Friday, April 9, 2021
CapitalPress.com
11
Almonds: Growers keep building on their success
By JULIA HOLLISTER
For the Capital Press
Almond growers through-
out California should be pop-
ping corks and toasting their
success with the news the
2020 crop is estimated to be
the largest on record.
According to the 2020
almond report by the USDA,
the value of production was
well over the 2019 fi gure of
$6 billion. There is more good
news: the 2020 crop will be 3
billion pounds, up 18% from
2019.
“This year’s crop is proof
that California is the perfect
place to grow almonds,” said
Holly A. King, Kern County
almond grower and chair of
the Almond Board of Califor-
nia board of directors. “Per-
fect weather
d u r i n g
bloom, cou-
pled with the
steps almond
growers
have taken
to ensure our Holly King
orchards pro-
vide a healthy environment
for honey bees and other pol-
linators, resulted in the abun-
dant crop we are seeing on the
trees up and down the Central
Valley.”
Third generation Merced
County, Calif., grower Steven
Kashiwase said family history
is the reason he farms his 65
acres of organic almonds and
fruit trees.
His grandfather, Frank,
started a 20-acre vineyard
in the Central Valley in the
Almond Board of California
Almost 1.3 million bearing acres of almond trees pro-
duced a crop worth $6 billion last year in California, ac-
cording to USDA.
1920s after moving from San
Francisco to Yamato Col-
ony, a Japanese farming com-
munity about 2 miles outside
Livingston.
He came with a group
of Japanese Americans who
INVESTING IN OUR
LOCAL AG COMMUNITIES
FOR MORE THAN 60 YEARS
wanted to farm together. The
community later became
the
Livingston
Farmers
Association.
Residents of the colony
focused on agriculture in an
attempt to avoid anti-Japanese
hostilities.
“My father purchased
most of the current acreage of
Kashiwase Farms in 1948,”
Kashiwase said. “After study-
ing pomology and entomol-
ogy at University of Califor-
nia-Davis, I began farming in
the 1970s and converted to
organic in the 1990s.”
Almond bloom is usually
in late February and harvest
is in September. Valley Nut in
Hughson does the processing.
The yearly almond yield
is aff ected by many factors:
the supply of water and man-
agement of the pests. There
are several major pests of
almonds: Peach Twig Borer,
Navel Orange Worm and ants
that invade and devour the
nut. Manually operated impact
sprinklers irrigate the almond
orchards.
Weather-related problems
occur mostly during bloom.
Rain can keep the bees from
pollinating the almonds,
except for the newer self-pol-
linating varieties. Frost during
or after bloom will kill the
fl ower or small nuts.
The average yield for
organic almonds is 1,200 to
2,500 pounds of kernels per
acre.
In response to the threat
of competition from foreign
countries, Kashiwase has
a two-word response: “No
problem.”
California is the No. 1
almond producer, growing
81% of the world’s almonds
and 100% of the U.S. commer-
cial supply. The almonds are
shipped to over 100 countries.
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