All They’re Cracked Up to Be
Design by Alex Povis. Photo by Jennifer Silverberg.
When Kevin McGraw and his family first planted pecan trees in St. Charles, Missouri, in 1994, there was hardly anything but old farmhouses between their property and the Missouri River. Today, the orchard is surrounded by subdivisions; the trees are practically hidden from sight.
Kevin, a dentist, and his wife, Vicky, who previously worked in medical record administration, bought 15 acres of a 50-acre farm in 1992, 10 years after Kevin opened his nearby dental practice.
“I wish we would’ve had the money to buy the whole farm. How fun would that have been?” Vicky says. The remaining land was bought up by developers within a couple of years.
The McGraws spent one year just clearing out the property before they could even think about planting. “I like to grow things," Kevin says. "I wanted to do something, but didn’t have a clue what it would be." Vicky’s father, Cal Fuss, suggested pecans. Kevin wasn't even aware that you could grow pecans in Missouri – much less that a native variety grows in the state – but after doing some research and investigating the soil, he found it would be ideal. The couple ordered about 250 Missouri native pecan trees from the Missouri Conservation Commission, planted them, and then grafted on the varieties of pecans they wanted. But it would be several years before they had anything to show for it.
That first spring, Kevin installed plastic tubes around the saplings to protect them. The following spring, they were excited when their trees started to leaf out, but within three days, deer had eaten every single leaf. After that, Kevin went out and bought fencing to protect each individual tree. As inexperienced growers, it wouldn’t be the first lesson they would learn along the way – or the last tree they’d lose. A failed attempt at fertilizing the trees resulted in the loss of about a third of the orchard. They got maybe four pecans out of the harvest that year. “We were so excited,” Vicky says.
The next year, almost another third were killed by accidentally severing roots with a hoe. “So, they’ve been replanted a few times,” Kevin laughs.
“These [trees] are some survivors,” Vicky agrees.