Drought and Relentless Heat Push Texas Pecan Growers to the Brink
Winston Millican, the fifth-generation owner of Millican Pecan farm, knows hundreds of his 10,000 pecan trees individually, from the size of their ...
Winston Millican, the fifth-generation owner of Millican Pecan farm, knows hundreds of his 10,000 pecan trees individually, from the size of their last crop to the health of particular branches—a feat of memorization decades in the making. Located just outside San Saba, a close-knit farming community northwest of Austin, the four-hundred-acre farm consists mostly of dense pecan orchards nestled alongside a winding stretch of the olive-green San Saba River. In many places, this idyllic agricultural landscape looks much the way it did before the arrival of European settlers 170 years ago.