The United States and Mexico grow the vast majority of the world’s pecans, and they have for as long as the crop has been commercially cultivated. The pecan tree (Carya illinoinensis) is native to North America, with its natural range stretching from the river valleys of the central and southern United States into the highlands of northern Mexico. That geographic origin still defines the industry: the U.S. typically accounts for roughly half or more of global production in a good year, with Mexico close behind. But production is shifting in interesting ways, both within these traditional strongholds and in newer growing regions halfway around the world.
The American Heartland of Pecan Production
Three U.S. states consistently lead pecan output: New Mexico, Georgia, and Texas. New Mexico is currently the largest pecan-producing state in the country, with most of its orchards concentrated in the Mesilla Valley and the lower Rio Grande Valley, where warm days, mild winters, and access to irrigation water create favorable conditions.1Agricultural Water Management. Evaluation of long-term climate change impact on the growing season and water use of mature pecan in Lower Rio Grande Valley Georgia typically ranks second, and its humid southeastern climate gives it a very different growing profile from the arid Southwest. Texas rounds out the top three, benefiting from both native pecan groves along its river bottoms and irrigated orchards in its western reaches.
These three states together usually account for the lion’s share of U.S. production, but pecans are also commercially grown in Oklahoma, Arizona, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and the Carolinas. The crop’s range within the U.S. roughly mirrors its native habitat: a wide band from the Gulf Coast up through the southern Great Plains, wherever winters are cold enough to satisfy the tree’s dormancy requirements but not so cold that late spring frosts routinely destroy the flowers.
Mexico’s Growing Role
Mexico is the world’s second-largest pecan producer and in some years rivals the United States in total output. The state of Chihuahua dominates Mexican production, particularly the irrigated orchards around the city of Delicias and along the Conchos River basin. Sonora and Coahuila also contribute meaningful volumes. Mexican orchards tend to be large-scale and heavily irrigated, and a significant share of Mexican pecans are exported to the U.S. and China.
Northern Mexico and the American Southwest essentially form one continuous pecan-growing region that straddles the international border. The lower Rio Grande Valley, for instance, has orchards on both sides. Pests like the pecan nut casebearer, one of the crop’s most economically damaging insects, are found throughout the pecan-producing regions of the central and southwestern United States and northern Mexico alike.2Journal of Integrated Pest Management. Biology and Management of the Pecan Nut Casebearer (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) Management strategies for pests and diseases often have to be coordinated across this shared growing zone.
Why These Regions and Not Others
Pecan trees are picky about climate in ways that narrow the list of suitable growing regions worldwide. They need a long, warm growing season, typically around 200 to 220 frost-free days, to fill and mature their nuts. They also need winter chill: most commercial varieties require several hundred hours of temperatures below about 7°C (45°F) during dormancy to break bud properly in spring. That combination of warm summers and genuinely cold winters rules out the tropics and most of the temperate maritime climates of Western Europe.
Water is the other constraint. A mature pecan orchard is a heavy water user, consuming as much as 1,200 to 1,300 mm of water over the course of a growing season.1Agricultural Water Management. Evaluation of long-term climate change impact on the growing season and water use of mature pecan in Lower Rio Grande Valley In the arid Southwest and northern Mexico, that water comes almost entirely from irrigation. In the humid Southeast, rainfall does much of the work, but supplemental irrigation is still common during dry spells. Either way, reliable access to water is non-negotiable for a productive orchard.
Young orchards use considerably less water because their canopies are small. Research on young pecan orchards in northern Mexico found that when tree canopies covered less than a fifth of the orchard area, actual daily water loss during the growing season was only about 1 to 2 mm, a fraction of what mature trees transpire.3Bentham Science Publishers. Determination of the Water use Efficiency of a Pecan Nut Orchard based on the Irrigation Scheduling and the Evapotranspiration Rate in Northern Mexico That matters for growers establishing new orchards, since early water costs are lower, but it also means that newly planted regions will face escalating water demands as their trees reach full production.
New Players in the Southern Hemisphere
One of the more striking developments in the global pecan industry over the past couple of decades is the expansion of commercial orchards in the Southern Hemisphere. South Africa, Brazil, and Australia have all planted significant new acreage, and their harvests arrive during the Northern Hemisphere’s off-season, which gives them a market timing advantage for fresh-crop nuts.
South Africa’s pecan industry is growing rapidly, with orchards concentrated in the Limpopo and North West provinces.4PubMed Central. Multigene Phylogeny and Pathogenicity Trials Revealed Alternaria alternata as the Causal Agent of Black Spot Disease and Seedling Wilt of Pecan (Carya illinoinensis) in South Africa The country has warm summers, adequate chill in parts of its interior, and available irrigation water in some river valleys. As the industry scales up, South African growers are encountering fungal diseases that are new to their region, a reminder that transplanting a crop to a new continent brings its own biological challenges.
In Brazil, pecan cultivation has been expanding in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, which is now the country’s leading pecan-producing region. A recent characterization of the industry there found that most orchards are relatively small, with about two-thirds covering four hectares or less, and average productivity of roughly 1,100 kg per hectare in the 2023 harvest.5Agrociencia Uruguay. Characterization of Pecan Farming in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil The same study found that nearly 80% of orchards use conventional management and fewer than 10% have irrigation, which suggests a young industry that has room to grow as practices mature and infrastructure improves.
Australia, particularly parts of New South Wales and Queensland, has also planted commercial pecan orchards. The volumes are still modest on a global scale, but like South Africa and Brazil, Australian growers benefit from counter-seasonal harvests.
China as a Buyer and a Grower
China’s relationship with pecans has two sides. It has become one of the largest importers of pecans, particularly in-shell nuts from the U.S. and Mexico. At the same time, China has been planting its own pecan orchards, primarily in provinces like Yunnan, Anhui, and Jiangsu. Chinese orchards are mostly young, so their contribution to global supply is still limited, but the planted acreage has grown substantially. Whether Chinese domestic production will significantly reduce the country’s dependence on imports remains to be seen; it depends on how well the trees perform across diverse Chinese climates and how quickly the orchards reach full maturity, which for pecans can take a decade or more.
The Alternate Bearing Problem
One of the defining features of pecan production, and a reason global supply bounces around from year to year, is a phenomenon called alternate bearing. Pecan trees tend to produce a heavy crop one year and a light crop the next. This isn’t random: a tree that puts enormous energy into filling a large nut crop in a given year depletes its carbohydrate reserves and reduces the number of flowers it initiates for the following year. Research has pointed to the role of both carbohydrate pools at bud break and hormonal signals, particularly gibberellins during fruit development, as regulators of this cycle.6Acta Horticulturae. INSIGHT INTO ALTERNATE BEARING OF PECAN
Alternate bearing means that pecan supply can swing dramatically from one season to the next, and that swing affects prices, processing capacity, and export volumes. It is one of the reasons the pecan market is more volatile than markets for tree crops that produce more consistently. Researchers have been investigating whether plant growth regulators could help smooth out the cycle; early results show some promise, though the mechanisms of flower initiation in pecans are still not fully understood.7HortScience. Exogenous Plant Growth Regulators Show Promise for Management of Alternate Bearing in Pecan For now, commercial growers manage alternate bearing through a combination of thinning fruit in heavy-crop years, maintaining tree nutrition, and accepting that production will fluctuate.
Diseases and Pests That Shape Where Pecans Thrive
The geographic distribution of pecan production isn’t just about climate and water. It’s also shaped by the diseases and pests that the crop faces in different environments. The single most economically important pecan disease is pecan scab, caused by the fungus Fusicladium effusum. Scab thrives in warm, humid conditions, attacking leaves, shoots, and developing fruit. It reduces photosynthesis, shrinks nut size, degrades quality, and can even suppress the following year’s crop by stressing the tree.8CABI Compendium. Fusicladium effusum (pecan scab) Controlling scab with fungicides is expensive, and the cost burden is heaviest in the humid Southeast, where conditions favor the pathogen.
This is one reason the geographic center of U.S. pecan production has shifted westward over the decades. New Mexico and western Texas have arid climates where scab pressure is minimal, which reduces fungicide costs and makes it easier to produce clean, marketable nuts. Georgia and other southeastern states remain major producers, but their growers spend considerably more on disease management. Cultivar selection matters too: some popular varieties are highly susceptible to scab, while others carry partial resistance. Breeding programs have been working for decades to develop varieties that combine scab resistance with desirable nut characteristics, but progress is slow because pecan trees take years to reach bearing age and even longer to evaluate fully.
Among insect pests, the pecan nut casebearer stands out. Its larvae bore into developing nutlets shortly after pollination, and damage from the first generation in spring is the primary economic concern, though second and third generations can also cause losses.2Journal of Integrated Pest Management. Biology and Management of the Pecan Nut Casebearer (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) Pecan weevils, aphids, and stink bugs are other significant pests depending on region. Integrated pest management programs that time sprays based on insect monitoring have reduced the pesticide load in many orchards, but pest management remains a significant ongoing cost for commercial growers.
Water Scarcity and Climate Pressures
The long-term viability of pecan production in some of its most productive regions is closely tied to water availability. In New Mexico’s lower Rio Grande Valley, pecans are a major water user in a basin where water is already over-allocated. Climate change adds another layer of pressure: warmer temperatures can extend the growing season, which sounds beneficial until you realize that a longer growing season means the trees need even more water.1Agricultural Water Management. Evaluation of long-term climate change impact on the growing season and water use of mature pecan in Lower Rio Grande Valley Research tracking conditions in the region over more than a century has found measurable shifts in growing season length and water demand that are already affecting production economics.
Similar water tensions exist in parts of northern Mexico, where aquifer depletion and competition from other agricultural and municipal users are ongoing concerns. The irony is that the regions where pecans face the least disease pressure, the arid Southwest and northern Mexico, are the same regions where water is most constrained. And the regions where water is abundant, the humid Southeast, are where disease management costs are highest. There’s no free lunch in pecan geography.
For the Southern Hemisphere regions still scaling up, water infrastructure will be a key determinant of how far production can grow. The Brazilian study noted that fewer than 10% of orchards in Rio Grande do Sul currently have irrigation.5Agrociencia Uruguay. Characterization of Pecan Farming in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil That may work in a subtropical climate with decent rainfall, but it limits yield potential and exposes growers to drought risk in dry years.
Native Groves Versus Planted Orchards
An often overlooked distinction in pecan production is the difference between native groves and improved planted orchards. In Texas, Oklahoma, and parts of other states, wild pecan trees growing along riverbanks and bottomlands have been harvested for generations. These native groves produce smaller nuts with thicker shells than the large, thin-shelled varieties that come from grafted orchard trees. Native pecans have a distinctive, often richer flavor that some buyers specifically seek out, but their yields are lower and less predictable.
Improved orchards, by contrast, use named cultivars grafted onto rootstock, planted in rows with calculated spacing, and managed with irrigation, fertilization, and pest control. The nuts are larger, more uniform, and easier to shell mechanically. Most commercial production worldwide comes from improved orchards. The shift from native harvest to planted orchards has been one of the major trends in the industry over the past century, and it is continuing as new growing regions like South Africa and Brazil plant modern cultivar stock from the start.
That said, native pecans still represent a meaningful share of the Texas crop in some years, and they command premium prices in niche markets. A few specialty shellers market native pecans specifically, and some chefs and bakers prefer them for their flavor profile. The native grove harvest also fluctuates wildly depending on rainfall, temperature, and alternate bearing, making it one of the least predictable segments of the industry.
How Pecans Get From Orchard to Table
Understanding where pecans are grown also means understanding where they are processed, which is a separate geography. After harvest, pecans in the shell need to be dried, sized, and either sold in-shell or sent to a shelling plant where they are cracked, the kernels extracted, sorted by size and color, and packaged. The major shelling operations in the U.S. are concentrated in Georgia, Texas, and New Mexico, near the growing regions. Mexico has expanded its own shelling capacity but still exports a large share of its crop as in-shell nuts.
China’s appetite for in-shell pecans has reshaped global trade flows. Chinese consumers traditionally crack and eat pecans as a snack, similar to how sunflower seeds are consumed. This in-shell market absorbed large volumes of American and Mexican pecans during the 2010s, and shifts in Chinese demand or tariff policy can ripple through orchard-gate prices in the U.S. within a single season. The market’s sensitivity to one buyer’s purchasing decisions is a vulnerability the industry is well aware of, and there have been efforts to diversify export destinations and grow domestic U.S. consumption through marketing campaigns promoting pecans as a health food.
The pecan industry’s global footprint is still overwhelmingly North American, but the Southern Hemisphere expansion and China’s dual role as both buyer and emerging grower are gradually changing the picture. For now, if a pecan ends up in your kitchen, the odds are strong it was grown within a few hundred miles of the Rio Grande.