Cost-Benefit Analysis of Novel No-till Cover Cropping System in California Almond Orchards

Commodities

• Nuts: almonds

Practices

• Crop Production: cover crops, no-till, water storage
• Education and Training: on-farm/ranch research
• Farm Business Management: budgets/cost and returns
• Natural Resources/Environment: carbon sequestration, soil stabilization
• Soil Management: soil physics, soil quality/health
• Sustainable Communities: quality of life

 Academic researchers have
demonstrated many benefits to cover cropping in almond orchards
including better soil retention, soil structure, soil health,
water utilization, pollinator activity, and yield.  The
Almond Board of California has invested in educating growers
about the benefits of cover cropping and provided an incentive to
try cover cropping through their Seeds for Bees program. 
Yet today 90-95% of almond orchard floors are managed as bare
soil.

Growers perceive that winter
annual cover crops are more complex and costly than a clean, bare
orchard floor.  Growers also worry that cover crops will
interfere with harvest and sanitation operations, and reduce
yields by competing for water and nutrients.

The recent debut of Oakville
bluegrass enables a no-till cover cropping system for almond
orchard floor management that has lower operating costs than the
standard practice.  Oakville bluegrass is a perennial,
reverse season, drought tolerant grass.  Because it is
dormant while the cash crop is growing, it doesn’t compete for
water or nutrients. It stays low so it does not impede
operations.  It can reseed, so the effective lifespan may be
as long as the lifespan of the orchard.

The optimal cover cropping system
would cover the entire floor with a combination of Oakville
bluegrass and bee forage.  Presently there is no information
available about the business case for adopting this system. 
Our project aims to fill that void by conducting a cost-benefit
study of the system relative to the standard practice and
disseminating the information to growers.

We will quantify the impact of a
novel no-till cover cropping system for orchard floor management
versus the standard practice of bare, clean soil in terms of
management costs, impacts on harvest operations, and
environmental benefits including soil retention, soil health,
water utilization, pollinator activity and yield.