The Almond Conference in December, as always, provided a wealth of information to help growers fine-tune their production practices with updated techniques and state-of-the-art tools. More than 3,500 industry members crowded the meeting rooms and trade show floor. If you weren’t there, you should have been!
Here are some highlights:
- Accelerated Innovation Management (AIM) initiatives were launched. This strategic effort is designed to make the California Almond industry even more efficient and sustainable.
- A major focus of the AIM initiatives is irrigation management and efficiency, topics also covered by a number of Almond Conference events, including symposium sessions “Irrigation 1.0 Standards” and “Achieving Irrigation 2.0 and 3.0 Efficiencies.”
- The AIM initiatives also address water resources and reliability of supply, as well as the feasibility of using almond orchards to recharge groundwater with rains and runoff from wet winters.
- Sustainability sessions included “About the California Almond Sustainability Program,” a session on how to join in the California Almond Sustainability Program (CASP) and its benefits to those who participate as well as to the industry as a whole.
Look for reports from the Conference in future editions of this newsletter. In the meantime, I encourage you to review all the 2015 Conference presentations.
Sincerely,
Joe MacIlvaine, Chairman
Production Research Committee
