With almonds' rising revenues, land values soar

Associated Press via San Francisco Chronicle / SFGate.com ^ | Updated 12:42 pm, Saturday, January 12, 2013 | By GOSIA WOZNIACKA, Associated Press

[Graybeard58]

In their natural state, wild almonds are mostly poisonous. It is a mutation that made them edible.

Must have been a very long time ago, they are mentioned in Genesis and other books of the O.T.

I don't know why it's mentioned as though it's not a nut (separately):

a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds

[Pilsner]

There are some grown in Texas. I have 2 young trees in my orchard. And they are grown in South Texas.

Unless they have solved the rootstock problem, there isn't any commercial production of note in South Texas. Almond trees thrive, right up to yhe day they get cotton root rot, and die. Good luck with yours -- I've had some viniferera grapes for about seven years, and they have dodged cotton root rot and pierce's disease so far.

[thecodont]

Pretty pictures. Thanks for the link!

[Scram1]

Topguard through a T-band, which dispersed the material along the furrow wall. It’s that application method that’s labeled by EPA.

The label also calls for 1 pint to 2 pints per acre and no more than one application per year.

For Texas cotton growers the old chemical works.

[Texas Fossil]

We have cotton root rot. It make kill the trees in the future, but so far OK. Have been told the same thing about apple trees here.

We will see.

[Bon mots]

Yes, it was vey long ago, but we don't know exactly how it was discovered or domesticated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond

Jared Diamond wrote of this in his books, which is where I learned it.

The almond is native to the Mediterranean climate region of the Middle East, eastward as far as the Indus.[5] It was spread by humans in ancient times along the shores of the Mediterranean into northern Africa and southern Europe and more recently transported to other parts of the world, notably California, United States.[5]

The wild form of domesticated almond grows in parts of the Levant; almonds must first have been taken into cultivation in this region. The fruit of the wild forms contains the glycoside amygdalin, "which becomes transformed into deadly prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide) after crushing, chewing, or any other injury to the seed."[6]notably California, United States.[5]

Almond is considered to be one of the earliest domesticated tree nuts. Wild almonds are bitter, its kernel produces deadly cyanide upon mechanical handling, and eating even a few dozen at one sitting can be fatal. Selection of the sweet type, from the many bitter type in wild, marked the beginning of almond domestication. How man selected the sweet type remains a mystery.[7] It is unclear as to which wild ancestor of almond created the domesticated variety. Ladizinsky suggests the taxon Amygdalus fenzliana (Fritsch) Lipsky is the most likely wild ancestor of almond in part because it is native of Armenia and western Azerbaijan where almond was apparently domesticated.notably California, United States.[5]

While wild almond varieties are toxic, domesticated almonds are not; Jared Diamond argues that a common genetic mutation causes an absence of glycoside amygdalin, and this mutant was grown by early farmers, "at first unintentionally in the garbage heaps, and later intentionally in their orchards".[8] Zohary and Hopf believe that almonds were one of the earliest domesticated fruit trees due to "the ability of the grower to raise attractive almonds from seed. Thus, in spite of the fact that this plant does not lend itself to propagation from suckers or from cuttings, it could have been domesticated even before the introduction of grafting".[6] notably California, United States.[5]

Domesticated almonds appear in the Early Bronze Age (3000–2000 BC) such as the archaeological sites of Numeria (Jordan),[7] or possibly a little earlier. Another well-known archaeological example of the almond is the fruit found in Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt (c. 1325 BC), probably imported from the Levant.[6] Of the European countries that the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh reported as cultivating almonds, Germany[9] is the northernmost, though the domesticated form can be found as far north as Iceland.[10]

[Graybeard58]

Thanks, that was interesting and informative. I enjoy reading stuff like that. I guess I’m kind of a nerd at heart.

One more bible reference:

Numbers 17:8

And it came to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.