2015 Top Ten Articles

In maintaining the tradition of counting down the end of the year, below are the top ten articles read in 2015 from the readers of “The Almond Doctor.”

10: It’s the Nut Price, Dummy. A great article by Franz Niederholzer that discusses the rationale behind the increased plantings. It was the number one read article in 2013, number 3 in 2014.

9: Leaffooted Bug Advisory for Almonds: Two of our IPM advisors, Kris Tollerup and David Haviland, provided an advisory for Leaffooted Plant Bug after the mild conditions of the 2014-2015 winter reduced insect mortality.

8: Almond Bloom 2015: General considerations for various concerns at bloom. An annual topic during a time of year with highly variable conditions.

7: Understanding and Applying Information from a Soil Test, Part 2: A part of a series of articles discussing soil nutrients as determined through a soil analysis written by Allan Fulton.

6: Proper Almond Tree Planting: An excellent article written by Brent Holtz discussing proper tree planting methods. Considering the number of new plantings in 2015, the article finding its way into the top 10 isn’t too surprising.

5: Drought Management for Almond: Drought was a major challenge for many operations in 2015. This article discusses strategies to help reduce the impacts of water stress and drought.

4: The Seasonal Patterns of Almond Development: Back from the dead, this 2009 article picked up over 1700 reads which may be due to the increase of almonds in the media. It covers the general biology of the tree and stages through the year.

3: More Leaves than Flowers: Why? : This past year, in many orchards, flower density was lower than normal, and trees pushed more leaves earlier than in the season. Issues from 2014 had a carry-over effect into 2015, and this article explains a few of them.

2: Fertilizing Young Almond Trees: a Few Tips: As in the last few years, this article is the second most read article from this past year. A great article written back in 2011 that covers some general recommendations for developing orchards.

1: Nitrogen Content in a Gallon of UAN-32: This article has a long life! Written back in 2010, it still is read frequently with over 2200 views in 2015. It is up in its ranking from #9 in last year’s review.

Thank you all for your support over the past year. I wish you all the best in 2016!

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