Richard: I would suggest the following cultivars for you: "Amling", "Caddo", "Sumner" and "Pawnee". These are all good commercial quality nuts well suited to the Deep South.

I can't comment on cultivars suited for TX, but Dr. Bill Goff makes the following recommendations for cultivars for home or low-input plantings in the Southeast(this quote from a discussion thread in this forum on 'Growing Pecan Trees':

"I am a Professor at Auburn University and have been evaluating pecans, particularly for scab resistance, for 20 years. Following this research, we suggest only 6 cultivars for home and low-input plantings. They are: Elliott (the standard of scab resistant cultivars, with exceptional disease resistance and quality, but disadvantages of alternate bearing, aphid susceptibility, and early budbreak leading to spring freeze damage), Jenkins, McMillan, Syrup Mill, Gafford, and Carter.
Without sprays, I classify the following cultivars mentioned previously as Terrible (meaning unlikely to ever produce a decent nut crop) : Desirable, Nacono
Bad: Meaning producing decent nuts less than half the time in the absence of sprays: Gloria Grande, Stuart, Cape Fear.
OK: Usually producing decent nuts: Curtis
The varieties suggested as 'Good' are rarely available commercially, as most nurseries sell reject, left-over trees of commercial varieties like Desirable that knowledgeable commercial growers won't have to retail nurseries.
A few nurseries are starting to hear us and catering to small-scale orchards and homeowners. These nurseries include Underwood Nursery, Foley, AL 334-943-8056; Dellwood Nursery, Foley, AL 334-943-8693: and Southern Heritage Nursery (container trees), Bastrop, LA 318-281-0681. Don't expect to buy any of the recommended trees without reserving them a year in advance."

Good luck finding any of the above. I live in Beaumont about 100 miles or less from you. Try Womacks in DeLeon, TX. They ship and are a good place to buy from and I bought from them last year. Here is what I did. I bought two potted trees from a big box store in 3 foot deep pots. They really took off and had pecans in 3 years(good). They were supposed to be choctaw and cheyenne and they might have been. But, you can't trust the big boxes to label the varieties correctly as I have learned in a personal way before on a persimon tree(not so good). I got scions for kanza and nacano(new releases form the USDA) and texas bark grafted the trees last year. I might just add elliot to the top of my nacano this spring after seeing the Auburn U guy's advice. I know a guy with a pecan orchard who has many varieties of pecan. E-mail me at mrtejas at lycos.com(replace the at with @) if you want the e-mail of the pecan orchard guy in Santa Fe, TX. The Texas A&M experts now recommend smaller sized(nuts) pecans which is why I changed them. The smaller ones have proven themselves to be more consistent and heavier bearers than the larger ones. Pawnee is a good one also. I am not home, but will be tomorrow and can tell you what the Aggie experts recommendations are for now.

Texas A&M now recommends smaller nut eastern varieties for Texas as they have provent to bear more heavily and more reliably than the larger nut varieties:

kanza, osage, elliot, caddo, prilop

older recommendation for larger nuts:
mohawk, choctaw, kiowa

A good source for pecan scions in Santa Fe, TX:

rlmarx at mpcr.net(replace the at with @)

Bob has a pecan orchard with many varieties in it.

Thanks so much for posting this. I think it would be heaven to live in the middle of a pecan grove. I have been wanting to buy some pecan trees, but they are hard to find around here. I'm in Orange.

I just got back from a trip to Oklahoma, Monday, and there is a place called Pecan Point right across the Red River, in Oklahoma. There are so many pecan trees up there, growing near the river. It is a local cash crop for that area. I would think being near the river would be an advantage to you.

Susie

The Folks at A&M have a suggested list of pecans for the Houston area. Anyone know where I can buy a Choctaw and a Cheyenne? It's time to plant them now. Bare root is OK but if there are some container-grown in the Houston area, that would be much better. I'm impatient to see them set fruit.

Heavy clay soil here but I'm near the shore of Lake Conroe and the water table should be within 20' of the surface.

Here is a link that might be useful: Texas Coop Extension for Harris County - pecan recommendations

http://www.texaspecannursery.com/

RE: texas pecan nursery (www.texaspecannusery.com): Don't let the name fool you, they sell all kinds of fruit and nut trees. The only drawback is that most everything is bare-root and must be purchased 10 at a time. Kind of more of a commercial wholesaler, I think.