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[00:00:07] The Dirt PodKast:
Welcome to The Dirt, an economics podcast bringing you the down and dirty agronomic science behind growing better crops and bigger returns. Backed by nutrient-economics.com, we break down the latest research, news, and insights to help farmers make better business decisions. Let’s dig in.
[00:00:31] Karl Wyant:
Hello again, and welcome back to The Dirt Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Karl Wyant, and this week we have a great topic on one of my favorite nuts to eat pistachios, one of the best on the market. In today’s episode, we are going to dig into the ins and outs of pistachio production. And I just want to set the stage here that in the US, we love pistachios. We’ve increased our consumption per person from just over a quarter pound per person to now just under one pound per person. That’s a lot of pistachios to eat in just 26 years of consumption increase. And from a farming perspective, we’ve just crossed that mark of over half a million acres of bearing trees, trees that are actually producing the nuts. Big growth story here in the US for pistachios, lots of fun. And what I’m going to do is bring on Steven Vasquez, the executive director of the administrative committee for pistachios to talk more about this crop.
[00:01:25] Karl Wyant:
But first, Steven, tell us a little more about you, where you’re located, and what your position is.
[00:01:30] Stephen Vasquez:
Thanks, Carl, for having me. As you said, I’m the executive director for the administrative committee for pistachios, which is the federal marketing order overseen by the USDA. Then I’m also the executive director for the California Pistachio Research Board, which is the state marketing order overseen by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Located here in Fresno, really one of the major counties where pistachios are grown, and they’re grown between Bakersfield all the way up to Ready. Pretty wide swath. They’re also grown in other states as well. Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Nevada, all have pistachios in them. And the administrative committee for pistachios, which is the federal marketing order, covers 99.9% of the pistachios, which are California, Arizona, New Mexico. Those are in the marketing order.
[00:02:19] Karl Wyant:
Steve, before we jump into the questions about pistachios specifically, could you just talk about what a marketing order is? We have lots of folks that listen to this podcast in Western Canada, in the Midwest US, and they might not be familiar with the specialty crops in these marketing orders that we put to use.
[00:02:34] Stephen Vasquez:
Marketing orders have been around since I believe the 20s or 30s. They’ve been around a long time, and the name is kind of deceptive. At one point, there was marketing associated with all marketing orders, but that’s not the case anymore. With pistachios, with both the federal and the state marketing orders, I don’t do any marketing. Really the focus for the federal marketing order, and these marketing orders are tailored to the industries that they represent. Ours is tailored to how we need the marketing order to work. The federal marketing order, the administrative committee for pistachios focuses primarily on food safety, so mycotoxin issues, statistics, acreage, and shipping statistics. And then we have an export program to the EU. And then of course, the standards and grades that are overseen by the USDA. The state marketing order, the California Pistachio Research Board, really just focuses on production research, anything to help solve issues that growers are having.
[00:03:35] Stephen Vasquez:
And both marketing orders have assessments that are paid by the growers for both marketing orders, and those dollars are then overseen by boards made up of the industry, growers and processors for both of them. They’re a great tool. They work really well, and they help when major issues come up, whether it’s in terms of rates or standards or some production issue. These marketing orders are great because they can really help bring the industry together and find a way to solve those problems.
[00:04:06] Karl Wyant:
Excellent. So funding some of that collaborative research approach so that the industry solves problems and moves forward, right?
[00:04:12] Stephen Vasquez:
Yep, absolutely.
[00:04:14] Karl Wyant:
Steve, would this be more equivalent to a checkoff program that we see in some of these states in the Midwest?
[00:04:19] Stephen Vasquez:
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of similarities there. I
[00:04:21] Karl Wyant:
Just wanted to help folks. I hadn’t heard that term marketing order before. Thank you for that. Let’s jump into this pistachio piece because I, like I said at the top of the call, I love pistachios. We’ve increased our consumption by a full half pound per person in 26 years, which is remarkable. But the cool thing about pistachios, at least for agronomists like you and I, CCAs like you and myself, is this planning that it takes to grow pistachios. And we know that pistachios are a perennial crop. They’re long-lived. It’s a big upfront investment. You might not get pistachio nuts until five or six years after you’ve planted. And then you’ve got a few generations of farming after the fact to take care of those trees and put them to work. What have you learned, Steve, over your experience with pistachios? I also know you worked in grapes and invited culture over your career.
[00:05:08] Karl Wyant:
You’ve worked with these long-lived crops, and what have you come away with from a fertilizer planting that maybe a row crop grower could think about in the future?
[00:05:16] Stephen Vasquez:
With annual crop, you get a chance to make a difference every single year because you have a new crop. In perennial crops, you got to really plan ahead for a perennial crop because that crop is typically going to be in the ground between 20 and 25 years. And here’s what will blow your mind. In the case of pistachios, we’re talking a hundred years. So you get one chance in a hundred years to make those decisions that are going to impact from year one all the way through year 100. A lot of planning has to go into making sure that you are setting yourself up for success over the long term because the challenge of making the wrong choice and then just ripping it out or waiting until next year doesn’t happen in a perennial crop. Now I have seen it happen, but that’s like one in a thousand times that it happens.
[00:06:09] Stephen Vasquez:
And it’s very costly when you do make the wrong choice. Growers have to really consider the long-term from site selection to variety selection to layout. All those things have to be spot on the first go
[00:06:21] Karl Wyant:
Around. It’s a lot of decisions to make at once. It’s got to be lots of thoughts to put together year one, knowing it’s going to last maybe 99 more years into the future. That’s incredible. I think the takeaway for everybody listening to this podcast is just the power of long-term planning and really putting in the though at the front. Here we’re talking about pistachios, but we can cascade this out to other crops and fertilizer plans as well. What I wanted to do next, Steve, is just kind of dig into this pistachios piece because you see them everywhere now. It used to be, I feel, when I was a kid in the 80s, eating a pistachio was kind of a luxury, a little bit of a rare thing. Now granted, I grew up in rural New Mexico, so maybe we just didn’t have the right grocery stores.
[00:06:59] Karl Wyant:
I don’t know. But now you see them at the baseball stadium, you see them in the grocery stores, you see them everywhere. We’ve had a lot of growth in the consumption, but let’s just talk about what makes pistachios so unique and why are California, Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico growing the pistachios? What’s the climate requirement for this crop?
[00:07:18] Stephen Vasquez:
Well, before we get started, Carl, I do have to say if per capita consumption is one pound now, since me taking this job, I’m up to about probably 40, maybe 45 pounds a year of eating pistachios. I just want to get that out there so people know. Doing my part. An interesting way to approach this, let me just go a little bit about the history of pistachios, because when we talk about perennial crops, it’s like one of the youngest perennial crops to be grown in the US. I got this stuff written down here. I can’t remember dates. I don’t even know what date the 4th of July is on. I need to write these things down. A little bit on pistachio history. First arrived in the States in 1854. Really, when you think about it timeline, that’s not really that long ago. And when you put it in perspective with a crop like grapes that’s been around for a thousand years in the US, it’s pretty amazing.
[00:08:10] Stephen Vasquez:
First planted in Sonoma, California. Now imagine that. Sonoma is right next to Napa. It’s known as a pie in wine growing region. And then first research was done by the Dean of Ag, Edward Nixon, in 1889. It was first released for production in 1919 with poor results. We just didn’t have the right varieties and it really didn’t take off. And when you think about it, it was up in Sonoma. And you think about pistachios today, they’re all grown from Bakersfield already, but the majority are still down in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley. They probably didn’t have the right varieties. It’s a diacious crop. You have to have males and females that may not have had the right matchup there. But here’s where it kind of gets interesting. In 1929, William White House was a USDA botanist. Now imagine that. How many USDA botanists do you know today?
[00:09:01] Stephen Vasquez:
Not very many. These botanists went out and they did collecting of all kinds of stuff. And William’s focus was on pistachios. He actually went to Iran and did a lot of collecting. And that variety that he identified is the Kerman variety that we know today, which has really been the workhorse of the industry. It’s being outpaced by new varieties, and we can talk a little bit about that later. And then the first harvest, this is where it gets interesting for someone like you who’s a certified crop advisor. The first harvest was in 1976, 1.5 million pounds on 1,700 acres. That comes out to about 880 pounds per acre. And then 1979, we harvested 17 million pounds from 31,651 acres. That comes out to about 537 pounds per acre. Now, here’s the interesting part. I had to do the math on this. What if we had 31,651 acres today and using our average of about 3,000 pounds, we would end up with about 95 million pounds out of that same acreage.
[00:10:04] Stephen Vasquez:
What has changed? Well, it’s really been the evolution of the types of fertilizers and our approaches agronomically to how we produce pistachios today versus back in 1979. I though that was pretty amazing. And that’s really kind of what’s moved us into the 550,000 bearing acres of pistachios that we have today. That little bit of history there on where we started and where we’ve been. Now your question focused on what pistachios are.
[00:10:33] Karl Wyant:
The climate requirements.
[00:10:34] Stephen Vasquez:
We’re in California, Mediterranean climate. We grow, what, 400, 450 crops here. It’s kind of the perfect climate for growing just about anything, and certainly pistachios are one of them. Pistachios are unique in that they like extremes. In terms of winter, they love that cold weather. They love the fog. They need that for dormancy. They need somewhere about 900 chill units to break out and actually produce a crop. And then on the other side, during the summer, when we’re talking about maturing a crop, they’ve got to have that heat. They’ve got to have the heat that we have here. 95 plus is not a problem during maturity. There are times when high temps are not good, and one of those would be during bloom. Probably 85 or less is probably the optimal temp for them. But pistachios love those two extremes during the winter and during the summer, which gives us the ability to throw them very well here.
[00:11:29] Stephen Vasquez:
Their center of origin is Asia and the Middle East. Those climates there are very similar to what we experience here. Although we’ve had some changes in our wintertime temps, we’ve certainly had warmer winters, and that certainly has impacted not just pistachios, but other perennial crops that need that long dormancy in chill units to produce a crop.
[00:11:50] Karl Wyant:
Steve, thanks for that explanation. I’m going to ask you what a chill unit is for the folks that are sitting in a planter here in Western Canada today planting. And then we’ll talk about maybe some of those changes in the fertilizer practice that has led from what we could produce in 1976 to now. For the uninitiated, Steve, what’s a chill unit and why pistachios so reliant on a cool but not freezing cold winter to get a good yield in the spring and the fall?
[00:12:17] Stephen Vasquez:
Just a very basic definition of that is a timeframe that’s less than a certain degree. In the case of perennials, typically 40 to 45 and below is kind of that temp that accumulates over time and you get so many hours based on that amount of time below those temps, and then you accumulate those over the season. And that just really helps the plant kind of shut down from the previous harvest to bloom or leaf out the next harvest. And they need so many hours. One of the things that’s happened because of climate change, a lot of breeders are looking for ways to breed in the ability to have lower chill, but still produce the same crop. Things like pistachios that need about 900 hours of chill, our breeder is looking to try to get that down to 600 hours of chill. And now that’s going to take a lifetime or two before we can actually do that.
[00:13:13] Stephen Vasquez:
And they’ve done it in other crops. Stone fruit is a perfect example of where low chill has been incorporated into the varieties and they’re able to produce a crop much earlier and with much lower values needed of those lower temps. I don’t know if that explained it, but that’s kind of an overview of chill units.
[00:13:33] Karl Wyant:
Yeah, appreciate that. And to the listeners, we keep track of chill units through the season. We have sensors out in the field and state-run weather stations that are telling us what the chill units are so we can make some forecasts on crop performance the next year. Steve, thanks for filling in the folks on the chill units. Let’s talk about the changes in fertilizer practices. You’ve mentioned that big jump from 76 to now. I didn’t realize that was how young this crop was, 1976. Lots of great classic rock albums released in that year. Steve, is it safe to say that those fertilizer practices have really matured over the last 50 years because there’s been collaboration with growers, researchers, agronomists, the marketing order of having some funding available for fertilizer practices? Is that a fair statement?
[00:14:18] Stephen Vasquez:
Yeah, I think so. What did we have in 1979? It was very limited. We had what? Anhydrous ammonia, we had ammodium nitrate, and a lot of dry fertilizers. And then of course we had compost and manures. You think about what we have today, we have a lot of specialty products, both in liquids and foliars, which we didn’t have a lot of in 1979. And then you think about just the different practices that we employ to establish a perennial crop from ripping to slip plowing to adding soil amendments. We start talking about varieties and root stocks and irrigation practices. You think about all those things that have come together and have really help us evolve in terms of the different perennial or specialty crops that we grow here. And you could probably look at any one of those crops just like you could look at corn.
[00:15:10] Stephen Vasquez:
And you just see this evolution of improved quality and yields over time. And I thought that was pretty interesting when I started looking at those numbers and then you start thinking about what that change has been. And really, I think all the consultants, I mean, you talked about certified crop advisors. Those guys are very specialized. Many of them maybe focus on a handful of crops and really identify the needs of those crops and the application of products. All that has, I think, contributed to where we’re at today in California agriculture.
[00:15:40] Karl Wyant:
That’s great. Great overview of that collaboration and that connection you made into corn. You think of all the corn breeding programs and hybrids and things like that. That’s a good analogy to what we’ve been experiencing even on the specialty crop side as we’ve tried to march that yield up and that quality of grade up as well. Steve, I wanted to talk to you about potassium because of the role potassium plays in nut quality, nut size. Steve, what’s your experience with pistachios and these potassium fertility programs and how we’re getting these modern yields in quality?
[00:16:12] Stephen Vasquez:
You think about what we had in potassium in 79 and we had potassium sulfate, potassium chloride, probably another two or three products. You think about what we have in potassium today and the yields that we’re getting today and potassium is in terms of the macros, to me, it’s probably more important than nitrogen. Now don’t get me wrong, you definitely need some nitrogen. And growers and homeowners love nitrogen because it does something. You could see it, right? It turns something green. But potassium is just as important and certainly important in terms of producing high quality fruit, or in our case, nuts. A pistachio orchard that’s producing about, let’s just say the average is around 3,000 pounds per acre, certainly could be higher. Potassium, we’re looking at probably 200 to 250 pounds of K that’s needed to produce that crop, that high quality crop. And as you know, potassium’s important in producing sugars and starches and proteins, but it’s also important in water movement and opening and closings tomorrow.
[00:17:11] Stephen Vasquez:
All those things are very important. But I think for focusing on the fruit itself, sugar, starches and proteins, you’ve got to really have a good timing of when you’re putting that on and trying to finish that crop. And as soon as you get nut set, well then it just becomes a sink for the need for potassium. It’s certainly an important macro.
[00:17:33] Karl Wyant:
Yeah, thanks Steve. It’s interesting when we look at these potassium uptake curves for nut crops, including pistachios, once that nutset happens, 250 pounds of potassium demand an acre by that crop. That’s a lot. And Steve, are growers meeting that through a combination of liquid and dry and foliar programs?
[00:17:49] Stephen Vasquez:
I think they are, yes. Certainly you’re going to get the bulk of it’s going to be soil applied, whether it’s a dry. In pistachios, most orchards, I mean we still have some that are flood irrigated, but most orchards are on drip irrigation. It just makes sense. Liquid is easy to apply through the system, gets it right to the active root system, and you’re going to probably have the greatest success in that situation. For a orchard, there’s older orchards that are still flood irrigated. They’re either going to broadcast or they’re going to shank it in next to the trunks and down the road, then they’ll flood and make it available then. But combination of liquid dry foliars I think is certainly not out of question for growers.
[00:18:31] Karl Wyant:
Yeah, thanks, Steve. Just a follow-up question. We’ve been talking so much about nutrient management. What are the tools in the field for a crop advisor for a grower to use to keep track of the nutrient status of a tree? It’s very different from corn, from soybeans, from wheat. It’s a big crop size-wise, there’s lots of options. How are we keeping track of these nutrient needs?
[00:18:53] Stephen Vasquez:
I think most growers or certified crop advisors are putting together a nutrient budget. I think you have to do that. Certainly in today’s world here in California, you have to do it for nitrogen as a result of it leaching into our aquifers. But a nutrient budget really makes sense. You have to understand your site. Are you on clay or sand? What type of water quality do you have? What’s the age of your tree? What’s the rootstock? What’s the variety? And then what’s the product that you’re going to be using? You got an older orchard, let’s just say 10, 12 years, that’s kind of just as it’s starting to come into full production. What is the plan in terms of what you harvested last year versus what your expectation is this year? Now here’s the challenge, Carl. Pistachios are an alternate bearing crop. You can have on years and off years.
[00:19:43] Stephen Vasquez:
That makes it very challenging and much more important to keep track and document all those things. All your tissue, soil and water analysis, your yields from the past, and whether you’re going into an on-year or an off-year, that will help you make decisions on the amount of nutrients that you’re going to need. You just have to keep track of that. Otherwise, you could be missing out on potentially improving and increasing your crop quality and yields. Certainly records are very, very important.
[00:20:13] Karl Wyant:
If we don’t get the on year and off year right, and we don’t fertilize for a big year, a big on year, we could miss our yield goals and quality standards. Is that a fair statement?
[00:20:24] Stephen Vasquez:
That’s a fair statement. And let me just give you an example. This year we’re going into an off year. Last year we had a record year. We had about 1.5 billion pounds produced industry-wide. This year we were anticipating about a 1.4 billion pound crop in an off year. We had a decent chill in the wintertime. When the season started, all of a sudden we started to see buds that were just dropping out and the crop was starting to get smaller. So we went from an estimation of a 1.4 billion pound crop to a one billion pound crop, and now we’re at about a 800 million pound crop. What does that mean? That means that when you go into some of these orchards, what the potential was early on and what it is now, growers are really having to go, “Okay, let me rethink my nutrition budget and really figure out what I can back off on.
[00:21:22] Stephen Vasquez:
But I can’t back off so much that I’m not prepared for next year because next year could be the banner on year as a result of us dropping off for a variety of reasons. It’s important for growers and consultants to really understand where we are with that and then make good decisions based on tissue and soil and water analysis and where are we going to come out on the crop this year?” They need to track that, and then they’re going to have to make up for some of that next year as an on year.
[00:21:51] Karl Wyant:
Steve, that’s a fascinating just layers of complexity you just explained. In the row crop world where you plant in the spring harvest in the fall and you get to do it all over again the next year. Here with pistachios, we’re having to think, well, are we an on-year and off year? What’s the age of the block? What sort of natural challenges am I having with this field, with the soil, with the water? Lots going on here. Lots of great reasons to get a good plant together and use a lot of that strategy, agronomy strategy to try to make sure that you’re hitting the mark and making sure your crop’s happy every year.
[00:22:22] Stephen Vasquez:
Yeah, that’s a real challenge. I know there’s a lot of growers and consultants out there scratching their heads right now going, “Okay, I’m looking at my data. I’m going to look at my data again. I’m going to put it away. I’m going to come back and look at it again because I really got to make that right decision, not just for this year, but for next year. I can’t short the tree too much because I’m expecting the banner year next year.” It’s a challenge, definitely a challenge.
[00:22:47] Karl Wyant:
Let me ask you three more questions, Steve, and then we’ll wrap this thing up. We’ve talked about the planting part, trying to get that year one so perfect that your trees last a hundred years. We’ve talked about fertilizing the trees during their bearing years, but what are growers doing during that five to seven-year window when the tree is getting established, when it’s not producing any nuts yet for you, it’s not producing an income for you? What are growers and agronomists doing? It seems like a long time, but relative to the length of the block life, it’s just a little window, but where are growers’ heads at then?
[00:23:18] Stephen Vasquez:
I think about, so in year zero, that’s kind of prepping the ground. And then years one, you’re either putting in budded plants or you’re putting in rootstock and then budding in. And then years two, three, four, basically it’s training. You’re certainly still trying to figure out what you’re putting on in terms of nutrition. You can’t not put anything on because you’re preparing them for that first and second crop, really making sure that they have enough to go. So there’s a lot of pruning, a lot of training, certainly some replants because once an orchard gets big, it’s much more difficult to try to replant a tree that maybe didn’t make it. There’s still a lot of agronomy that happens then. You’re checking your tissues, you’re still putting a pretty good fertilizer program together. You’re certainly checking water. And if you’re in an area that has some salinity issues, then you’re certainly trying to remediate that with some sort of probably some calcium program.
[00:24:12] Stephen Vasquez:
There’s still a fair amount of work that goes into an orchard that’s not producing anything, and you’re probably looking at a good five years of zero production before you get into year, maybe year five, but usually probably year six, year seven. And then it really comes into full production maybe around year 10, 11, 12, depending on the site and the grower and consultant. A lot of work going into those years with no crop in preparation for producing some wonderful crops and good quality in the following years.
[00:24:44] Karl Wyant:
Fascinating. Yeah, that’s just such a different time span than most of us are used to in the row crop world. Thanks for that explanation. Steve, let’s take it to harvest because that’s such a unique way we get the nuts off the tree. Would you just briefly describe what harvest and pistachios looks like? And then maybe a follow-on question is what’s the next step you’ve harvested and then what’s the fertilizer program look like? Because I know we’re not done yet in the year.
[00:25:07] Stephen Vasquez:
Harvest happens kind of mid-August to about mid-October. We have really two dominant varieties right now. So we have Golden Hills and then we have carmen, which has been the workhorse of the industry. Golden Hills typically gets harvested first, and then carmen is in the back end of the harvest period. The way that happens is the nut has a hole on it, kind of slips off depending on the orchard. Whatever that number is for that orchard, they’ll go through there and harvest it. What harvest looks like is basically two machines. They’re called a set. One machine has a big head on it and it grabs the trunk. And then the other one comes right on the opposite side of that. And once they’re together, that one that has a hold of the trunk shakes it for about two to three seconds. Again, depending, it could be a second, could be a second and a half, depending on the age of the orchard.
[00:26:00] Stephen Vasquez:
Shakes that tree, nuts fall off to these kind of catch frames. They’re at an angle and everything goes down into some conveyors, and then they either go into bins or they go into a trailer that then gets offloaded. Growers like to harvest just once, but depending on the year, they may have to go back for a second shake. There’s some additional walking the orchard, seeing what’s left, figuring out what you’ve pulled off. And the difference between pistachios and almonds is that once they’re harvested, almonds get laid down in a wind row down the middle. Pistachios have to go directly to the processor and they need to be there fairly quickly because the hole starts to break down and then it starts to stain the shell and everyone likes those nice kind of bright tan colored shelves. Now you mentioned eating pistachios as a kid, you probably ate the ones that were dyed red.
[00:26:53] Stephen Vasquez:
They were dyed red to hide those blemishes on the shell. And of course, nobody wants any dyed anything anymore. That went away. Harvest, once it happens, it has to go directly to the processor right away so that hole can get peeled away. They can start to dry those down, they get sorted, and then they go into different silos. And then when an order comes in, they either are sold like that raw, or they get set through the roaster with a salt brine, and then you go and pick up four or five packages and eat them in front of the TV at a football game.
[00:27:26] Karl Wyant:
That’s right. So Steve, once that harvest happens, are we done with the fertilizer program or is there still plenty of runway left in the year to get some nutrients out? It
[00:27:34] Stephen Vasquez:
All depends on when you get into October, depending on the weather, it’s like any perennial crop. If the weather’s very cold and if you start looking at your orchard and the leaves are more yellow than green, you’re probably not going to pull a whole bunch up. It all depends on the timing. If you’re at the front end of that harvest, certainly there’s time to irrigate and fertilize and prepare for next season. And certainly growers, when they’re putting their budget together and their timing or application timing together, there’s definitely some for after harvest because you want to help rehydrate those trees and certainly give them some nutrition before the dormant period really begins. It depends, but certainly that would be the best scenario is to be able to give them some water and nutrients.
[00:28:20] Karl Wyant:
Feed the trees before they go to sleep for the winter, right? Such a unique approach in the ag world. Steve, is there anything we didn’t cover today that you want to talk about before we wrap this up?
[00:28:30] Stephen Vasquez:
One of the things I always get questions on is people go, “Wow, I love the way a pistachio tree looks.” And honestly, we’ve turned them into a tree with a single trunk. And if you looked at a naturally grown pistachio, they actually grow with multiple trunks. When you think about our production system versus what they do in Iran, they look more like a bush in their natural state in Iran versus here where we’ve turned them into a tree. California is looking for the most efficient way to produce the highest quality, highest yield. The way to do that was turn them into a tree that a trunk shaker could then grab it and shake it. And we owe a lot of gratitude towards prune growers who really kind of designed the trunk shaker and came up with a trunk shaker for shaking prunes off of a tree to then move them to a big giant dryer and dry them.
[00:29:21] Stephen Vasquez:
That’s kind of where pistachio harvest really got its start is from those prune growers. And as we’ve talked about, we’ve become so efficient with better fertilizers, better growing practices, better varieties, and then certainly better ways to mechanize harvest. It’s no wonder that California is the number one producer of pistachios in the world. And the way we maintain that, Carl, as I told you in the beginning, the California Pistachio Research Board focuses primarily on supporting production research. That’s one of the most important things that can happen for endgame. Industry is making sure that research is conducted to maintain that industry at whatever level they’re at. Again, going back to corn, you think about where corn was in the beginning of where we are with corn now, same thing with pistachios. We’ve made so many tremendous strides in quality and yield. It’s all come about as a result of the research that has been funded by the industry, by the growers themselves.
[00:30:27] Karl Wyant:
Steven, that’s a fantastic close and a great call to all the growers, advisors listening to this is that research matters and it can really help make that circle of improvement happen much more quickly than otherwise, right? Stevens, thanks for taking the time to come on the show to talk about pistachios and marketing orders and the role of research. We really appreciate you challenging us to eat 40 pounds of pistachios this year per person. Maybe throw some prunes in the cart too while we’re at it to thank them for the crop growth pattern to match the equipment. Listeners, if you’re interested in digging deeper into nutrient management for a variety of crops, check out nutrient-economicswith.com and keep listening for more insights from our agronomy team in the next segment. Thank you, Steven. Appreciate it.
[00:31:10] Stephen Vasquez:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
[00:31:12] The Dirt PodKast:
Farming isn’t farming without questions, and now there’s a place to go for answers. At Economics, an entire team of agronomists are ready and waiting to help for free. No question is too big or too small. Visit nutrient-economics with a K.com and submit your question with the Ask an Agronomist feature. What is the difference between white and pink potash?
[00:31:39] Alan Blaylock:
Sometimes there’s a perception that there is a difference, and obviously there’s a color difference, so we might suspect there’s something different about them. The color difference between white and red potash can come from a couple basic differences in the product. One is the minerals that we’re mining, the source of the actual potash, and the other is the processing. For example, there’s such a thing called solution mining, where water is pumped down into the ground and the potash is dissolved, and that brine is extracted then from the mine, and it’s dried and granulated, and that may give us a more pure potassium fertilizer, and that would often be white, or perhaps extracting salts from a body of water like the Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea, where the brine is evaporated and we get a more pure form of potash. The red potash simply has some impurities like trace amounts of iron that give it a red color.
[00:32:37] Alan Blaylock:
Oftentimes, the red potash is 60% expressed as K20, where the white may be 62% also expressed as K20. So 0060 for the red potash versus 0062 for the white potash. But chemically, they’re both potassium chloride. Chemically, they behave the same. They’re equally effective as fertilizers. In practical use in the field, there’s virtually no difference between the two. Now, one specific application where you might prefer the white potash would be if you’re dissolving it to make some kind of spray solution or some kind of liquid material where you want to dissolve it completely, you don’t want those iron or other impurities that give it the red color. That’s a very specific application. It’s not used that way a lot, but that would be one case where you might prefer one over the other. But otherwise in practical applications to the soil as a granular fertilizer, there’s really no practical difference at all between those two.
[00:33:34] The Dirt PodKast:
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