- Author: Kristen Farrar, SAREP
![More than a dozen people stand between blooming almond trees in an orchard that has green vegetation growing between rows.](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/Green/blogfiles/101458small.png)
Regional farms will demonstrate practices such as cover cropping, reduced tillage, compost and mulch use, hedgerow planting, optimized irrigation systems
To accelerate adoption of climate-smart farming practices, the University of California Office of the President has awarded nearly $2 million to a team of UC Cooperative Extension scientists and community partners working on a network of farm demonstration sites. The project will be led by Sonja Brodt, coordinator for agriculture and environment at the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Program. This UC Agriculture and Natural Resources project is one of...
/h3>- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
![Trees, like this walnut orchard, store carbon.](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/Green/blogfiles/31397small.jpg)
Can orchards get credit for storing carbon? A webinar discussing greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sequestration and more is now online.
Sonja Brodt, academic coordinator in the UC ANR Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, and Elias Marvinney, a graduate student in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences, hosted a webinar on July 29 to discuss their life cycle assessment analyzing the environmental impacts associated with walnuts, prunes, peaches, almonds and pistachios. The researchers are quantifying energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in orchard crop production both on the farm and...
![These almonds are still in the hull on the tree. Using the orchard biomass, hulls and shells for renewable power generation, soil amendment and dairy feed reduces the carbon footprint.](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/Green/blogfiles/31015small.jpg)
California produces more than 80 percent of the world's commercial almonds. Popularity of the nuts has spurred almond acreage in the state to expand from 510,000 acres in 2000 to roughly 890,000 acres in 2015, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. California's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which requires statewide reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the growing interest among consumers and food companies in the carbon footprint of food products, prompted some University of California scientists to examine how almond production affects the...