Comments on: Almonds are Under Threat. The Key to Saving Them Could Be in the Soil https://modernfarmer.com/2023/07/almonds-are-under-threat/ Farm. Food. Life. Mon, 19 Aug 2024 13:24:08 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 By: Patrick Byrd https://modernfarmer.com/2023/07/almonds-are-under-threat/#comment-66116 Thu, 17 Aug 2023 19:32:07 +0000 https://modernfarmer.com/?p=149594#comment-66116 The solutions exist, courageous individuals need to step up to show the way by doing something different than what everyone else around them is doing. For one, many farms have irrigation ponds, it’s a normal infrastructure capital expense. There are other ways of constructing a pond however which will actually capture surface runoff and subsurface water, hold the water on the landscape for longer and allow it to slowly seep into the surrounding soil, recharging the groundwater and creating favorable soil conditions for our crops, as well as serving as a reservoir for irrigation water to draw from. We should be talking about creating decentralized water retention landscapes on a massive scale, not more artificial concrete dammed reservoirs which only dry out the surrounding land. Imagine small ponds in the high places in the watershed, connecting to larger water bodies and lakes in the valleys, constructed with earthen materials, keyway dams of clay to hold the water, if we did this on a watershed scale then on a regional scale it would solve the drought and water scarcity problems almost immediately. The cost would be the same or less than building more artificial reservoirs. Check out what Chinese peasants were able to achieve in the Loess Plateau using mostly hand tools, if they can do it we certainly can, and better, here in California.

And two, when it comes to the crops themselves, whether it be almonds or pistachios or grapes or whatever, how many growers are keeping the soil covered with some kind of mulch? We can grow the plants to mulch the soil right on-site, right in-between the rows. The machinery to cut and rake biomass into a line is nothing new. How many are looking at agroforestry in a serious way? The studies are there on how integrating just one or two other species of trees strategically into a planting has huge benefits for conservation of soil, organic matter, water and nutrient availability etc. But no one else is doing it and the extension agents aren’t recommending so few are willing to go there… In Brazil a large company did a study of diversified agroforestry plantings within an oil palm plantation. They planted 2 rows of palms and one row of diversified fruit and timber trees. Although the number of palms per acre was 2/3rd the normal density, they found the palm oil yield was equal or better than monoculture because every palm produced 30% more and the quality was way better… no pest or disease problems either. Oh and they had a nice secondary crop of cacao, açai, and after a time mahogany, cedarwood, other rare tropical timbers. And the fertility came from the prunings of all those trees, chipped into mulch to feed the palms.

Are there any growers in California who might be interested in how they can maintain the same or similar yeild, improve quality, eliminate pest and disease issues, severely reduce or eliminate irrigation and fertilizer inputs, AND have a nice couple of secondary crops on the side as insurance, including hardwood timber for the retirement fund?

]]>
By: Otis R. Needleman https://modernfarmer.com/2023/07/almonds-are-under-threat/#comment-65482 Sun, 16 Jul 2023 17:57:18 +0000 https://modernfarmer.com/?p=149594#comment-65482 Also believe CA needs more reservoirs to store rain water/runoff. Money is there for the work, but environmentalists and other opponents keep holding things up. We lost a lot of water this past winter and will lose even more this winter, supposedly an El Nino winter.

]]>
By: Brian Pollard https://modernfarmer.com/2023/07/almonds-are-under-threat/#comment-65481 Sun, 16 Jul 2023 17:39:05 +0000 https://modernfarmer.com/?p=149594#comment-65481 Im my home province of Prince Edward Island, where water is essentially limitless, soil erosion is a major issue because of the hilly terrain and destructive industrial potato farming practices – here also soil quality, which means a high organic content, is essential. Good quality soil, because it retains water, is much less susceptible to erosion.

]]>
By: Bill https://modernfarmer.com/2023/07/almonds-are-under-threat/#comment-65456 Fri, 14 Jul 2023 16:04:18 +0000 https://modernfarmer.com/?p=149594#comment-65456 As an almond grower, I appreciate this article. It points to some of the challenges that we (as farmers, and as Californians) face. Most importantly it highlights how “expensive” our food is, in terms of water consumption. Sadly, the urban shopper/voter has no appreciation of this reality. Water scarcity is one aspect. The fact that many growers can ill afford to “experiment” with cover crops and/or expensive irrigation technologies is also lost. An underreported fact is that in recent years many almond growers farmed at a loss. I also question the pastoral image of sheep grazing in the almond orchard. What grocer will sell the contaminated almonds picked up off of that ground? I wholly agree and applaud the need to better steward our soils. But lets not pretend that it might be that simple.

]]>