Drought Devastating to Local Pecan Industry

Two years of drought may be more than many orchards and producers can take. All of agriculture in the county and Central Texas has been hammered by these ongoing conditions, but for those depending on trees for a living, it is extra hard. Drought has devastated the Central Texas pecan industry. In both 2022 and 2023, we have seen extreme and exceptional drought conditions in Central Texas and Comanche County pecan orchards- exceptional being the highest drought designation. Both years have also seen long spells of very high temperatures, but in 2023 we have exceeded 110 degrees multiple days and since July we have seen very few if any days under 100 degrees. Due to the drought and high evaporation conditions, keeping pecan orchards watered through irrigation has been a struggle and water restrictions have hit growers especially hard. Those that have wells for irrigation are being forced to cut back to ½ or less normal usage due to lower groundwater levels.

In Comanche County we saw income from pecans sales drop from $24,172,000.00 in 2021 to $11,348,700.00 in 2022, due to lost production because of drought. If National Weather Service predictions hold true for the next 3 months, we will receive little to no rainfall and with irrigation being cut way back on orchards we can expect production to drop to at least half of last year’s already poor levels. Seeing the current level of nut drop and knowing the weather outlook, at this point I will be surprised if we reach 5 million in sales this year.

We started seeing tree death last year and can expect increased death in both dryland and irrigated orchards for the next several years. My best estimation using the 2011-12 drought as a reference, is that we will lose 15% to 25% of the pecan trees in the county. If these conditions continue, this number will grow. Unfortunately, unlike an annual crop, we will see the effects of this drought for years to come. After planting a new tree, it takes 15 years to get decent production from a pecan tree. Before you can even plant those new trees, you have to remove the dead ones. With the potential for orchards to lose many acres of trees, clean-up will be slow and costly.

This large loss of current and future income is not only devastating for growers, but also the local economy. The pecan industry has a long history of providing jobs and pumping money into the local economy; for an agriculture-based county like Comanche, these losses will be hard if not impossible to make up. So, don’t complain about high pecan prices and enjoy those local pecans, a lot of work and worry has gone into producing them.