MEET THE MAKER
In the state of Georgia, Alex Willson is continuing the family tradition of growing, shelling and making sweets from a local speciality — pecans
Pecan-growing runs in the Willson family. Alex Willson’s grandparents began planting trees on their 1,760-acre plot, Sunnyland Farms, in the 1940s; his father installed a pioneering irrigation system here in the 1970s and today Alex heads up the business.
Although better known for its peanuts, Georgia is the US’s pecan powerhouse, producing a third of the American yield: about 40 million kilos. When Hurricane Michael swept through the state in 2018, it wiped out many smaller producers and destroyed 4,200 trees at Sunnyland, which sits just outside the city of Albany. “It hit us hard, because a pecan tree can take a decade to grow back,” says Alex, “but we have a lot of longevity.”
Of the remaining 600,000 trees in Sunnyland’s orchard, most are Eliot and Desirable Halves, varieties planted here in the 1980s as they’re less susceptible to freezedamage and scab, a common lesion that affects quality. Each spring, the trees bud and undergo pollination. “Hot and dry is best,”
Alex says of the weather. “but you also need an inch or two of rain a week. Then, when it rains, you hope for sun, so photosynthesis can happen.”
In mid-October, when the shells, or ‘shucks’, start to split, that means the nuts have matured. Large, ride-on machines are used to shake the nuts off the branches and gather them. In bumper years, when unreachable lowlying areas are bursting with pecans, farm staff each grab a sack and start harvesting by hand.
Sunnyland is a rare outfit that both grows and shells, so the haul is funnelled into shellers that crack and separate each nut.
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