Almond Centre of Excellence experimental and demonstration orchard (AL19000)

What’s it all about?

This project is providing funding for the infrastructure and maintenance needed for the Almond Centre of Excellence experimental and demonstration orchard, a collaboration between Hort Innovation and the South Australian Government. This includes items such as irrigation systems, machinery, shed facilities, orchard preparation, trees, training aids for plantings, labour and water.

The Centre of Excellence demonstrates new technologies and practices to the almond industry, and helps enhance the progress and extension of levy-funded projects such as:

• National almond breeding and evaluation program (AL17005)
• Evaluation of potential prunus rootstocks for almond production – stage 2 (AL16006)
• Almond productivity: Tree architecture and development of new growing systems (AL14007)

Under the project, the experimental orchard will come to have plantings covering traditional varieties and tree densities that can be used to investigate how to improve current commercial practices, as well as high-density new genotypes and tree architectures that will offer the potential for new methods to be explored. The facility will ensure that farm trials are well managed to the researcher’s requirements in terms of irrigation, nutrition, pruning, harvest timing and pest and disease control.