The correct pollination for almond trees, guarantee of succes

Posted by Daniel Milla on with 0 Comment

With the spring coming the almond trees flowering starts, a spectacle of the nature where the almond trees show their colorful and aromatic flowers to attract the attention from the insects, which get feed with the nectar of their flowers and at the same time they make the pollination.

But, which really consists the pollination process in? Basically it consists on transporting the pollen from the stamens to the stigmas, where it germinates and finished fertilizing the ovules of the flowers which afterwards the almonds appear. The pollen transport is produced mainly through the insects, being the bees the most common within the pollination vectors.

In the almond tree, the pollination is a very important process; a correct pollination process is traduced to a remarkable increase in the production, even reaching levels from 25% to 30% of increases. This doesn’t affect only to trees which are not self-fertile, it must also be had into account for new varieties if want to improve its efficiency.

Because of that, there are some elements which are essential in order to establish a correct plantation; between them we can find the design, the hive positions and the election of self-fertile varieties.

Xylella Fastidiosa, a problem for the almond sector

Posted by Daniel Milla on with 0 Comment

The Xylella Fastidiosa is starting to be a serious problem which threats a huge part of almond trees of the east of Spain and the Spanish almond sector.

It began being an exceptional thing in Europe, located in the Italian region of Puglia, it has been converted to a plague which has been extended by various zones of the Spanish geography.

These bacteria, which are transmitted by a kind of sucking insects, block the flow of the sap until it causes the death of the plant. It doesn’t only affect almond trees, it also affect olive trees, peach trees, apricot trees….Being translated to numbers it could affect to five millions of hectares, this reflect the grate magnitude it can reach if we do not control its expansion on time.

For the time being, there are not phytosanitary treatments in order to prevent it or eliminate it, for this reason its control is limited to manage the plants of garden centers for new fields and destroy the affected trees.

This is an illness which is causing big losses in the almond sector in many zones where it has been cultivate very traditionally, we are seeing how a huge number of fields are being uproot, this is translated to important reductions in the almond production.

flor helada, impacto en el precio de la almendra californiana

The strong frosts cause a huge uncertainty among the Californian almond producers

Posted by Daniel Milla on with 0 Comment

The cold wave and the forecast for following days of low temperatures are causing a great worry among the Californian almond producers.

In this moment almond trees are initiating their flowering, a situation of a huge vulnerability that could produce almond losses if the low temperatures continue. All this can cause a great reduction in the almonds production, what will be translated to a minor offer available in the market that inevitably will lead us to a strong price rise.

As we well know, California is the largest almond producer in the world; with approximately the 80% of the world production thus everyone will notice the impact of these frosts.

Meanwhile, in countries like Spain, the strong storm that is happening is causing also a lot of damages in certain cultivations, almond trees between them, in some zones of the peninsular west the flowering period had started and it has caused many damages in the almond production.

All this facts have caused a huge uncertainty around the almond price, leaving both offer and demand very expectant to this situation.

Drought, the great threat of the Spanish fields

Posted by Daniel Milla on with 0 Comment

It is obvious the great problem the lack of rain is creating in the Iberian Peninsula. It is a long time without rains, this fact has increase even more the worries of thousands Spanish agricultures. In addition, this lack of water means that the reservoirs have reduce their level of capacity considerably, reaching numbers that we haven’t reach from 22 years ago, putting in danger the availability of water for some cultivations in the Spanish fields.

Facing this situation, the Spanish Agriculture Minister Isabel Garcia Tejerina has announced that if it won’t rain, they could restrict the water use for watering, in order to be able to guarantee the human consumption.

This drought has reduced the productions of many crops; among them we can find almond trees, whose production has dropped around the 25% in relation to the previous season, according to Miguel Blanco, general secretary of the agricultural organization COAG.

This huge problem has caused agricultures hire more insurances, in order to try to reduce the damages this situation is causing.

As final reflection, we want to mention that this problem must be faced when we have water, not when the drought problem exists, thus we need to improve the managing of this source so important to avoid reaching this situations so dramatics as the one we are living in the Spanish fields.