RESEARCH & EVENTS
Balancing how we grow :
The Monterey experience
ABOVE : Symptoms of Monterey decline present in an orchard .
RIGHT : Crop Doctor Len Tesoriero collects heartwood for analysis .
By Josh Fielke
ALL orchard managers , staff and stakeholders within our industry will no doubt feel that producing almonds is a constant balancing act . When dealing with Monterey , it can feel like this balancing act is exacerbated . Whether it be during times of heat stress when they start to drop leaves or at harvest time when the hulls just won ’ t split . More recently growers have reported leaf out failure in Monterey to varying degrees . Monterey is a variety that demands our attention , and it will let us know when it is not happy . However , no matter the conditions the variety will try and produce the largest crop it possibly can . This means that our attention to detail needs to be spot on to provide the resources it requires because if the conditions are right it will push itself to the edge . This leads to the theory that Len Tesoriero ( Crop Doctor ) and myself have discussed , where Monterey exposes itself to a level of stress to the point where the tree becomes vulnerable to a range of ‘ common cold ’ type of pathogens such as Colletotrichum , Phomopsis and Botryosphaeria . The balancing act in growing Monterey not only comes down to the right volume of nutrient application , but the ability for the tree to utilise it where the right form and right time also plays a role . The ability of the tree to use nutrient could be affected by a number of factors such as abiotic stresses such as weather conditions , root system health / strength , or stresses on leaf production through factors such as disease to name a few . By using the values presented by Dr Patrick Brown ( UC Davis ) at our previous conference and the Almond Board of California ’ s nitrogen best practice guidelines we can work out the demands of nitrogen per crop level . Examples of this can be seen in Table 1 for a 7 – 15 year old tree producing 3,200 and 4,000kg / ha .
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