Farming Almonds - by Curiosity Quest

hey everyone I'm Joel Gideon welcome to curiosity quest the show that explores would you the viewer a cure spell now today our quest Center came to us from in Yoker in California Stacy wrote dear Joel I'd like to know how different nuts are grown harvested and processed in California going north on 99 you often see trees with signs on the fences telling you what kind of nuts are being grown well Stacey because of you we have traveled up the 99 to a city known as Newman in central California we're gonna focus on a specific type of nut in fact this nut is currently California's number one agricultural export can you guess what it is the almond so let's begin today's curiosity class [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] we are up here at stupid and Jasper orchards and I'm here with Jim Jasper thanks for having us up here our pleasure if this place is eating Norma's about how big is this facility well it's pretty good size obviously California is in the am a business and and we're in the Allen business in a very very busy time of year right in the building harvest as you can see all the activity going on I say almonds you say Amin's okay what's the difference here well basically everybody that grows Emmons Colin Hammonds anybody else throughout the world puts the L in and calls them Hallman so call her ma'am let's call mom and plead okay as long as you need them it's great it's good yeah we were actually getting ready to come out here this morning we said yeah we're going to an almond orchard and they said almond no it's Amman so we need to say that correctly absolutely how do you say this word almond you don't say Amman you don't say Amman Amin's almonds Amun's almond you're an amen' country now I'm an amen' country yeah so about how many acres are we looking at here well here here on site we have about 650 700 acres but we're farming a couple thousand acres right now most like but our growers and we depend on growers around here are bringing in around 20 thousand acres of Amman yeah keep this busy it keeps you busy and you've been here for a very long since the 1940s right company started my father and his partner mr. Stewart started 1948 and I came back in 1967 and started working for the company and my sons now been working here over 20 years so if their generation coming in and Wow oh it's great what are these coconuts nuts walnuts those are pistachios claire's goes nuts pistachios peanuts almonds corn nuts nuts almonds Jim is this where it all starts you have three things that's going on here that where you can see there Darryl left is a potential orchard they have the irrigation system in which is the Buried trip and they even have mark where the trees are going to be going in and I would not be surprised if this orchard gets planted within the next two to three months it so it's not seeds it'll actually be a little it's got to be a pot it admins are planning to waive now bare root the bare roots from the planets in January February but if you if you buy a potted tree it can be planted any time I can tell you this arch is going to be about it so there's a little dripper on both sides of that tree for your different purposes and they like to plant them on a little berm and then why we have these white things on the base so why things are if they come through to spray the weeds you can see the weeds are dead they don't want it hitting the trunk of the tree once a while there could be Gophers or something out that could nibble on the tree so Canada tape detector and then I see it looks like a bamboo stick that's in here now that's just to hold it okay keep it right keep it up right there woman's it looks very dry threat here how often are all ammon trees watered well obviously it depends on the size of the trees age of the tree the older trees the ones that we could irrigate them as often is about every seven eight days midsummer July August but as we get into the fall time will spread that out through 12 to 15 days how long does it take an amen' tree to produce Amin's well what you're seeing here is a two year old alma tree no Amin's on it it has a bit harvested next year they will harvest this treat so the third the third year that the trees in the ground there'll be a few admins on the tree enough to harvest sometimes we see to 300 pounds where you can see up to five or six hundred pounds to the acre third leaf and then it will hit full production by seven to eight leaf over seven to eight years we are called leaves okay so each time that leaves out it's one year so this is second leaf across the street the younger orchard firstly firstly you mentioned something about the tree being grafted what what do you refer perfect question yeah there's the amethyst industry is not the roots that was planted a certain roots that are conducive to plant for EM and ammon's and some of them are called hybrids some of them are cross between an amen' and a peach but it would not produce a good nut so coming from the nursery these trees are planted by seed in the nursery and then they're either butted or grafted and you can always see the area where it changes from the root to the variety that you want and it's a little discolored on these sometimes it's more apparent than others but it's not the same root as it is the top explained grafted the nursery you plant the seed and one that starts to grow they'll put a bud atom or a graph most of time now it's just a bud of whatever righty they want and that would be after growing about maybe six months so it would be a very very small seedling they call it a seedling sure and and then they're free and then they're going bud got it off put a butt underneath and then the bud would take off and that's what you're right and the bud looks like another little tree or is it just another little seat it's another little seat and I could show you buds here on this tree here I don't know if I can these are all buds okay those are buds Wow so they're not very big and so if they wanted if they wanted to use this variety they could they could cut this take the buds off and then put it in the tree and that's always done in May in June in the nursery how do they get the almonds off the tree they pick them you pick them they twist and then pull usually just cut down your tree and pick them up pick them off the tree or they'll fall just tickles you climb it you can just pull it off whack them with a stick Jim so how old are these trees dan years old right in the prime of production Jesus will produce anywhere from maybe up to 25 years old so we're going to have production here for France in more years this is the exciting part right I'm liking excited here yeah we're just getting ready to shake you can see we have boots acres here and they can take up to 150 please an hour if you can believe that 150 trees an hour that would be a little bit over an acre an hour about how many eight Amin's are gonna be falling on probably 15 20 pounds to a tree Wow Wow all right let me get thumbs up real quick we're good we're good okay whoa by the way Wow Jim I feel the ground shaking beneath us - oh my goodness now when they're when they're on the ground they're sleepers in the front so they're not they're not running yeah they're sweepers sweeping out of the way so they will not run over the admin that's like a mini earthquake you gotta it's like a linear way oh yeah you have to look how big the trees are yeah that tree there's probably 18 feet high so you got it taken you got take all the Amazon that tree Wow so when they're when they're on the ground are they ready to be you know we'll have to wait for about five to six days that the EM is dry and then we'll come into the sleeper who will be seeing that soon so can we walk over here we're clear you were saying that when they're on the ground I guess at this point they're kind of green yeah you see the green holes you see we don't like that we like we like them dry just like that so we're gonna have to let them lay on the ground at least five to seven days before we pick up the moisture on the meats which is the meat is inside this in shell good actually and then react actual Hammonds inside this and it's going to be ten to twelve percent moisture today so we got to get down to about five percent before we can pick it up I didn't realize there was an exterior shell that's the hull that's the hole right this is this is the hull that's a dry hole this is a green hole on the tree it actually is like this it's closed and then when it matures it opens up so it's on make sure it gaps up get a good visual right here and then and then it opens up opens up and then here what's this called that's the shell the shell and the Colonel's inside the shell now you'll see a brown kernel in there which is that's what people eat right there okay I need it you can eat it it's it's healthy for you a little bit are you so moist its moist yeah it's moisture than what we would harvest it needs to be dry so we're gonna let these sit on the ground till they get down to five percent moisture still good though and if you really want to know something it's not a nut it's a fruit I also know you're tripping us of it so look at Hammonds are a fruit just like a peach a nectarine or an apricot and if this is what you would eat if it was a fruit okay so this is a fleshy part of a peach yeah it's very and then if you opened up and after you eat the freshly part you would find a kernel in the shell in it so it's in the fruit family not in the nut family in fact the rootstock here is a peach root stock that you can believe that really yes and then we then we graft on or but on Ammons [Applause] well Jim we've moved I don't know what five miles away from the last orchard yes we have where we saw shaking yeah this is a next step obviously these animals have been on the ground for about five to six days so they're dry they're ready to sweep up into a wind role you'll see a win rule right here and the harvesters going to be right behind these sweepers picking your balance so these are ready to go into our facilities right now when did you stop watering or do you stop watering these yes good question we've probably took the water off of these trees about two weeks ago oh yeah we will want the tree to start to dry up a little bit the ground dry up till we can harvest so normally it's about two weeks prior to harvest as soon as we get these nuts up we'll have water back down these trees we do not want to lose the leads [Applause] are there different for right yes sir them there has to because it's cross-pollinated oh okay I am miss have to be cross-pollinated and so you have Pepe's so if you are here in February and March when they're in bloom you'd see the bees working and the M industry here in California we'll bring in at least 2 million boxes of beans someplace in the United States many almond trees are not self pollinating so bees play a very important role in the almond during process you can see there's a lot of trash in there yeah but you'll see when he passes us what's in the cart is going to be nothing but Alan's Hammonds now is it taking off the oh no no we do that let me get back to the holding of telly [Music] this thing I filled up so fast it doesn't take long we're going to go over and see him dump this now if you want that sounds great so he'll be pulling up putting it here in the elevator and then the elevator put it in the pile and we'll be out here in the next couple of days cover fumigate and these admins are good until we come pick them up and they're dumping sideways they're dumped sideways a little different than the first one we saw what's this what are these laws here Poor's okay D Twitter at the tech term I like that [Music] and we're the best oh now [Music] all right Jim we're out of the field and back at the plant yes we are here we got here's one of the trainers you saw getting filled out in the orchard absolutely so what's going to happen now but they call this is a free cleaner free cleaner okay so the truck is getting ready to dump it's going to remove first assist which we'll take a look at that remove all the dirt and then what's left to go into this class so this is dirt sticks everything everything came out of ours and this is a dirty churn all the dirt obviously you see the dirt the sticks coming out we don't want dirt sticks in the plant so the first thing we're going to look at is the admins coming out of a bin going on a conveyor that's going to be clean very very clean because they've cleaned here in the pre cleaner they're going to go up and they're going to go through some stages a lot of stages they're going to be going over decks they're going to be going through sheer rolls the sheer walls are going to be knocking off the hull and then the shell they're going to be going through what they call air legs that's going to lift everything that's lighter up and leave Evans going down we're going to be collecting all the animates on one built all the animates are going to end up at one end of the plant it's going to go through an optics sorter it's going to go through a what they call a gravity table it's going to end up in a bin and when it gets in that bend with when we open it it's going to fill one of those four by four by four bins with 2,300 pounds of pure clean ham and meats you say m and michi referring to the actual and the actual Aven and you could reach in there and eat it oh wow and it's got to be this precious can be how long will it take one of these trucks load to go through this part of the plan about an hour and a half 10,000 pounds of meats 50,000 pounds of product coming out of the orchard so would we bring in a truckload about 20% of that truck load is a man beat ceramic kernels the rest is haul shell sticks dirt leaves you name it so I see the stick spawn behind us the dirt pile behind that wall and what about these huge mountains behind me what are those those mountains this particular mount and you're looking out here is Kjell and we separate the shell from the holes the next mountain that you see on the other side is holes and the reason we separate them because there's a lot more value in the holes as a byproduct in the shell probably five times the value it halls as shell and it all goes to the dairy industry balls for dairy feed the shell for dairy Betty really oh yeah so you're not throwing any oh we don't throw anything away we don't throw anything away now these big white thinks those are bag houses and that's all for dust control and you know how dusty it was out in the orchard yeah but when you go in this plant you're not going to see quite as much dust and so we have to keep things pretty clean around here and that is how we keep the air clean is with these big bag houses what's the percentage of Amin's that you guys process is compared to I don't know California okay California provinces processes over two billion pounds this facility will process between 40 to 50 million pounds that would be about two percent so this facility here has about a hundred fifty growers acreage wise probably between 20 to 25 thousand acres and we take care of ourselves as a grower at our neighbors as a grower so about two percent of California's Ahmadiyya going to this plan yeah two percent of California's Evans and aberford in California produces eighty to eighty-five percent of the world production so basically you could say that this plant probably handles about one and a half percent of the world it works reduction Wow because they just don't grow amundsen too many other places in the Central Valley of California Wow Jim where you brought us is really loud what's going on in here well this is a hot business so the amaz all the three just you see all these kernels what is he spins this is about 2,300 pounds of ammon parent kernels are getting dumped going to amaze us order to take out anything that's undesirable then it will glow of the Pfizer the sizer will break the Amazon is it eight sizes so the largest diamond is going to be at number eight and we take a sample out of every bin so we're taking about a five to ten pound sample of the Amin's as they felt the bin we have another area here we call it's a quality control rather the sizing room and rent another noisier what's going on we have a lot of noise around here but it takes noise in order to get these a man-fast the first process is going to be laser starting in object coding that we have machinery removing what are the laser looking for the lasers looking for anything that's undesirable could be for McCarroll it could be a reject that could be something as simple as it's just that while we have such diverse that one if I Jonathan I just won relied on song right here like that that like that what size are we do it worked with right here this is he's probably a size five okay so I see it just loading it right behind us right here and then what's it going to go through more streams and hoppers yeah it's going to go through two layers of 40 major sorting it hit if you can believe this thirty thousand to look at second and anyone that wants to pick something out it will drop about four inches and he's just undeniable row we move ninety five the night under before before I know people are going to be wondering what do you do with the almond and here in her Luke we knew they use everything okay now the next shift is breath it could be made Sutter could be made of life as ice something like that we don't throw any on go away we're just using four different - alright Jim now we're in a cooler less noisy room and there's a lot of action going on in here yeah this look at these ladies now this is the final inspection and we look at the equipment and I mention to you the service taken out ninety five ninety eight percent but this is a final sort before it goes into the box what exactly are they pulling it out I mean I've seen they're going through everything what are they going out yeah they'll pull up fifth this crack if they fight any for material and once in a day well there could be a reject down what's in the red box yes and rejects right there we got a few rejects okay and that could have been pulled out over a ferry about four or five dollars but anyway we do not want that to go in the box okay it's amazing and they're catching I'm sitting here looking as we're talking and thinking what would I pull out no big one yeah that's a wide it okay good job BAM look at that you're hired Jim you're doing test after test after quality control after QC what are we doing now well these animals are just getting ready to go in the box but we want to make sure there's no foreign material so this lovely young lady will dump it on the table and he will look for pieces of foreign material form of two of being anything that's not an amateur and she will count the pieces and then she will audit and put it down we're looking for zero okay so take fifty pounds out of every two thousand pounds that we run and all of this gets recorded in the computer if the customer receives some admins they have and if to a some people will show them exactly what we do okay and we could take the customer clear back to the orchard so we know where these AB what Orchard these animals came out of when they were hauling the shell when their size we have we have a blueprint of these ABA's from coming from the orchard going to the customer you have to have that dedicated absolutely dedicated employees they're the most important aspects we have we have laser sword as we've done for church that produce with all the evidence we've got city art equipment but if you don't have the right people you really don't have a a successful business and I can't emphasize how proud I am of the people that make up skirt and Jeff the skirt just as you're paid up with committeth people how did nothing to do with myself but it's all about the people you got employees here for 10 20 30 oh I met somebody was here for over 40 years right 47 years how they are trees yeah don't you I see I don't want to hold that up to they give away anything but I see zero zero zero zero zero zero pretty good today so far huh alright thank you thank you very much good job i Jim what's happening behind us here 50-pound boxes boxes go down the corner over here does it fill the cops August would apologize and then they're going through our culture and in this room where you're sort of it is really cold in here how cool about twenty-five to fifty disease there's actually our life is visual closer to another step where we're taking these Hammond holding the dirt the part where I get to eat it right you just need whatever you are you're putting this way up here we're now in the kitchen I'm here with Jason Jasper Sutter Jim jason tells me whatever about what we're doing in here oh we have numerous flavors of almonds here season flavors sweet flavors almond butter you name it we got it over 50 flavors what is she doing right now those are cinnamon glazed almonds that we're making right now make them in small batches that's about a 12 pound batch that were we make at a time 14 15 years ago we decided to be fun to fit some flavors on him and the first flavor we came up with was the cinnamon glaze flavor you see there and from there we've gone crazy with it and come up with over 50 different flavors but do you think oh I love cinnamon caramelized almonds oh my gosh what do I think I'm reaching in for my second has a really intense flavor [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well harvest has come to an end honor they Jim Jason and everyone out here it's stewards and Jasper orchards for teaching us all about almond tree Amin's and I especially want to beg you Stacey for setting us on today's curiosity quests now if there's something you want to know more about let me hear from you go to curiosity quest org click on the send us on a quest link and simply tell me what you're curious about and who knows it could be you that sent us on our next tasty outing now remember every great adventure begins with just one person curiosity so I wonder what are you curious about I'm Joel Green I'll see you next time [Music] that's like a 2.0 you people in California to know what I'm talking about [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: curiosityquest

Views: 827,711

Rating: 4.7061224 out of 5

Keywords: almonds, curiosity quest, farming, almond farming, farming almond, how do almonds grow

Id: -4YJygh5ZrU

Length: 27min 38sec (1658 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 13 2018