It’s harvest time at pecan orchards in southwest Georgia. We’re the nation’s leading pecan producing state, but farmers are dealing with a serious threat to their crops. It’s a fungus called Pecan Scab. Pecan Scab. The fungus is worse this year, due to an unseasonably wet spring.

Tim Brenneman, a plant pathologist at the University of Georgia, says Pecan Scab is a major headache for farmers as they begin to harvest their crops.

“They will spend more money trying to control scab than they will on fertilizers, on insecticides, on all of the other cultural things they do on the trees. This will be their number one expense," he says.

Brenneman says only a limited number of fungicides work on Pecan Scab. UGA researchers are also working on strains of pecan trees that are less likely to develop the disease.

Pecan harvest season runs through the end of November. Brenneman says it’s too early to tell what impact Pecan Scab will have on total number of nuts farmers can pick, but he says retail prices will likely increase.

Tags: Bradley George, pecans, pecan scab, Tim Brenneman, University of Georgia