The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research says it awarded a $462,374 Seeding Solutions grant to the University of California, Davis, to advance climate-smart agriculture adoption for perennial crops like almonds that are grown in semi-arid environments.
The Almond Board of California, Ceres AI, TriNut Farm Management Inc., UC Davis and the University of California, Merced, provided matching funds for a total $924,749 investment, according to a news release.
FFAR said California almond growers face varying weather challenges and look to opportunities to build soil quality by using multiple or stacked regenerative production practices. A lack of comprehensive data from commercial farms limits growers’ ability to identify best practices that would work best for their farm, the foundation said, and many regenerative practices such as cover crops, composting and whole-orchard recycling have been studied only individually, but most growers use multiple practices.
FFAR said researchers from UC Davis will collaborate with advisers and scientists from the East Stanislaus Resource Conservation District and UC Merced to collect, assess and build on the innovative practices that many small and midsize almond growers have already implemented.
The team of researchers also will partner with the California Farm Demonstration Network to establish a demonstration hub in the San Joaquin Valley to compare management approaches after orchard replanting that stacks several practices, according to the release.
FFAR said this research will help growers understand the data behind the expected benefits and trade-offs when adopting new practices and systems.
