A pe-can do attitude!

As September turned into October and the husks of the pecan crop have opened to signify their ripeness, pecan grower Troy Swift, who runs Swift River Pecans, LLC with his wife Athanasee, has had a problem. It’s been raining in the area and his orchards are more mud than dirt most weeks.

“We live in Texas and we always want it to rain, except in mid-October, November and early December because you can’t harvest when it is wet,” Swift said.

Pete Moreno blows freshly shaken pecans out of the mud so the harvester will be able to pick them up.

He’s been able to harvest some of his trees on his 266 acres, but not all due to the threat of mud being sucked into the harvester he uses to pick the pecans up once they’ve been shaken off the trees.

“Once the pecan opens up you either harvest it or it falls on the ground and an animal eats it or in this case we have mud so there is just going to be pecans in the mud. They’re OK as long as we can get to them pretty soon, but if it stays this way for a month or something we’re in trouble,” Swift said.

It’s just one of the yearly hazards of being a pecan grower in Texas.

Pecan grower Troy Swift pulls down the pecan-laden branch of the Nacono pecan tree to show the split shucks around the nuts that signify the tree’s readiness for harvesting.

Growing pecans wasn’t Swift’s original plan — he just fell in love with the San Marcos River. In the ‘70s and ‘80s he used to canoe the river often (including as a racer in the Texas Water Safari) and a property caught his eye.

“There was a place on the river that I said that if I ever had the opportunity and the money I would buy that place,” Swift said.

Kenny Saunders waits for the go ahead before starting up the shaker once he has it in position to shake the pecans from the tree onto the ground for harvesting.

In 1998 he had the money and the opportunity and bought what would eventually become the first orchard of his business in Staples.

When he started, Swift knew nothing about growing pecans, but the property had a small orchard and the stretch of the river there is ringed with native pecan trees.

“I found it interesting. I got educated in the topic and now enjoy growing pecans and entering contests to win awards,” Swift said.

Pecan pieces bounce down a vibrating table as they are sorted by size after being cleaned and processed for sale at the shop.

Now he grows more than 10 varieties of both improved and native pecan tree species and has a streamlined system to sort and clean both shelled and unshelled pecans in large volumes. Swift also offers custom harvesting for other landowners with pecan trees which can add to his supply of pecans after harvesting anywhere from 1,500 to 2,500 acres.

The market for his crop will depend, as it does every year, on whether it has been as been as good a harvest for his competitors and fellow growers. Since pecan trees are alternate bearing, one year there might be a large crop followed by a smaller harvest the following year. There’s always the chance that multiple growers might have hit a good year for a high-yield harvest driving up the supply and lowering prices.   

Troy Swift pours a basket of pecans into his Savage Silverline system which will crack, process and sort the pecan meat.

This year, Swift sees a record harvest of high quality pecans, both improved and native variety, providing can get to all of it for harvest.

“One reason for that is that in the two orchards that we planted the trees are growing bigger and bigger every year so they are producing more and more,” Swift said.

Despite the frustrations of being subject to Mother Nature, Swift enjoys the constant push for his business to be “always improving our process and trying to offer the best pecans money can buy.”

Fifty pound bags of unshelled pecans are stacked and labeled by variety after being packaged in the shop.

For more information visit the Swift River Pecans, LLC website.