Cape Fear has long been a profitable and well liked pecan for farmers in Georgia and Alabama. The tree is a very fast growing tree which if properly cared for can bring nuts into production in as little as 6-7 years. The tree is also a much lower maintenance tree and nut to care for during the growth cycle. Cape fear is not nearly as sensitive to scab as other nuts such as Desirable or Pawnee; and it doesn’t seem to be as affected by aphids in certain orchards around the southeastern United States. All these factors make the Cape Fear variety a great choice for planting. However, the Cape Fear does have a major downfall that at present seems to be incurable. Bacterial Leaf scorch is not uncommon to find in a Cape Fear orchard and currently there is nothing that can be done to remedy the problem. The bacterial leaf scorch will cause the tree to shed leaves significantly and this of course hinders the trees production. However, even with this incurable disease as a possibility cape fear can still be found in new orchard plantings. The low input cost of Cape Fear makes it a very attractive nut to plant. When comparing the input cost of a Cape Fear and a Desirable growers have reported that even when receiving $0.50 per in-shell pound less for a cape fear than a desirable the cape fear is still a more profitable nut. This year however that is not the case; the price of Cape Fear has surpassed Desirable currently by $0.08 per in-shell pound. This is due in large part to the Chinese market, several years back exporters started noticing more and more requests pure Cape Fear deliveries, and we have slowly seen the price catch up with the demand. Now for the first year we have seen Cape Fear prices surpass those of the famed Desirable. However the Desirable is still a very sought after pecan both domestically and internationally, so before you switch out your new plantings with all Cape Fear, keep in mind that once you get bacterial leaf scorch there is no getting rid of it as of yet.