Almonds and pecans are both pretty thirsty nuts. Almonds need about 1.1–1.3 gallons of water per nut, while pecans use roughly 1.0–1.5 gallons each. So on a per-nut basis, pecans don’t necessarily save much water.

The key difference is where they’re grown. Almonds are almost entirely produced in drought-prone California, where water is already scarce, while pecans are mainly grown in the southeastern U.S., like Georgia and Texas, where there’s more natural rainfall and less irrigation stress.

Pecans have a less intense water footprint overall. The hellacious juniper-cedar trees (like Ashe juniper in Texas), you’re right, they’re pollen bombs in winter and massive groundwater hogs. They’re not farmed like nuts, but they definitely absorb water and crowd out native plants, so they’re a different kind of ecological headache.

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