When I first accepted the position as the Texas AM AgriLife Extension IPM Agent for El Paso and Hudspeth Counties in 2019, I didn’t know how important they were to the producers. I grew up where pecan trees were for shade and pecan pie was just my favorite pie to eat. I quickly discovered that pecans were a major commodity for Far West Texas; I also learned about some of the pest issues for producers in El Paso. One pest I heard about in a lot of conversations was the pecan weevil. Luckily, I foundout that El Paso wasn’t plagued with this insect, but the question remained, “What if we get it here?” While the rest of Texas is infested with the pecan weevil, El Paso eluded infestation of this pest, but the pecan weevil is slowly making its way westward.Currently, all the counties in Texas are in quarantine except El Paso, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, Culberson, and Presidio counties. While there is a buffer area between El Paso and the rest of the quarantined state, the buffer started to decrease with Brewster County bordering nonquarantined counties.
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