The images below show pecan roots with the fruiting body of mycorrhizal fungi and the mycelium in soil showing up after the trees are treated that are now showing up in an orchard that we inoculated only months earlier.   


Already the trees are showing improvement in nutrient uptake, no zinc deficiency in tissue tests and no outward symptoms of zinc uptake inhibition.    In fields within a stones throw we are not seeing the same thing on the same farm.  


These images came from an organic pecan farm here in New Mexico taken a few weeks ago.    You are welcome to share these, just give me credit for where they came from. 





Popular posts from this blog

Fertilizers formulated for alkaline soils of the Southwest

Recently I was in an Albuquerque retail nursery where a fertilizer was being sold that stated it was formulated for alkaline soils of the Southwest.  It contained high levels of iron and sulfur, plus the N, P and K major nutrients.  Do any of the readers care to comment on this type of product?    Pros, Cons, etc.  I have my take on it, but I'll entertain what you want to say about it.  Michael Martin MelĂ©ndrez

Growing Pecan Trees in Western Alkaline Soil

It's common to see nutrient and water inhibition compromise the production of pecans in the arid western states, particularly where the soils are high pH, which can tie up nutrients such as zinc, iron, phosphorus and more. Keeping soils moist is also a problem because the regions were we grow pecan are not wet bottomland soils where pecan is native, but are high and dry desert soils where irrigation is essential. If the irrigation water is high in dissolved solids, the problem is made worse. There are many good things Soil Secrets can offer pecan growers that can overcome these obstacles, by improving the moisture management of the soil, improving nutrient solutioning and availability of both the native minerals as well as the purchased minerals, and improving the porosity of the soil so that water and oxygen can penetrate meters deep without the need to subsoil with machinery. How's this done? By using the power of Nature's own bio-chemical called the Carbon Matrix. Starti

How does nitrogen work in the soil and where does it come from when we don't have a bag of fertilizer to supplement it?

I've spoken many times on this subject at conferences and it was the main theme of my talk when I represented North America at the World's 1st Humus Experts Meeting in Vienna Austria back in 2013.   Most of the Nitrogen used by the vast tropical rain forests, or the fastest growing biomass place on Earth, the Coastal Redwood Forests of California, comes from the production of protein by the Free-Living Nitrogen Fixing bacteria in soil and the massive biomass structure of the mycorrhizal fungi.    The proteins as it breaks down in the soil into amino acids are the building blocks of life and the explanation of the Soil Food Web.  However, in order for those amino acids to enter a plant and be part of the nitrogen budget of the plant they must have the assistance of the mycorrhizal fungi.  It's much more efficient for a plant to uptake amino acids whose molecules include nitrogen needed to build tissues than to uptake just nitrogen minus the amino acid.   The problem with dep