The fact is pecans growing in monoculture have tremendously higher incidence of scab and other pests. Yet we continue to plant large contiguous blocks of the same variety of pecans. Models suggest that a planting pattern with a row of cultivar A, a row of cultivar B, and a row of cultivar C could reduce scab incidence by 65 percent when compared to planting the same cultivars in large blocks. I see no compelling management reason preventing a pattern of this type if it can reduce our number-one pestproblem this much, Such a pattern also can provide superior cross-pollination, reducing nut drop, and increasing nut size and quality.
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