For the California almond industry, making life better by what we grow and how we grow is more than a commitment; it’s a way of life. To produce almonds in better, safer and healthier ways requires a firm understanding of a variety of factors, including tree age, impacts of land use, crop location and acreage. Each of these elements play into environmental impacts including water and air quality, disease and pest considerations and more. Further, current and accurate information on constantly evolving acreage and crop locations is critical for market and production applications.
In response to the constantly changing acreage and location of crops in California, the Almond Board of California (ABC) commissioned Land IQ, a Sacramento-based agricultural and environmental scientific research and consulting firm, to develop a comprehensive, living map of California almonds, orchard by orchard. The map is the result of nearly a decade of research, and because Land IQ’s approach1 does not rely on surveys or extrapolation its living map has an accuracy of 98% or greater – more accurate than other methods.
Beginning in 2019, the Almond Board adjusted the mapping process to include annual reporting that now involves the release of two acreage summaries: an initial estimate delivered in June that includes a bearing acreage estimate and a final estimate delivered in December that includes bearing and non-bearing acreage estimates for the same production year. The December estimate, which builds off the initial estimate provided earlier in the year, utilizes a combination of extensive ground truthing and advanced remote sensing analytics to refine Land IQ’s initial findings. The ground truthing effort maps a subset of the almond orchard population throughout the Central Valley as well as all other crops along a nearly 4,000-mile route. Land IQ then uses this data to calibrate algorithms in a remotely sensed image analysis process. This process differentiates almond orchards from other tree and annual crops.
Based upon their assessment in 2019, Land IQ determined that there are 1,497,336 total acres (bearing and non-bearing) of almonds in California. Of this total, 1,181,903 acres are considered bearing (defined as anything planted in 2016 or earlier) and the remaining 315,433 acres are a non-bearing estimate.2 Non-bearing almonds (mostly one and two-year-old trees) cannot be consistently differentiated from other similarly aged tree crops using remotely sensed methods. The ground truthing data, proportionality of almonds to other tree crops and other lines of evidence are therefore used to numerically estimate acreage for orchards that are one and two years old.
“ABC has been working with Land IQ for several years and appreciates the discipline with which it conducts its numerical analyses, resulting in very reliable estimates. Land IQ’s acreage estimations, combined with those of USDA-NASS [National Agricultural Statistics Service], provide the industry with very useful bases on which to make decisions,” said Almond Board President and CEO Richard Waycott.
Land IQ Owner and Principal Soil and Ag Scientist Joel Kimmelshue shared the estimate figures during a panel discussion at The Almond Conference 2019, titled, “Almond Production Estimates: Nuts and Bolts of Different Models.” Gary R. Keough, director of the USDA-NASS Pacific Regional Office, and others also spoke on the panel.
The Land IQ 2019 final bearing estimate, as well as an updated age layer map, is available on the Almond Board website. Individuals referencing the 2019 layer on the Land IQ web map should note that the layer accounts only for bearing acreage. However, some non-bearing orchards that were visually confirmed from ground truthing may also appear on the map.
For more information on the California almond industry map, visit Almonds.com/Maps. Any technical questions can be directed to Land IQ at (916) 265-6358 or technical.support@landiq.com.
[1] Land IQ draws on multiple lines of evidence including agronomic and remote sensing knowledge, unique field boundaries, robust on-the-ground verification, publicly available imagery and other spatial and non-spatial resources.
[2] Land IQ. California Statewide Almond Mapping - 2019. Dec. 2019. Based on data from USDA National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) and USGS Landsat.
