The Almond Doctor

I'm always pleased when I stumble across single-crop blogs. This morning's discovery is The Almond Doctor, by University of California Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor for Merced County, David Doll. Apparently there are 102,000 acres of almonds in Merced County, which is absolutely mindboggling! The focus seems to be primarily on pest and diseases, which gives it a very practical bent.

The Almond Doctor

The Devil's Apple

Maybe just because it's May and I'm eating an apple, I've been thinking about mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) tonight.

When I was a kid, there was a big patch of mayapples on my grandparents' property, right at a bend in the path that led down through the woods to the creek. I was always fascinated by the plants, with their odd single leaf, and their very rare flowers and fruit. I'm not sure any one ever told me that it was edible--I think I just extrapolated that from the word "apple" in the name. I don't think I ate too many of them, because I hardly ever found the fruit--I think the birds or squirrels or woodchucks or raccoons beat me to them most of the time. Turns out the plants are poisonous, as are the fruits if they're not ripe, so I'm probably lucky I didn't do myself in, sampling from them at random. Some people even have dangerous reactions to even touching the plants.

But when ripe, the fruits are edible, and they're actually pretty decent, with a kind of lemon/banana-type of flavor, and people make them into pies and preserves. Knowing what I do now, I'm not sure I'd actually eat such a pie anymore. (And I'm not sure you should either. Consider this a disclaimer--the Fruit Blog does not endorse you eating mayapples or any other potentially poisonous fruit.)

I guess mayapples probably belong to the same class of fruits as bitter almonds: things that are at least kind of safe in small quantities, but probably not good enough for any sane person to consider the risk worth dealing with in any significant quantity.

Anyhow, here's a page with a bunch of mayapple pictures.

Vayro, Marinada, Constantí, and Tarraco Almonds

Four new late-blooming almond cultivars from Spain:

Vayro, Marinada, Constantí, and Tarraco Almonds (HortScience reprint, via IRTA)

Attack of the Almond Pirates

I heard this on NPR the other day on the way home from work...how I managed to avoid posting it this long I don't know.

Seems that some one has been stealing almonds from California's growers. And we're not just talking climbing over the fence and filling their pockets. We're talking truckloads. Eleven tractor-trailer loads this year, in one case 80,000 pounds of almonds in a single go. Almost $2 million worth so far. They're assumed to be selling them on the black market, because it's not like you can just hide nearly a million pound of almonds in your garage and sell baggies on street corners...

California's Almond Farmers Cope with Thefts via NPR (audio segment)

Update: Here's a link to a good old fashioned text version of the story, for those who can't be bothered with things like sound: Thieves Reap What Almond Farmers Sow, via The Modesto Bee.

Update 2: And, for completeness sake, a video version for those of you who want the full multimedia experience: Nut Nappers Creating Problems In Stockton (looks like they've moved onto walnuts, too!).