Why Are Almond Growers Uprooting Their Orchards?
The double whammy of drought and water regulations has led some farmers to sacrifice thirsty crops—with visually striking consequences.
ROW AFTER ROW OF PLANTS lay flat, their brown branches and bone-dry roots splayed out on ochre grass. Aerial images of the scene are a little disorienting: There are so many toppled shapes that it’s hard to make sense of the scale. At first glance, a viewer might assume they’re surveying uprooted weeds or unwanted shrubs—small, brambly ankle-scratchers baking in the afternoon sun and not particularly mourned.
But the plants weren’t weeds: They were once almond trees, each roughly as tall as a two-story home, economically precious, and very much alive.
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Until they were yanked out in May, these particular almond trees lived in Snelling, California, which sits in Merced County, east of San Jose. There, local growers are nuts for almonds; farmers grew more than 223 million pounds in 2019-2020. But the area is in the grip of a major dry spell: This May was the driest in 127 years, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and 100 percent of the county is currently classified as experiencing “extreme drought.” Now, between the parched period and looming new regulations around groundwater usage, some farmers are opting to send their trees to the big orchard in the sky.
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https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...almond-orchard