Pecans are the only native nut in North America and are native to Arkansas. The pecan is the only large shell tree that grows naturally in North America, and the United States produces 80 percent of the world’s pecans. The pecan tree is a pecan tree and is the only source of commercially produced walnut trees in the United States.
Pecans come from the southern-central United States and Northern Mexico. States with strong associations to the pecan include Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Pecans are eaten plain, but they are more commonly used to make pies because of their rich and buttery flavor.
The pecan is the only tree nut native to North America and today holds an important place in the local culinary tradition and is a lucrative export. Pecans have been grown commercially because pecans are grown on trees native to the United States. Native to the United States, pecans have become our most successful home grown nut crop. Pecans have been grown commercially in Alabama since the early 20th century.
Pecans Are a Regional Favorite
Pecans have long been a favorite because they taste great and are easier to shell than other common nuts. Pecans were highly valued by Native Americans for their delicious taste, nutritional value, and being easier to shell than other North American nuts.
Trees were valued not only for shade in warm climates, but also for nuts, which have provided food for many indigenous peoples for centuries. Because wild pecans were readily available, many Native American tribes in the United States and Mexico used wild pecans as their primary food source in the fall.
Settlers in the pecan regions of what is now America collected nuts and even thin stands of native walnut trees to leave with better harvests, but did not attempt to grow them.
Impressions of Pecan Growers
Potential pecan growers did just that, planting entire orchards from their favorite tree, and were shocked when the resulting pecans turned out to be very different. The history of the Pecan tree indicates that walnut has become so popular that the first settlers soon planted a tree in the gardens and sent them abroad. The first pioneers of domestication of Pecan nuts were settlers along Mississippi, who experimented with growing nuts from their favorite trees.
Native Americans in Mexico and the United States are said to have been among the first to grow pecans, but in the late 1700s, American colonists recognized the economic potential of this delicious nut and began to expand pecan cultivation more aggressively for marketing purposes.
In the late 1700s and early 1800s, the pecan became a trade item for the American colonists and the pecan industry was born. Although wild pecans were well known as a delicacy among Native and Colonial Americans, the commercial growth of pecans in the United States did not begin until the 1880s.
For centuries, pecans have been a staple food of Indian tribes who lived in the wooded plains along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, from Illinois to the Gulf Coast, east Texas and Mexico. The pecan was the staple food of the Algonquins in the south-central region of the United States.
Native to the North American walnut, native to the Mississippi River Valley, eastern Texas, and northern Mexico, the pecan was introduced to the Mesilla Valley by settlers in the late 1800s. first arrived in New Mexico with American settlers at the turn of the 20th century.
Pecan Trees in the United States
Pecan trees grow wild in West Midwest, Southeast Texas, South Central and Oklahoma. Pecans are grown in abundance in southern states—Georgia, Alabama, Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma are major producers.
New Mexico is the largest producer of pecans in the United States, accounting for about 30% of the annual U.S. pecan production, but Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas and nine other southern states also grow pecans commercially . Overall, Georgia, New Mexico, and Texas are the top-producing states in terms of U.S. pecan production.
The top three pecan-producing states, including native and improved varieties, are Georgia, New Mexico, and central Texas. The United States is the largest producer of pecans in the world, and Georgia has historically been the largest pecan-producing state, typically accounting for about 33 percent of U.S. production.
The United States accounts for more than 40% of the global harvest pecans, with the bulk of production in the US accounted for Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas and Arizona. Pecan, only local walnut, grown on a commercial basis in the United States, is the main crop in the southern Great Plains.
Pecans are Culturally Relevant in the United States
With their gigantic trees, rooted in the rich and fertile banks of the many rivers flowing through the vast plains of the south-east of the United States more than 100 million years ago, pecans are the only large tree root in America, and they were not found. grow naturally anywhere else in the world.
Not just the pecan a state tree, but the Texas nut, the pecan is believed to have been initiated millions of years ago and remains the largest and finest in the world. Fortunately, the largest member of the pecan family, the majestic pecan tree can produce nuts for 100 years or more.
While there is evidence that pecan trees have grown wild in various parts of Europe, Asia, and North America over the past few million years, they thrive particularly well in the American South, and it is in this region that pecans have become an important industry. Southern pecans are as plentiful as the trees, with long, hot summers when the harvest usually falls in mid-October, just in time to restock Thanksgiving pies and sweet potato casseroles.
The pecan requires a long growing season, which is one of the reasons it thrives in the warm, damp southern states. The native range of pecans extends into the Midwest, so there are varieties that tolerate cold winters and long growing seasons. They are grown in backyards, gardens, and can be found in forests throughout Arkansas.
