Toombs County Magazine Fall/Winter 2022

Keeping the family farm alive

With cutting-edge technology, Moses Pecan carries on the tradition of over two hundred years of family farming in Montgomery County.

As I walked through Dead River Cemetery, the sun was dropping behind the longleaf pines and hardwood trees. Many of the surnames on the headstones were familiar names of families in Toombs and Montgomery counties. A few interments were veterans of the Civil War. Three were known to have fought in the Revolutionary War. The ghosts whispered their stories in my ear. Figuratively speaking, of course, but the names and dates etched in stone were enough to send my imagination into overdrive. Two weeks later, the memory of that walk through Dead River Cemetery came rushing back to me when Arren Moses said that his family had been on the land for over two hundred years. I realized I’d likely walked among his ancestors that day. Dead River Cemetery was only two miles from Moses Pecan.

Arren and Taylor Moses with their son Thomas.

As I followed names and dates across time on findagrave.com, I discovered a book entitled, “Three Calhoun Men from Old Montgomery County 1812-1938: Journeys Through South Georgia History” by Leila Annette Calhoun Deasy, Ph.D. The book not only contained information and personal stories about Arren’s ancestors, but confirmation that W. H. Ryals, one of the three Revolutionary War veterans buried in Dead River Cemetery, was in fact a relation.

W. H. Ryals came to Montgomery County from North Carolina. In 1808, he purchased a 200-acre tract of land from a Batt Wyche. Ryals married Edith Childs (1755-1863). Their daughter, Winnifred (1786-1863), married a Scotsman named Angus Calhoun (1782-1836). And their daughter, Mary Ann Calhoun (1815-1887), was the one who first joined the Calhoun and the Moses family with her marriage to Arren Moses (1815-1845).

The present Arren Moses of Moses Pecan is the third to carry this name. Interestingly, the spelling is of Scottish origin. The first Arren Moses came to Montgomery County with his mother in the early 1800s to work in turpentine and farm the land. The amount of land the Moses family owned fluctuated from one generation to the next, according to the challenges and changes of the times. “We’ve had a little land, and we’ve had a lot,” said Arren. “Every generation just did whatever it took to make a living and still be here on this land. We’ve grown everything from soybeans to pine trees.”

In the 1950s, Arren’s grandfather, Edward Moses, started Moses Grass. Today, Arren and his father, Lloyd Moses, continue the business. Father and son “work hand in hand with the public and private entities such as Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), as well as other industrial and commercial contractors to complete projects that meet or exceed industry standards…” Moses Grass also

As the deer population increases, farmers are faced with finding ways to protect their crops. According to Taylor Moses, placing a small amount of Irish soap in a mesh bag is a great deer deterrent for their young pecan trees.

provides “a variety of erosion control solutions such as; sediment control, vegetation installation or mitigation, and fabriform installation…,” according to their website.

While in college at Georgia Southern University, Arren and a friend began growing vegetables. In 2007, a year before he graduated from college, Arren and his father rented fifteen acres of one-hundred-year-old pecan trees and planted thirty more acres of their own. “I had friends on the north end of the county that were pecan growers that I’d helped out from time to time. I thought I’d try my hand at it and see if I was any good at it.” Through hard work and the knowledge he gained from other pecan grower friends, he learned quickly. “John and Charlie Robison from Robison Farms in Ailey really mentored me in those early years.”

Pecan trees are the only nut tree native to North America. Although Georgia is the leading U.S. producer of pecans today, this species of hickory was actually native to the Mississippi Valley. “The trees migrated with the native Indians over several thousands of years,” said Arren. “Pecan trees were first propagated for commercial sale in the late 1800s, and varieties were developed.” Today, Moses Pecan harvests fifteen different varieties of pecan trees.

The cleaning facility Arren built not only serves his own farm but also provides services to other growers in the area. The Moseses use an advanced automated sorting and drying system for processing the nuts.

As with all things farming, harvesting pecans comes with significant challenges, not the least of which is predators, particularly squirrels, crows, and wild hogs. “The crows will pull the nut out of shuck as soon as it opens,” said Arren. “As soon as the shucks open, we have to shake the trees and get the nuts picked up that same day if possible. The hogs will take over if the nuts are left on the ground overnight.”

But the greatest threat for pecan growers is pecan scab, a disease that turns the shells black, which restricts the sun from getting through so the nuts can develop. The only recourse is to take a preventative approach with a fungicide spray. The trees are sprayed every fourteen days during the growing season, from May to August.

And, of course, deer. If you live anywhere in this area, you know there’s no lack of deer. “When you’re planting young trees,” said Arren, “deer are a major problem. Left alone, the deer will eat the new growth out of the top of the small tree, and it will kill it.”

“The first year, we take Irish soap and cut it in eighths, which is placed in a mesh bag,” said Arren’s wife, Taylor. “The bag is tied to the trunk of the young tree. “I don’t know if it’s the smell, but they don’t like it, and they’ll leave the trees alone.”

In 2014, Arren built a cleaning facility to facilitate his growing pecan operation. “Since we have neighbors that also have pecan trees, we went ahead and built a facility large enough to serve other customers, too,” he said. By 2017, Taylor had taken over as full-time manager of the plant.

In 2019, Arren and Taylor added a WECO Automated Sorting System. “It uses size, shape, color, and infrared to sort good from bad pecans,” said Taylor. A WECO Automated Drying System was also installed in 2020. “This machine uses moisture meters to automate dryers and fans.” In 2021, Arren and Taylor added a WECO Foreign Material Sorter to their operation, which sorts out rocks and other foreign materials before the drying begins.

In addition to the pecan farm, Arren and his father Lloyd Moses operate Moses Grass–a business Arren's grandfather started in the 1950s. One day, Arren's son Thomas may continue the family farm tradition.

Pecans arrive at the facility on peanut wagons and go through an initial cleaning process. “An electronic eye sorts out most of the trash before the pecans are sent to the drying bins,” said Arren. “The dryers switch on and off automatically and bring down the moisture in the pecans to the proper level.”

Final grading involves another electronic eye that sorts and loads the pecans into ‘super-sacks’ that hold 2,200 pounds of pecans for shipping. “Buyers purchase the pecans by placing bids,” said Taylor. “Most pecans go to shelling plants in Texas and New Mexico. Some go to local shell plants in Georgia. And some are put in containers bound for China.”

Moses Pecan serves about twenty-three growers from Montgomery, Toombs, Tattnall, and Appling counties. Some have as many as eight hundred acres and others as few as twenty.

With automated drying, moisture monitoring, and two sets of electronic sorting, Moses Pecan may be the most advanced sorting and cleaning pecan plant south of the Mississippi. While there are many pecan cleaning plants with an electronic sorter on the dry side, Arren and Taylor are unaware of another with this particular electronic sorting machine on the wet side anywhere in the United States.

In addition to custom cleaning, marketing, and exporting, Moses Pecan offers help with establishing management plans for new pecan orchards to ensure trees are productive, as well as assistance with layout design, tree planting, and irrigation. Services also include custom shaking and harvesting for trees of bearing age. A new addition to the Moses Pecan is a website retail store.

If history has taught us anything, it is this: To forge a future in any business, it will take both old wisdom and new knowledge. With cutting-edge technology, Moses Pecan carries on the tradition of over two hundred years of family farming in Montgomery County. And as Arren and Taylor build a connection between generations, they do so in hopes that no matter where their son, Thomas, might one day go, the land itself will show him the way home again. With new and innovative ideas and the work ethic taught by those before them, the Moses family tree will continue to grow taller, and its roots secure for generations to come.

For more information: visit mosespecan.com