Contents List:

1. Plant background
2. Botanical description
3. Varieties
4. Climate conditions
5. Leading Almonds growing countries

6. Growing season
7. Rootstock
8. Soil
9. Nursery
10. Tree treatments
11. Harvest
12. Tree spacing
13. Irrigation
14. Critical stages for water stress
15. Irrigation management with water shortage
16. Recommended irrigation method
17. Fertilization application
18. Yields
19. Main diseases
20. Main pests
21. Frost protection

 Fast facts on Almond - Full article 

2. Botanical description
Trees grow to a height 4.0-6.0m with a diameter of 3-4m. The almond is hermaphrodite, but male and female blossoms are not in accord, so
insects bees are necessary for pollination. Like peaches, the blossoms form
around the vegetative buds. They are located on spurs that live 3-4
years, though some blossoms also form on new branches. As opposed
to other stone fruit, the pulp does not continue to grow in the third and last period. At the end of the growing season, the pulp dries and opens, to expose the seed covering, which reaches its final size after about 100 days. The almond tree can live a long time, but the lifetime of a commercial orchard is 30-40 years. Blossoming and fruit-set begin at two years,full fertility at four years, and maximum yield is attained at 7-9 years. Blossoms are light pink. Blossoming occurs in January-March, with fruit ripening in July-August, 5-6 months after blossoming in the northern hemisphere, and in the corresponding months in the southern hemisphere.

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3. Varieties
There  are two main varieties: hard shell – But t ei , Texas ,and soft shell – Thompson, Carmel ,Rudy. Regular shell varieties: California Mission Neplus, Greek, Hanatziv, Um-el-Fahem, Marcona, Be’eri. Non-pareil is the  main variety, comprising 50% of global yields. There are sweet almond and bitter almond varieties.

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4. Crop climate conditions
Optimum is a dry warm climate –sub-tropical. Almonds can be grown without irrigation, and are more resistant to dry conditions than other deciduous trees, but yields will be low. It is accepted policy to add supplementary irrigation, where annual rainfall is less than 500 mm.
Almonds do not like excess humidity. Its growing range is quite wide, between 30 °–45 °laterals. Almonds require less cold units than other deciduous trees, but vary from one variety to the next. Most varieties require 300-500 cold units. Cold conditions are a serious problem for almonds, which blossom in early spring. Blossoms suffer damage at -2 °C, and vegetative buds at -4 °C to -6 °C.

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5. Leading apple growing countries

Country	Planted area (ha)	Seed Yield (ton/ha)	Total Seed Yield (tons)
Spain	681,000	0.30	197,300
USA	214,000	3.50	740,400
Tunisia	202,000	0.90	185,000
Morocco	131,000	0.54	79,800
Iran	115,000	0.91	105,000
Italy	86,000	1.10	91,400
Libya	60,000	0.50	31,000
Algeria	40,000	0.80	32,000
Greece	40,000	1.00	40,000
Portugal	38,000	0.70	26,000

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6. Growing season
Buds open at the end of winter -beginning of spring, the flower buds open before the leaf buds. Blossoming time differs slightly according to variety, and lasts about two weeks. Fruit develops from mid-July to August. At the end of this period, the green shell opens. The inner shell completes its development 100 days after blossoming. Harvest time is from the middle of August to mid-September. The leaves fall off in October – November and the tree goes into dormancy.

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7. Rootstock
Accepted rootstocks are seedlings: Almond, Bitter Almond, Peach-Almond hybrid, Plum, Mariana; in California the use mostly peach seedlings.

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8. Soil
Soil – almonds grow in all types of soil, including chalky and shallow soils. The optimal pH is 7.0-8.5.

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9. Nursery
Like with peaches, it is common to graft saplings in the nursery. Planting is at the end of the dormant season, before blossoming. Saplings are planted with roots exposed.

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10. Tree treatments
Tree treatments –standard pruning is vase shaped, to enable better light and radiation penetration. It is not necessary to thin out blossoms. All the blossoms reach fruit-set and most are collected. It is normally recommended not t o cultivate the soil. Weeds along t he rows should be treated with herbicides, while between t he rows they should be mown. Alternatively, it is possible to grow and intermediate crop in this area, mainly legumes.

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11. Harvest
After the outer shell of all the fruit has opened. It is acceptable to use a tree shaker.

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12. Tree spacing
In the past, orchards were not irrigated, and the number of trees per hectares was low –140 trees/ha, with 7-10 m between rows. Pollinating varieties were planted every fourth row. Presently, row spacing is every 4-6 m, with ~400 trees/ ha. There is also an innovative approach where trees are planted every 2-4 meters due to the short life time.

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13. Irrigation
Irrigation – in the northern hemisphere: irrigation coefficients – Kc

General water requirements: 500-600 mm per season.

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14. Critical stages for water stress in the soil in apple orchards
The development stage of the kernel and the filling-out stage of the kernel.

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15. Irrigation management with water
shortages in almond orchards – deficit irrigation Where the water supply is limited, minimum waste of water is essential, so trees should be irrigated only to the point where they are sensitive to stress. However, if this quantity of water is insufficient for the tree’s needs, it is necessary to find the right stage, where water reduction will do the least harm. Deficit irrigation can influence not only the current yield, but also the following season’s yield therefore, it is necessary to find the most suitable irrigation strategy. It is possible to plan irrigation in orchards for several years, and the plan can be flexible according to the prevailing conditions. In almonds, it is important to apply full irrigation in the early spring, during kernel filling, and it is also important for the yields in the long run. In early almond varieties and spring varieties, it is possible to seriously reduce water quantities to trees from mid-June for two months. Later varieties can be resistant to stress during the two months preceding harvesting. This method reduces the kernel weight by about 10%,but results in considerable reduction in shell splitting. Renewing irrigation two weeks
before harvesting improves shell splitting. With drip-irrigated almonds or grown in shallow soil, the irrigation regime after harvesting is critical for the following season. Reduced irrigation after harvesting, results in a reduction in the number of blossoms and in fruit-set in the following year, therefore farmers must retain reserve water for irrigating after harvesting. This must be applied
immediately after harvesting. In deep soil or where sprinklers are used for irrigation, it is less important to irrigate immediately after harvesting, and this can be delayed. Early falling off of leaves is a sign of insufficient irrigation. However, irrigating when leaves drop off after harvesting can cause leaves to renew growth, which is not desirable. The approach proposed here improves the tree’s moisture conditions at the critical stage for the following season’s
blossom buds. Blossoming at the end of autumn can reduce the following year’s yield. This happens when the leaves renew growth in the autumn, when the climate is cold in October, then turns warm in November. Limiting irrigation during late autumn reduces unwanted blossoming.

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16. Recommended irrigation method
Drip irrigation is recommended – in older orchards with traditional spacing, 2 laterals per row; in young orchards – 1-2 laterals per row depending on the soil type. The recommended distance between drippers is 0.5m. Discharge rate should be 1.6-2.3 l/h. Irrigation frequency will be according to soil type, every 2-3 days. The accepted equipment in mountainous regions is Ram,and in level terrain Tiran or Ram, and Uniram for subsurface drip.

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17. Fertilization application
During soil preparation:400-600kg/ha P 2 O 5 and 600-
700 kg/ha K 2 O,depending on soil test results.2kg boron
should be added as needed. During years 1,2 &3 30,60,&90 grams N per tree accordingly. Annual fert ilizer consumption for fruit bearing tree.

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18. Yields
Average yields are 2.0 -1.0 t/Ha. The annual international yield is 1 million tons. In Spain almonds are also used in the wood industry.

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19. Main diseases
Rust on stone fruit (tranzchelia discolor), cercospora circumscissa, polystigma ochraceum, agrobacterium tumefaciens, verticilium spp.,deplodea sp., silver leaf (chondrostereum purpureum), pytophthora, nematodes, brown rot (monilinia sp.), oak rot (amillaria).

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20. Main pests
Navel orange worm (amyelois transitella), twig borer (anarsia lineatella), mites, eurytoma amygdaly, capnodis tenebonis, cerambyx dux, eccoptogster amygdaly, lyonetia lerkella, lymantria destituta, meloidogyne spp, brachycaudus amygdaliana.

21. Frost protection
Due to early budding, particularly blossoms, almond trees could easily be harmed by early frost, or even by later, seasonal frost. Therefore ,in light of these data ,it is recommended that a frost protection system be installed. The recommended system is the use of SuperNet ® micro-sprinklers for every tree.

Irrigation rate 3.5 mm/h.

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