INDUSTRY NEWS
Testing California learnings in Australia
ABOVE: UC Davis plant pathologist Maciej Zwieniecki runs through carbohydrate research.
LEFT: The visit to the OMC factory was insightful for Cavaso Farms ' Matt Toscan.
THE study tour participants have returned home with a wide range of ideas that could be worth investigating further in Australian conditions. Century Orchards technical manager Gemma Jealous was impressed by the amount of almond research being carried out in California.“ I think we need a much greater focus on carbohydrate testing. The research that’ s going on in that space could be really critical, particularly in future years as we move towards different climates.” UC Davis plant pathologist Maciej Zwieniecki, who is known as Dr Z, has revolutionised how the California almond industry understands tree physiology and orchard management. His work focuses on how nonstructural carbohydrates( sugars and starches) affect almond yield, irrigation and survival. Dr Z’ s groundbreaking contributions include his Carbohydrate Observatory, where hundreds of growers send wood and bark samples to the UC Davis Z Lab. This allows his team to track carbohydrate levels and help growers predict future harvest yields. Southern Cross Farms executive director Peter O’ Donnell said he’ d like to see more research done in
Australia on post-harvest nutrition after hearing from researchers at UC Davis.“ There’ s a Californian paper that suggested it maybe a waste of time,” he said.“ Now that’ s an accepted modern practice in Australia, so some work on that would be really good.” Minter Magic’ s Garry Minter plans to trial tying up the trees to see if it will reduce the amount of branches breaking in his orchard due to the crop load. He observed the practice being used in many of the almond orchards growing in in the central and southern parts of California’ s almond growing region.“ In California, they put the first rope on the tree when it is about a year old, and it sits a couple of feet above the crutch,” he said.“ Then the following year the growers put another one up a bit higher, and sometimes there’ s a third rope.” Garry said the trees are tied during winter when the trees are defoliated and it is easier to see the branches.“ I think that would be beneficial, if we can somehow get the cost of it down or do it mechanically,” he said.“ We’ re worried about it shading out the inside of the tree and getting deadwood, but most of the trees we saw were quite dense and they didn’ t look like they were struggling.”
industry. australianalmonds. com. au
For Cavaso Farms’ Matt Toscan, the visit to the OMC factory in Yuba City made him realise that instead of buying a new almond shaker, minor modifications could be made to his prune harvester so it could be used for both crops.“ It’ s something we could probably implement pretty cheaply at our place,” he said.“ After shaking and catching the almond crop it can be dropped in a wind row on the ground.” Nelwood Almonds Martin Howie was impressed by the visit to California State University in Bakersfield, where economists had generated global supply and demand data, the economic outlook for almonds and other tree nut crops. The information was used by the Almond Board of California, as well as investors and private companies.“ The information I took away from that was really quite valuable,” he said.“ One thing we could potentially look at here in Australia is scoping our own independent piece of work that’ s relevant to Australian production, tied in with global production and Californian production, where that short to medium term outlook is for growing almonds in Australia.”
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