Where have those sky aquifers gone?

Since we have had no rain, we started irrigating at Carpenter yesterday. Unfortunately, after one hour a part in the electrical panel for the deep well overheated. The electrician was able to find and install a replacement part so we are irrigating again today.

Foggy in the sky.. Foggy on the ground..

Spreading lime on candycots to decrease acidity of soil.

Foggy December morning. Trees are resting well.

What is winter dormancy? 

It simply means trees stop growing, they "go dormant" for a period. This only happens to trees in colder climates. As a natural defense mechanism, trees avoid damage from the cold by shedding their leaves ("deciduous") and entering a rest period. No leaves, no photosynthesis. 

In case of almond trees, root growth still happens during winter months, I believe. So it is important to irrigate the trees.

Trees preparing for their winter hibernation..

As part of this, they begin to shut down their growth process. Shedding leaves helps them conserve water and energy. In fact, before they shed those leaves, trees re-absorb all the nutrients in the leaves and store them in the other parts of the tree.

However, the roots continue to do their work and absorb required water and nutrients as need be.

Sri Chinna Jeeyar Swamiji blesses the orchard

Wood colony is neither wood nor colony.

It's just one variety of almonds in our orchard. Sweeping Wood Colony today.. Will start picking up on Monday..

PureSense makes sense!

A year ago, we installed PureSense real-time irrigation monitoring system on Carpenter ranch. 

PureSense people installed a field station that periodically records above and below ground conditions and sends it off to a server which can be accessed online real-time.

Q. How does it measure below ground conditions?

A. By constantly communicating to a number of  "soil moisture capacitance sensors" buried in the ground all throughout the orchard.

Q. How does a "capacitance sensor" measure soil moisture?

A. The sensor is basically an electronic circuit in which two plates use the soil between them as dielectric of a capacitor. In simpler terms, depending on amount of water present in the soil, its electricity conducting properties change.

Just to give you an idea, here's what a very simple soil moisture sensor looks like (this one is Arduino one -- the one where you can program for your home plants. Puresense one is much bigger).

Q. Do we have any complaints?

One big one. Their software only works on Windows and Internet Explorer. 

We can login to the server and check up on soil moisture levels on all blocks so we can identify problem areas within the orchard which need extra attention in terms of irrigation.

It also records and builds a database of irrigation data particular to our orchard which we can analyze later for historical trends. For instance, when we apply fertilizers via irrigation system, it can record the amount of fertilizer we applied and such. 

So far we are happy with it. To learn more, go to http://www.puresense.com/ .

This is how the field monitoring station looks like.

Shaking Wood Colony. Mostly shaking well.

May pole some areas.. meaning knocking almonds loose from higher stems with a long pole.

Pickup of nonpareil finished..

Trees look good, very little stress. Wood Colony a week or so away from shaking.

Loading nuts up..

Will be hauled to the huller from here.

Started sweeping today, windrows look good

Sorry for the picture orientation. There's no simple way to rotate it in the blogger, I think.

Carpenter Almond Harvest

Nonpariel nuts on the ground at Carpenter. We like the coverage on the ground, it looks good. Once we finish shaking, the nuts will need 4 or 5 days to dry before we start sweeping.

Fence has been restored to better-than-new condition! Thanks Lane!!

Brought a shaker in to test shake. Nuts coming off well so a second rig will be coming in later..

Oh the things fences have to put up with!

A bit of excitement at Whitmore. A truck-trailer rig executed a U-turn on Ustick Rd and his trailer took out a section of fence. The driver then drove away. Fortunately, Douglas (the tenant in the house) heard the commotion, hopped into his car and gave chase. About 2 miles away he flagged the driver over and called the police. The driver claimed he was unaware that he had damaged the fence. A police report was filed. We notified the company for whom the driver works.

We are lucky in that Douglas was there and did something about it! If he had not been there we would have wondered what had happened and had to pay for the repairs ourselves.

Almonds come out of their closet when they are mature enough..

And it's a good thing for us. Looking at Carpenter ranch nut maturity.. Some are still too green. Perhaps in a week or 10 days, they will be ready to shake?

Hull split in progress..

When the hull of an almond fruit splits and show off the shell inside, it's a sign of nut maturity.

Love the orchard at this time of the year. Pretty to look at. Plenty of shade to sit and relax. It is so soothing with cool gentle breeze and soft sounds of ruffling foliage.

Candycot orchard - today's pics!

See how beautifully the branches are spreading on V-shaped trellis structure. I cannot love trees enough! They are awesome, miracle life form that we have privilege to share mother earth with.

Carpenter orchard trees with leaves of majestic green!

"I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree

A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray,

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair

Upon whose blossom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems were made by fools like me
But only God can make a tree."
--By Joyce Kilmer

Almond orchard with nuts on trees.. Hoping for a reasonable harvest..

The bright silence of an young orchard..

Whitmore 2nd leaf almond orchard..

Training candycot (fancy apricot) trees on V-shaped trellises

The more sunlight a tree can intercept, the more photosynthesis will happen, the more tree grows, the more it gives.. So, a trellis structure maximizes sunlight interception by the tree leading to better tree health and higher yields. In the absence of trellising, the tree canopy spreads like an umbrella where outer parts of it get a lot of sun but the interior part struggles.

Roto-tiller at work at Carpenter ranch

We have hired a rototiller to come in to loosen up and smooth the soil. We have a lot of "sink holes" where the soil has fallen in to cavities formed way back when the ground was ripped. The rototiller does a nice job of loosening and smoothing. In the worst areas the holes are too deep to fill in and we will follow him with our orchard "float" and roller. We will end up roto-tilling probably more than half of the middles.

When wind and roof fight, wind always wins!

We had a terrific wind all day and in the afternoon there was a period of extreme gusts. We lost very few trees, but the wind badly damaged the roof of the house. It lifted the top layer of the roof and peeled back a section. A good portion of the Styrofoam insulation blew out. A portion of the sheet metal tore. I am pretty sure we will have to replace the whole roof.

Carpenter Trees

With their thick branches, far and widely spread..

Looks fine, but frost remains a threat thru May..

Our current evaluation of the crop is that it is good, but not spectacular.

We still have some hurdles to get over before harvest of course. Frost, worms, weeds, diseases and ants, to name a few. The nuts are large enough that they could withstand a short duration frost. The ground is finally dry enough that we can travel on it. We are finishing a fungicide spray that has taken a month to apply because of the interruptions by rain.

Carpenter ranch update: One spray to defend. One spray to protect.

We applied a spray of herbicide to the entire floor of the orchard. We then mowed the dead weeds and the orchard cleaned up nicely.

We also finished applying the "hull split" spray. The spray includes an insecticide for Peach Twig Borers and Navel Orange Worm, the two most serious worm pests of almonds, and a miticide.

Jacket split phase of almond growth..

So, a newly formed baby almond tears off its jacket and throws it on the orchard floor. Because the jacket doesn't fit it any more and it's too hot anyway. That's jacket split. 

Once an almond flower is fertilized (thanks to the bees), ovary enlarges and it splits the floral tube (jacket) and nutlet emerges. This tiny nutlet will grow into a nice mature almond fruit later on. This nutlet will break completely free of its protective jacket due to warm dry conditions.

Please click on the following picture so you can clearly see the jackets and nutlets on the trees.

However, if wet weather persists, jacket could continue to stick to the fruit and could be colonized by fungi and such. That would be a problem, for sure! It's called jacket rot.