The almond is a family of “Rose” and a medium-sized tree. It’s like plum, apricot and peach. The edible seed is in a hard outer shell, like the peach. When ripe, the shell of the almond is exposed, and the almond nut can be easily separated from the hard shell after drying. There are two types of almonds; Sweet almonds and Bitter almonds. Almonds are used for various purposes such as making sweets, milk, nuts used in food and oil. Almond cultivation in India is confined to the Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir and selected hilly areas of Uttar Pradesh.
How to Start Almond Cultivation?
Let’s look at the almond cultivation process with complete specifications.
1. Climate Requirement
Farmers require a suitable climate for almonds where summer temperatures range from 30 °C to 35 °C and cool winters for kernel formation and plant growth. Open flowers can tolerate cold up to 2.2 ℃, but flowers are damaged in the petal fall stage from 0.50 ℃ to 1.1℃. The flowers can withstand temperatures ranging from 2.2 ℃ to 3.3 ℃. For a short period, but they are easily damaged if the low temperature is persistent for a long period.
2. Soil Preparation
Farmers grow the almonds in a wide range of soils, and the ideal soil pH is 7.0-8.5. Almond farming is suitable for deep, loamy and well-drained soil. Farmers can not grow almonds well in poorly and heavy drainage soils, but you can grow them in average soils supplemented with regular assured irrigation and farm yard manure.
When preparing the soil, you need to know which equipment is best for almonds farming; Tractor is the essential equipment for attachment. So choose the tractor which can be perfect for almost all kinds of attachment. However, you can choose the Mahindra tractor or any other tractor model suitable for date farming.
3. How to Plant Almonds
You should bud/graft plants in a square system at a distance of a normal farming planting system, 3.5 m X 3.5 m – 2.5 m (under a high-density planting system) or 4.0 m x 4.0 m (Medium-high density system).
Every third row should be a pollen grain row. Before planting, you should dig the pits of 3 feet x 3 feet x 3 feet from September to October. Almond plants should be planted in the centre of the pit from February to March, provided by the bamboo desired to protect the almond trees from winds and grow upright.
4. Training and Pruning of Almond Farming
1) Keep the tree at 1 metre above ground level when planting almonds.
2) 3 Primary scaffold branches are placed along the bottom of the trunk with some temporary branches; only those branches are removed that compete strongly with the primary scaffolds, and the almond tree is trained in the shape of a modified leader system. The 1-year-old wood is harvested annually in December-January when the almond tree is completely dormant. And they produce most of the fruit on short shoots, which last for about five years.
Therefore you should prune so that 1/5 of the fruiting wood is replaced yearly. Prune in such a way that new wood is constantly replacing the spur with new spur growth that is no longer fruitful or useful. To accomplish or achieve this, cut or remove old tree branches that are 1.2 cm to 3.7 cm in diameter. Besides removing unwanted suckers or water sprouts, thin the small wood very little. The success of pruning in an almond orchard can be judged by the length of time new shoots can be found on the entire tree each year if other factors are not influencing growth.
5. Intercropping of Almonds
During the pre-growing stage of almond orchards, inter-cultivation with several suitable crops is recommended so that some additional income can be done through sustainable use of the gap. The best intercrops in almond cultivation are saffron, peas, pulses, carrots, seed production of turnips, knoll shell, mustard and bulb onion and garlic, and aromatic plants and medicinal plants such as lavender. In addition to getting some additional income, growing legumes such as pulses and peas will increase soil fertility. It also increases turnip seed production and pollination by attracting bees and growing medicinal. A repellent for ant pests, insects and diseases.
6. Pollination Management
Farmers generally do not self-pollinate almond trees, so they must provide a pollinator variety (33% of pollen grains) every third row in each field so that their blooms coincide. Varieties are commonly used as pollinators for commercial almond cultivation, e.g., Jordana IXL, Varis and Ne-Plus-Ultra. In addition, planting 4 to 6 hives is highly beneficial and can increase fruit set and almond yield by 12 to 15%.
7. Equipment Requirements
Apart from this, we should make the soil suitable for almond farming by preparing it with the help of farm implements and machines, including tractors, tillers, cultivators etc. The tractor is the most prominent factor while using the equipment in almond farming, and when you start farming, you need to use the Kubota tractor or any other tractor model.
For further information regarding almond farming in India, stay tuned with us.
