LOCATED just outside of Monash is one of the Riverland’s only pecan farms, Southern Sky Pecans.
Situated on nine acres, and boasting over 350 pecan trees with seven different varieties, the farm is owned and run by Riverland stalwart Dave Otto de Grancy.
Grape vines and citrus trees were previously on the property before Dave decided to take a different route 16 years ago and go with pecan trees instead.
“It took about nine years to get really anything off of them, you could get a handful if you were lucky,” Dave said.
We got knocked out by a hailstorm a couple of years ago and lost 100 per cent of our crop. We didn’t get anything, not even one nibble for ourselves.
“Around November is when we flower, and unfortunately that is our storm time here, so we usually get hit with the big storms.
“Last year in November when we had the big storms; one got Renmark and one got Loxton, we got the big winds but we were lucky we didn’t get the (hail storms), but we still lost a lot of flowers.”
Despite last November’s storm, Dave said this year is Southern Sky Pecans best harvest yet, with their biggest crop prior to this year being nine bins of pecans.
This year, once all is said and done, they will end up with 18 bins of pecans.
Dave contributed this success to a wet winter and spring last year, plus more of the pecan trees starting to come online.
“The trees are getting more mature, so we have got a lot more trees coming online,” he said.
“There are about 150 trees that I have grafted myself that are now online, and some of them in their first year of producing have produced great crops, which was a shock.
“We also had that very wet winter and spring, so I think the rains set up a decent crop.
“I think it’s just a whole bunch of things coming together, and I think we can start to expect crops like this from now on.
“It’s just been a really long, slow and expensive journey to this point, so hopefully we can start reaping the rewards from it in the next few years.”
Dave said from the outset they were going to grow organically and try to avoid using any chemicals where possible.
“We still have to spray Roundup or a weed killer,” he said.
We used to employ about 35 geese, they were getting pretty annoying but they did a good job."
Dave, who is also the South Australian rep for the Australian Pecan Growers Association, said out of the seven varieties of pecans he grows, there is only one variety he probably would avoid planting again, with the rest all performing “really well”.
“It’s a very, very slow process with the pecans, but the wait is worth it, and when they are in leaf it’s such a beautiful area,” he said,
“We sell about half our crop to a big processor in Toowoomba, which are all the pecans you see in Coles and Woolworths, and then we have our own processing plant here which is all put away at the moment.
“We get the pecans in the shed, we will run them through the machine, clean them up and then we put them into the container and dry them.
“Then we will get our processing plant, which is a lot smaller and slower than the other stuff, and we will process about two tonnes of our own pecans.
“Next year I hope to make a really big purchase and get ourselves a proper processing plant that can handle the large number of tonnes.”
Dave said the biggest challenges Southern Sky Pecans face are getting water, and the isolation from the rest of the industry.
Despite this, Dave described being able to run the pecan farm as being “like heaven to me”.
“When you are walking through the trees, especially in the summertime when it’s a beautiful, thick canopy; it’s such a peaceful and beautiful place,” he said.
“I actually just love the serenity of it to be honest with you, it’s super calming and we grow a good crop.
“It’s kind of exciting to know we are here in Monash producing some of the best pecans in the nation.”
