Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1310869
A L M O N D O R C H A R D 2 0 2 5 G O A L S HARVEST DUST Almond Board of California 14 Off-ground harvest, zero waste go hand-in-hand Woody biomass that is hauled in from the orchard to the huller/sheller during harvest is not necessarily wasted, though it does represent wasted dollars. One optimal use for woody biomass is that it remain in the orchard, where it can be incorporated back into the soil via Whole Orchard Recycling and provide a plethora of in-orchard benefits, such as enhanced crop nutrition and increased soil organic matter. "16-20% of what is delivered to the huller/sheller is sticks and debris, and the grower is paying for all of that," said Guangwei Huang, associate director of Food Research and Technology at the Almond Board. With off-ground harvesting, more of this biomass can remain in the orchard, and hulling/shelling costs can focus more solely on delivered hulls, shells and kernels. Dave Phippen, whose Manteca operation includes a huller/sheller, said that most growers he works with hope for a turnout rate of 23-25% kernels, but that can drop to as low as 10-12% due to too much woody biomass and orchard debris. 5 While the cost savings for delivering clean product to the huller/sheller can be significant, the potential benefits for producing cleaner product reach much further. "Having a cleaner product will allow the industry to expand its range of possibilities in terms of how it optimizes further uses of hulls and shells," said Huang. An ABC-funded dairy feeding study found that most dairies are feeding cows between four-to-five pounds of hulls per cow per day. However, research shows that cows can be fed up to eight-to- twelve pounds of hulls per cow per day without causing any negative impact on milk production or quality. Still, potential foreign material that can be mixed in with these hulls may cause some dairies to hesitate to increase their inclusion rates. After all, just as growers seek to provide their trees with the highest- quality nutrients, so do dairies seek to provide their cows with the highest-quality feed ingredients. "An additional study funded by ABC shows that foreign material, like sticks, do not provide any nutritional value," Huang said. "This further establishes that cleaner hulls that are easy to sort have much better value." Beyond inclusion in dairy cow feed, the industry is exploring other markets for hulls including incorporation into poultry feed. Still, Huang emphasized that the key to opening up new, value-add markets will be a consistently high-quality, clean supply. In addition to finding higher-value uses for hulls, bioenergy and biochar provide two excellent uses for almond shells. ABC is currently conducting research to determine how shells may be used in bioplastics, activated carbon and soil amendments. 6 "There are three products that we create out here in the orchard. It's not just the nut – it's the nut plus the hull and the shell. And the hull and the shell, in particular, have been looked at as coproducts in the past. I think we need to come to a place where those are looked at as products in and of themselves, 7 " said Rory Crowley, chief operations officer at Nicolaus Nut Company and North State Hulling co-op member. Off-ground harvesting seeks to reduce dust, and also provides the industry with an opportunity to more efficiently put everything grown to optimal use. This is just one example of how the Almond Orchard 2025 Goals are interconnected and work in unison to achieve maximum financial, horticultural and generational benefits for the industry. Ultimately, starting with a cleaner product automatically increases the potential for greater returns and opportunity. Coproducts on the cutting edge North State Hulling Cooperative, Inc. is one industry harbinger who sees the potential benefits of off-ground harvesting. They're supporting growers in the transition from the low-dust equipment of today to the off-ground harvesting equipment of tomorrow by installing dryers at their new hulling plant in Orland as an alternative to leaving 5 For more from Phippen, check out this article from the July/Aug. 2019 issue of How We Grow: https://bit.ly/2GqZn1T 6 https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1202547-2020-jan-feb-how-we-grow/11 7 https://bit.ly/33ENGgQ Continue on page 15