Almond farmers plant flowers to help protect bees ByDennis Pollock
but they sure won’t survive without some extra irrigation.” It was in 2016 that Woolf started tran- sitioning to what Allbright descibed as “more regenerative ag practices.”He said the company planted hundreds of acres of cover crops and close to more than 50 acres of hedgerows and permanent hab- itat plants with three blooming varieties year-round. Woolf, which works with processing entity Harris-Woolf Almonds, is one of the first bee-friendly certifiedprocessors. “Bee health, pollinator health, soil health all fall into that,” said Allbright, who dis- cussed the effort duringU.S. Department of Agriculture webinar last month titled “Managing Trees with Bees (Without Going Nuts).” Another participant in the discussion, almond grower Christine Gemperle, owns and operates Gemperle Farms with her brother, Erich Gemperle, in Stanislaus andMerced counties. They farm 135 acres, including 40 planted with cover crops for nearly 10 years. They plan to integrate cover crops into 92 more acres as part of a commit- ment to sustainable farming. Gemperle started the cover cropping in part to boost bee health at a timewhen
The longtime policy of growing al- monds in California orchards barren of other plants is giving way to supporting bees, with a more than a little help from their friends—flowering plants. Peter Allbright, cropmanager forWoolf Farming and Processing in Huron, says the transition “frombare ground” has not been easy. “It’s tough to go from your traditional bare ground to early greening,” he said. “The traditional thinking is ‘that’s just more places for bugs to live,’” he said. That thinking is changingdramatically, as efforts to aid bee populations are gain- ing wider recognition. Through its Bee Friendly Farming cer- tification with the San Francisco-based Pollinator Partnership, Woolf Farming is embracing programs to protect bees and other pollinators, which are seen as crit- ical to food and ecosystems. Its farming operations are also certified through the Bee Better Programof the Portland, Ore.- based Xerces Society, which rewards farmers for supporting bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects. Woolf Farming manages 20,000 acres of almonds, pistachios, processing to- matoes, garlic, wheat and cotton across California’s Central Valley from Arvin in Kern County to west of the Chico
A cover crop of flowers in almond orchard at Gemperle Farms, where co-owner Christine Gemperle says she is hoping the plantings can “provide a healthy and safe environment” for bee populations.
area. As part of its operations, it now additionally grows over 350 acres of bee habitat and cover crops to support con- servation efforts. “It’s taken some getting used to, but we haven’t had any real issues with it,” Allbright said. Large hedgerow plants are planted in open ground throughout orchards, Allbright said. There are about a dozen species of plants that bloom for the ben- efit of native pollinators.
Allbright said the cost of establishing the permanent habitat remains “very high.” There are expenses for plants, la- bor, pipe and drip lines, as well as the water to sustain the plants. “In the permanent habitat locations, we do spend a significant amount on weeding costs,” Allbright said. Some plantings are in grasslands that he said can be “very aggressive and will overtake the plants until they’re estab- lished. They may be native to the area
See BEES, Page 11
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