Valley Snow

Spring has come early to Turlock. We may not have water. But we have our own kind of snow.

We produce most of the world's almonds and this is how they start. The orchards are always beautiful and currently they are new gold rush. Investing in Almond farms is a long term investment that is currently paying off pretty well. 

The trees, once established, don't take much water. It takes about 3-5 years of a tree to produce well. They create shade which helps keep water in the ground over the hot season. 

The bad news is that acres of grazing land where cattle can roam freely and openly are being taken over by almond orchards. Farmers are pulling up vegetable crops to plant almonds. So the Valley is loosing some of its crop diversity as economics takes over.


This has multiple impacts on the environment.
Cattle, when they are kept in tight groups to graze, tear up the grassland with their hooves, which helps aerate the soil and allows rain water to penetrate into the underground aquifers. Their droppings fertilize the soil which result in healthier grass land. This is nature's balance.




We are discovering that crop diversity helps save the diminishing bee population. Colony collapse is a global problem. Scientists now believe that colony collapse may be caused by a lack of pollen diversity.  This may be wearing down the bees' natural immunity to disease as it deprives them of necessary nutrients. These bee hives under the trees are rented and can come from as far away as Montana or Texas. The are moved from orchard to orchard.

Almonds are harvested by shaking the trees and then sucking up the nuts from the ground. This contributes to air pollution in the Central Valley as the sky is full of dust. When you go to higher elevations during harvest, you can see it hanging over the Valley, not to mention on your furniture as it penetrates everything.

Some almond growers are now seeding the spaces between the trees with mustard seeds and wild flowers. They hope this will diversify the pollen for the bees and keep them in the orchards longer.  And, if the almonds work like our citrus trees (which have tons of clover beneath them), this will result in a bigger and better tasting harvest because it locks in ground moisture, allows the bees to pollinate more, and provides a nice soft landing for the nuts.

 Before harvest, the growers will mow down the greenery so they can suck up the almonds. The jury is still out on whether this will help the bees. But it makes the orchards much prettier. And it shows that our great grandfather's were right to be suspicious of the over industrialization and mechanization of farming.