pistachios are more valuable,” says
Coleman, who owns 1,500 acres and
manages about 10,000 more.
The monetary value of each crop
is about the same, Coleman says, but
the maintenance and operations cost
for pistachios is lower than almonds.
In a productive year, a single acre of
pistachios can yield more than $8,000
in farm revenue, according to annual
crop reports.
The pistachio is native to Central
Asia and the Middle East, from Syria
to Afghanistan. Commercial produc-
tion has flourished, especially in Iran,
which was, until recently, the world’s
leading pistachio producer.
Pistachio trees arrived in the
United States in 1854 and were mainly
a garden novelty for a century. Then, in
the 1970s, farmers began planting the
trees in large groves. In the 1980s, as
California’s pistachio growers emerged
as a potential competitor with Iran’s, a
UC Davis extension specialist conduct-
ed the field trial that earned pistachios
their reputation as nearly drought-
proof: The researcher, David Goldham-
er, turned off the water for three years
on a small grove of pistachio trees
near the desolate town of Kettleman
City in southern San Joaquin Valley. In
that time, the trees took up only water
that fell from the sky — an average
of 3 inches per year during the study
period, which chanced to be a dry
spell. Not only did the neglected trees
survive the abuse, they recovered fully
in two years.
“By contrast, we’ve killed almonds
even just cutting off the water for a few
months after harvest,” says Goldham-
er, who works, as he did in the 1980s,
with the University of California
Division of Agriculture and Natu-
ral Resources’ Kearney Agricultural
Research and Extension Center, south
of Fresno. Goldhamer says pistachios’
“capacity to survive extreme drought
stress is unparalleled.”
Still, to produce full yields,
pistachios need plenty of water —
something many Iranian farmers are
running out of. Groundwater reserves
have been so severely depleted in
parts of Iran that pistachio produc-
tion has waned. “Some people believe
Iran will get to the point where
they have no more exportable crop,”
Coleman says.
Iran’s fall as the world’s pistachio
leader has given California’s produc-
ers an edge in the global market, and
about five years ago, the Golden State
became the world’s top producer.
As pistachios rapidly expand their
collective rootzone, growers and their
lobbying organization push for more
of the global market share. As with
almonds, about 70 percent of the crop
is exported, and the American Pista-
chio Growers is running campaigns
overseas to push their product deeper
into foreign markets. The Resnicks
have paid stars like Dennis Rodman,
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May 2020 | comstocksmag.com
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