In keeping with the Patrick Ranch Museum's mission to enhance “people's understanding and appreciation of our community's rich agricultural heritage,” a half-acre plot planted in heirloom almond varieties is situated between the Museum's entry road and the Master Gardener Demonstration Garden. Joseph Connell, along with Susan Donahue (both instrumental in establishing the Master Gardener Program in our county), were the masterminds behind the orchard. Real Dirt recently interviewed Connell about this tribute to the history of almond farming in Butte County.

Google Earth image of historic almond orchard

Joseph Connell: Susan Donohue [retired UC Cooperative Extension Director in Butte County, and Patrick Ranch Museum Board Member] at Patrick Ranch expressed interest in featuring an historical almond orchard on the Ranch property. As the UCCE almond Farm Advisor, I agreed to work on the project with them. I used my contacts with almond growers and with the almond variety collection at UC Davis to locate budwood for each of the varieties. Budwood consists of short lengths of young branches with buds suitable for budding into a rootstock to create a tree of a particular variety. Nancy Fowler Johnson of Fowler Nursery (an orchard tree nursery in Newcastle, CA) agreed to support the project by propagating and donating enough trees of each of the varieties I included in the demonstration orchard.

RD: How and why did you choose the varieties you planted?

JC: I selected varieties that were most popular in the almond industry prior to 1900. Varieties planted here represent the foundational introduction period of the California almond industry from 1850 to 1900. Earliest plantings were of varieties such as Languedoc from the province of the same name in southern France. Languedoc originally produced poorly due to a lack of understanding of the need for cross pollination. The other varieties in this historical orchard were selected by early agricultural pioneers from amongst seedlings planted in California. They became the foundation of the California almond industry.

Nonpareil remains the leading variety in the California almond industry accounting for 39% of the total acreage in 2019.  It is also the most valuable nut in dollars per pound returned to the grower. Breeders have been trying to match its quality for decades and haven't achieved that yet. The Peerless variety and a couple of others still have a small residual acreage in a few commercial orchards although improved varieties are widespread in today's orchards.

Specific varieties planted at Patrick Ranch, the year they were introduced into California production, and their original source include:   

Current statistics as of 2019: Nonpareil, the State's main variety, has 344,151 acres standing; Drake, 110 acres; Ne Plus Ultra, 1,647 acres; Peerless, (a few acres are still planted each year) 4,140 acres; while Bidwell, I.X.L., and Languedoc, are no longer listed by name in the 2019 Almond Acreage Report and may have passed into history. 

Almond Orchard behind the Native Plant Garden, Brent McGhie

JC: Trees were either available through the nursery directly, propagated by the nursery with budwood from the UC Davis collection, or in the case of the Bidwell variety, from a local grower, Randy Meline, who had maintained a tree of that Bidwell Ranch selection. I believe the nursery attempted to propagate ten trees of each variety. They delivered enough trees to plant the orchard with five trees of each variety.  The eastern three rows were planted with four trees of each.   

RD: Have all of the original trees survived?

JC: One Peerless tree on the south end of the row at Patrick Ranch died from gopher damage and a new Peerless tree was replanted several years ago on Lovell peach rootstock by Nick Bertagna [a third-generation Butte County farmer, as well as the retired UCCE 4-H Program Representative.]

RD: When were the trees planted? How far apart and why?

JC: Susan and I talked about moving the project forward in 2009. I located budwood, lined up the nursery as a cooperating partner, and the nursery propagated the trees in spring 2010. The trees were budded on ‘Hansen 536' peach/almond hybrid rootstock, which is the most drought tolerant of the currently available rootstocks.  This rootstock has characteristics similar to the almond rootstock that would have been used prior to 1900. Bare root trees were dug from the nursery the following winter and, as a demonstration orchard, the one half-acre block was planted on February 21, 2011 to a single row of each variety. The early blooming varieties are planted mostly to the west of Nonpareil and the late blooming varieties are planted on the east end.    Trees were planted in north-south rows so that visitors could walk along the north end of the rows and see each of the varieties. A relatively wide 25-foot square planting (70 trees/acre) was used since peach/almond hybrid rootstock will produce large trees similar to those on almond rootstock (current commercial orchards in the Sacramento valley are often planted at around 130 trees/acre on a peach/plum hybrid rootstock).

Almond Orchard looking east in 2015, Mari Moore

JC: As long as the orchard is harvested traditionally by knocking nuts off with poles, and not trunk-shaken mechanically, I would expect that it would have a lifetime of at least 30-40 years. It could be there even longer; for a long, long time was the Patrick Ranch's plan.

RD: What are the maintenance goals/requirements for these trees? Harvest goals?

JC: The first-year tree training was done by me and the early pruning/training and thinning of some crowded limbs was done by Nick Bertagna. Since it is not a commercial orchard, it is expected there will be minimal fertilization and spraying and not a lot of maintenance required.

The Patrick Ranch had hoped to be able to harvest some nuts and possibly sell them in their store or at public events as heirloom varieties. Unfortunately, the ground squirrels living happily in the adjacent oak grove have done most of the harvesting...at least, the last time I checked.

RD: What can we learn from this project?

JC: The half- acre orchard is mainly there to feature one of the early crops farmed in the Chico area and to preserve the heirloom varieties. Butte County was the number one county in almond production in the middle of the last century. It was the fourth largest county in almond production as recently as 1980. Now however, Butte County produces as many almonds as it ever did, but it currently accounts for only about 3% of the State's almond production due to the vast almond acreage expansion in the San Joaquin Valley.

RD: Will there be (have there been) maintenance, harvest, etc. demonstrations for the public?

JC: There have not been such demonstrations for the public to this point. A harvesting demonstration of how it used to be done using tarps, an almond maul, and bamboo poles could be held in conjunction with other events at harvest time.

Thanks to Connell, Donahue, and all the others involved in creating this living testament to the importance of the almond crop to Butte County's history and its current local economy.

UC Master Gardeners of Butte County are part of the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) system. To learn more about us and our upcoming events, and for help with gardening in our area, visit our website. If you have a gardening question or problem, email the Hotline at mgbutte@ucanr.edu (preferred) or call (530) 538-7201.