Pecans are native to North America. Ninety-five percent of the world's pecan crop is grown in the Sunbelt region of the United States, where the combination of year-round sunshine, warmth and moisture provide the perfect climate.

The word "pecan" is Algonquin meaning "any nut requiring a stone to crack." Originating in central and eastern North America and the river valley of Mexico, pecans were widely used by Native Americans as a major food source.

Spanish colonists first cultivated pecan trees in northern Mexico in the early 1700's. By the late 1770's the economic potential of pecans was realized by French and Spanish colonists settling along the Gulf of Mexico. By 1802 the French began exporting pecans to the West Indies. During the 1700's and the early 1800's in San Antonio Texas the wild pecan harvest was more valuable than row crops such as cotton.

Commercial Cultivation

In 1822 Abner Landrum of South Carolina discovered a pecan budding technique. Then, in Louisiana in 1846 an African-American slave gardener named Antoine successfully propagated pecans by grafting a superior wild pecan to seedling pecan stocks. It wasn't until the 1880's however, that the propagation of pecans on commercial level began.