By Shala Gean
Communications Specialist
Pecan harvest generally begins late September or early October in DeWitt County. But this year, most growers won’t have a crop to harvest due to damage sustained from Hurricane Harvey.
Pecan orchards in the region took a hard hit, according to DeWitt County Extension Agent Anthony Netardus.
“We’ve pretty much lost the whole crop,” Netardus said. “The high winds and the pecans got beat up and knocked out of the tree, and then the nuts that have fallen since then.”
Netardus said pecan growers in the Cuero area have pretty much lost their entire crop.
“The trees were beat up and hammered and the orchard floors are a mess with broken limbs,” Netardus said.
The orchards, according to Netardus, were hit by wind and also flooding from the Guadalupe River.
“We are going to lose this year’s crop, and it’s going to take some time and effort between now and next growing season to get things cleaned up and ready for next year,” Netardus said.
Errol John Dietze Sr. and his son Johnny Dietze own a 450-acre pecan orchard on the Guadalupe River near Cuero.
Dietze, former president of the Texas Pecan Growers Association, grows several different varieties of pecans and has been in the business for more than four decades.
“I lost 50-75 big, native pecan trees that were nearly 100 years old,” Dietze said. “The cost of cleanup is tremendous. The entire bottom is saturated with limb breakage.”
Dietze said the pecans have turned black because of flood waters.
He lost 50 trees due to the 125 mile-per-hour winds and about 25 trees were lost due to flooding. Other trees were knocked over because of the wind and saturation from the water.
There are areas of Dietze’s orchard that he probably won’t be able to access for another two weeks because of the flooding. He expects cleanup will take from up to six months.
“It’s going to set me back, and I’ll never recover because of my age,” he said.
Dietze said other pecan growers in the area experienced the same losses.
The Texas pecan crop was faring well prior to the storm, according to Dr. Larry Stein, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension horticulturist in Uvalde.
“Once you clean it up, get the broken limbs out, the trees look amazingly well,” Stein told the Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) Radio Network. “If the trees looked healthy and you were taking care of them, they will respond. In a year or two, you won’t remember this type of damage that you’re seeing right now. They will recover. It’s just going to take a bit of time.”