INDUSTRY NEWS
Growing almonds without bees
THERE ' S only one almond farm at Niemur in southern New South Wales and that ’ s the way Graham Fleming , the managing director of Graham ’ s Factree , likes it . The Fleming family established a 283 hectare orchard of the self-fertile and self-pollinating variety called Independence™ (‘ cv . Alm-21 ’) to show that you can grow almonds without needing to bring in any bee hives or use any pollinating varieties . “ No one brings bees in anywhere near the place and there ’ s no other almonds around to pollinate it , it really is a very good test and a very good example that it will work by itself ,” Graham said . The first 40 hectares of Independence™ (‘ cv . Alm-21 ’) Almond were planted at the former rice and sheep farm in 2016 and extra trees were added in stages up until 2021 . Graham ’ s Factree is the Australian agent for Zaiger Genetics , the California based breeder of Independence™ (‘ cv . Alm-21 ’). “ The variety wasn ’ t taking off in Australia as it was in the States so we thought let ’ s put in a trial block to show everyone that it actually does work and that it is going to be successful in Australia ,” Graham said . The production manager at Graham ’ s Factree , Robert Fleming , said the management of the orchard is kept as simple as possible . “ It ’ s all about nutrition , water and keeping the weeds out ,” he said . “ We do very little fungicide spraying , we just don ’ t have a need to , our isolation helps with that .” Pruning at the orchard has been kept to the bare minimum . “ Independence is resistant to hull rot and it ’ s also more frost tolerant than all the other almond varieties ,” Graham said . He denies that Independence™ (‘ cv . Alm-21 ’) is susceptible to bacterial spot , instead saying the trees can show similar symptoms which could be caused by a nutrient deficiency or even insect damage to the hull . “ The nut will ooze but it ’ s a clear gum . Bacterial spot is an amber coloured gum . Gumming on this variety is hull related , it doesn ’ t get through to the shell or the kernel ,” he said . Pre harvest , the family was hesitant to estimate how
Independence , a self-fertile and self-pollinating variety , is showing almonds can be grown without the need to bring in bees .
much Independence™ (‘ cv . Alm-21 ’) they are expecting this season , after facing a few weather-related challenges in the past few years . However , Robert and Graham are very optimistic for this year ’ s harvest . “ We ’ re hoping this year will be double last year . Last year was heavily rain affected and we ’ ve lost some trees from that . Early on ( into harvest ) it feels like it could be even more than that which would be fantastic ,” Robert said . For the first time the Flemings solely used shake and catch to harvest their crop , which only required three workers per shift . “ We are simply making one pass through the orchard where we shake and catch each and every row because there ’ s no pollinators and transporting it directly back to our storage bunker where we are drying them in the pile here and as soon as they are dry here we hope to ship them off to the processor ,” Robert said .
ABOVE : The family has high hopes for a solid yield this season after last year ' s rain-affected crop .
LEFT : For the first time , shake and catch was used to harvest the crop , requiring only three workers per shift .
12 In A Nutshell - Autumn 2024 Vol 25 Issue 1