I have a Colby near my Pawnee, but here's a site which might help: http://extension-horticulture.tamu.edu/carya/pecans/pecalph.htm Pawnee is supposed to be iffy for my area, but I wanted to try it for the nut size. As to sources....there I don't know. Are there any pecans in your area? I was surprised to find that native pecans are about the most common tree I have on my 10 acres because this area of Missouri is not known for them. Of course the nuts from these trees are very small, but I expect they will serve to pollinate my trees. I have five grafted trees, two each of Pawnee and Peruque and one Colby, all of which came from the Forrest Keeling Nursery. I don't know if they will sell to the general public. I got my trees through a pecan orchard located in the Missouri pecan capital west of me, and one directly from Forrest Keeling when they had a display at a university sponsored nut festival. All of these trees have done well, and three are really doing well. They were planted in 2004, and there were two nuts each on the Colby and one of the Peruques last year, which is relatively early I think. You might try contacting Forrest Keeling to see what they can do. They grow their grafted trees in the bottomless pots and the trees have a really nice dense root structure as a result. Chuck

scotjute makes good points. The USDA/ARS Pecan Breeding & Genetics website (linked below) has descriptions and nut photos of a large number of the named pecan varieties, whether Southern, northern/midwestern, or far-northern selections - and in some of those descriptions, they comment on tree size, branch angles, etc., in addition to nut size and disease/pest resistance/susceptibility, pollen-shed/nutlet receptivity patterns, etc. I grew up in UCLA(upper corner of lower Alabama), where pecans - grafted and seedling - are everywhere. Have seen those broad, spreading orchard trees, tall timber-type volunteer seedlings in creekbottom swamps that may not have branches for the first 30-40 ft, and venerable old giants isolated out in the middle of cow pastures. Some develop short-lived yellow fall color, but many just go quickly to brown; it's a crapshoot, and as indicated, they're usually planted for nut production, not necessarily for aesthetic qualities - though the huge old Mahan and Stuart trees, now over 100 yrs old, shading my family home were most pleasing to me - and certainly provided welcome shade. Dr. Bill Reid, in his Northern Pecan blog - linked earlier in this thread - has an entry on 14 Sept that does a nice job of covering climatic adaptation of pecans - with regard to areas where maturation of nuts is possible. Evidently, the trees may be hardy and grow well in some areas of the country, but maturation of nuts may be a virtual impossibility due to insufficient growing-degree days(or whatever). Here is a link that might be useful: USDA Pecan Breeding & Genetics

USDA has a photo of 'Elgin' - but no description in their cultivar list Here is a link that might be useful: USDA Pecan Breeding & Genetics

The pecan weevils have two-year cycles so I bet you had a lot of pecans in 2007. By now most of the weevils are probably already out of the ground and in the trees so this may not work so well, but you could try a ring of tanglefoot around the trunk as high as you can get it up. Circle traps are what we use around some trees to monitor the weevil populations, but they will catch many, if not most, of them as long as there are not a lot of other trees close by that they are flying in from. You may already know some of most of this, but for those that don't, the weevils emerge from the ground in August and September after good rains soften up the ground. Some walk and some fly to the nearest trunks (sometimes directly into trees if branches are low) and then climb up the rest of the way into the trees. They spend a few days exploring and mating and then start to deposit eggs. If they don't find them in the trees they climb into, they will fly to the next one, etc., until they find pecans or hickory nuts. The nuts are only susceptible between when they turn from liquid to dough inside (mid-August in south and late August in north of state) until the shucks split in October-ish. The weevil lays eggs into the pecans which hatch into the little worms that eat and then tunnel out of the pecans after 40 to 45 days give or take and drop to the ground to emerge two years later as weevils. The only way to kill them once they are in the trees is with a large sprayer using Sevin or other insecticide. By now they have already cause many pecans to drop (probed by the weevil before it reaches the dough stage) or be infested with the worms, so there is not much you can do. Scab has been about average here, but not near as bad as 2007 and not quite as bad as last year. It's too late to do anything now though. Where are your trees located, and are they natives or cultivars?