A tougher pecan: Georgia farms explore climate change mitigation

As spring arrives and summer draws near, Georgians are gearing up for in-season produce to crop up: pecans, peaches, melons, tomatoes and everything else under the Georgia sun. While Georgia may be best known for its poultry business, or even its bustling electric vehicle development, produce farmers of all stripes are spread throughout the state.

To support the backbone of Georgia's agricultural economy, experts in academia and nonprofits are working to mitigate the impacts climate change is having on the state's lands.

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A changing climate impacts Georgia's growing season

Pam Knox is an agricultural climatologist and the director of the University of Georgia's UGA Weather Network, a collection of 86 stations monitoring Georgia's weather and climate since 1991. Georgia is already feeling climate change, from heavier storms to hotter summers, and Knox said it is another factor for farmers to contend with along with market forces, input costs and other strains.

"Fruit production has suffered ... because we have (fewer) chill hours," Knox said. Longer and hotter summers spell problems for fruits and veggies that require those chill hours, which are hours when the temperature is below 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Many types of fruit and vegetables need those cool-down hours as part of their natural clock telling them when to grow, flower and fruit.

Another challenge is that when a warm spell comes through early, everything starts blooming and becomes more susceptible to a cold snap, what Georgians know affectionately as "false spring." When development gets off-track like this, it can increase farmers' crop loss and in turn, their revenue.

In response, Knox said that farmers are experimenting with management practices — like planting one crop in the first half of the season and another in the same place for the second half, or using updated irrigation methods —and introducing new varieties of crops that are more resilient to the weather changes that farmers are seeing.

"Diversification is really key," Knox said. "By looking at different varieties, they can reduce their risk a little bit, but every year is different. And even if we didn't have late frost last year, that doesn't mean we're not going to have one this year."

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A two-pronged approach in pecan country

One crop the University of Georgia is looking to adapt is the iconic Georgia pecan. At the university's research orchard in Tifton, Lenny Wells, the UGA Cooperative Extension's pecan specialist, is one leg of a USDA research grant focused on developing pecan trees better adapted to climate change and resilient to disease.

Pecan prices have dropped in recent years, in part due to shifting demand abroad and tariffs between the U.S. and China, Wells said. At the same time, input costs — like the price of fertilizers — have been on a steep incline. Trying to keep pecans profitable for growers is the biggest goal, so maximizing the health and production of pecan orchards is essential.

From an environmental standpoint, pecan trees have a lot to contend with. Besides the general risks of climate change, pests and diseases are also chipping away at orchards. The most common in the Southeast is pecan scab, a fungal disease spread by water on the leaf surface. In a wet year, pecan scab can spread quickly and cause a total loss for growers.

"(Pecan scab) is really driven by humidity, and of course, we have plenty of that here in the Southeast," Wells said. "And the more frequent the rainfall during the growing season, the more that fungus, that disease thrives."

In the Southeast, Wells said there are about 20 varieties of pecans regularly grown that have varying degrees of susceptibility to pecan scab. But in a cruel stroke of irony, historically the types of pecan trees more likely to get the disease are also the ones that produce the best and largest nuts, making them the most desirable to farmers. These require more fungicides, something farmers want to use less for ecological and financial reasons.

In comes the two-pronged approach: Wells said that UGA's Patrick Connor and scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are tasked with developing new pecan varieties that marry the pecan scab resistance with desirable nut qualities. Meanwhile, Wells is working with farmers on management practices that can make orchards more resilient and better producing.

Wells is targeting water-use-related stress and how farmers could use less fertilizer, and thus save money, by using hedge pruning: strategic tree trimming. The method can make more-compact trees that are healthier and use water more efficiently. Another benefit is that it can help battle another disease, bacterial leaf scorch, that gets into the vascular system of a tree and stops water from reaching where it needs to in the tree. Wells said hedge pruning can help stop the trees from expressing symptoms of the disease.

They are also joined in the grant by Joonhyuk Suh and Ronald Pegg, UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences researchers focusing on the chemistry behind breeding the best pecans trees for the grant.

Working to reach organic

"To put it real simply, to take carbon out of the air and put it into the soil, it needs to be life," said Michael Wall, the advocacy director of Georgia Organics, a nonprofit aimed at investing in farmers for the health of communities and land. "Carbon equals life, and the soil is teeming with microbes."

Wall is a seventh-generation farmer and a self-proclaimed soil nerd, and with Georgia Organics he's held several roles over 15 years. The organization helps certify farms as organic by providing technical assistance, connecting farmers to funding, fostering community among organic farmers and helping raise funds for disaster relief after hurricanes, freezes or tornadoes impact farms.

While agriculture sometimes has the finger pointed at it for its impact on climate change, Wall said farmers can be part of the solution through responsible management practices. Farms can play a role in requesting carbon through having healthy soil. And Wall said there are added benefits: The higher soil organic matter a farmer has, the more buffer they have against floods and droughts. Moreover, healthier soil is better at keeping out pests and diseases.

Achieving healthier soil is a combination of a lot of approaches, including planting cover crops, adopting a no-till strategy and rotating crops. Georgia Organics provides technical assistance and works to help fund farmers for new equipment they may need, like a cover crop crimper, that are expensive.

Marisa is an environmental journalist. She can be reached at 912-328-4411 or at mmecke@gannett.com.