Tom Morgan, age 9, of Patterson, N.J., for his question:

  WHERE DO PECAN TREES GROW?

  Pecan is a North American tree that is grown for its delicious  fruit, the pecan nut. The tree is actually a type of hickory and it  grows naturally in the Mississippi Valley region from Iowa southward  and in the river valleys of Oklahoma, Texas and northern Mexico.   Leading pecan growing state in the United States is Georgia where  more than 35,000 tons of the nuts are grown each year. Second place  honors go to Texas with more than 20,000 tons. Following, in order,  are Alabama, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

  Pecan orchards today have been planted throughout the Southern  states as far north as Virginia and also in California.   About 211 million pounds of pecan nuts are grown in an average  year, so you can see the trees provide an important industry. About  four fifths of the crop each year are marketed as shelled nuts.   Some pecan trees can produce as much as 500 pounds of nuts each  year. But the trees do not bear nuts until they are about five or  six years old. For another five years, they do not bear enough nuts  to be profitable. Only after the trees are about 20 years old does  the owner of a pecan orchard receive full return on his investment.

  Although the pecan is chiefly valuable for its fruit, its wood  is used in large amounts for flooring, furniture, boxes and crates.  Sometimes the wood is also used as fuel and for smoking meats.   An old pecan tree may grow 180 feet high. Its trunk is sometimes  four to six feet in diameter. The light brown or gray bark of the  trunk and branches is deeply furrowed and cracked.   The leaves on a pecan tree are from 12 to 20 inches long. They  are made up of from nine to 17 lace shaped leaflets. In autumn, the  leaves turn to a golden yellow color.

 

  Pecan orchard trees are usually grown by placing branch buds from  trees that bear fine quality nuts on seedling stocks.   Pecan flowers are pollinated by the wind. However, many varieties  cannot be pollinated by their own kind, so most pecan orchards contain  several different kinds of pecan trees.   The thin shelled pecans, called papershell, are the most popular  because their shells can be cracked between the fingers.   Growers usually harvest the pecans after they fall to the ground.  However, it is sometimes necessary to "thresh" the nuts from the trees  by tapping the branches with light poles.

  The nuts are taken to processing centers where they are cleaned,  graded and packaged. If the nuts are to be shelled, they are cracked  by machines, but the meat is removed by hand since it is very fragile.