A place for almonds and pistachios


Two Cawston-area operationsmight show there is commercial potential for these warmer-climate nuts. By Susan McIver


“To my knowledge we're the first growers in Canada to have a pistachio orchard,” said Don Mace, who, with his wife, Barbara, owns Mace Pistachio Farm in Cawston. A few B.C. nurseries sell pistachio trees as ornamentals and even fewer farmers might have tried to grow the occasional tree, but nothing on the scale of the Mace orchard, according to Don.


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“This April we planted 310 trees on two and a half acres,” Barbara said.


Don and Barbara, a retired police officer and executive, respectively, moved from Port Kells, near Surrey, to their Cawston farm a year ago.


The couple wanted to live somewhere warm and dry and to try something that might eventually help to stimulate the local economy.


“With global warming, there are things we can grow now in some areas that we couldn't before the climate began to change,” Don said.


The couple investigated the possibility of various types of grapes, olives and peanuts before deciding on pistachios.


Although a culinary nut, pistachios are botanically a type of fruit called a drupe.


Almonds, plums and olives are also drupes. “The micro-climate in Cawston is similar to the areas of the San Joaquin Valley in California where the majority of American pistachios are grown,” Don said. The United States, Iran and Turkey are the world's major pistachio producers.


Pistachio trees grow best in an arid semi-desert climate with long, dry hot summers, low humidity and cool, but not frigid winters.


After shedding their leaves in the fall, pistachio trees need a winter dormancy period of about six weeks. To learn about pistachios, Don joined a website, visited California nurseries and growers and even took a course at the University of California in Berkeley. “In selecting our three rootstocks I considered resistance to Verticillium wilt, which attacks tomatoes, a


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rowing pistachios and almonds may have more of a future in British Columbia than previously thought, especially in view of global warming.


SUSAN MCIVER


Don and Barbara Mace with two of the pistachio trees they started from seed this spring.


common crop in our area, as well as cold tolerance,” Don said.


He eventually decided on Pistacia atlantica because of its cold tolerance even though it is susceptible to wilt, PG1 (Pioneer Gold 1) because it is resistant to wilt and is somewhat cold tolerant, and UCB 1 (University California Berkeley 1)because it is wilt resistant, fairly cold hardy and has been found to produce larger yields than PG1 in some areas.


“The grafts available are Kerman and Golden Hills,” Don said.


“It's unfortunate that Kerman roots are susceptible to nematodes, Verticillium and Phytophthora, because they are very cold tolerant. I am, however, experimenting with a few Kerman grown on their own roots,” Don said. In April, he drove a truck and trailer loaded with 310 two-year-old budded trees he bought from a California nursery to Cawston.


The Maces are also growing about 100 trees grown from P. atlantica and UCB1 seeds.


“The seed stock should acclimatize the trees to Cawston conditions,” Don said.


“So far, all the trees are doing well. We check them three to four times a day for any signs of distress, pests or disease,” Barbara said.


Pistachios are dioecious and pollinated by wind. The Maces planted one male tree for every 20 female


trees.


“We expect our first nuts in 2018. By the seventh and eighth years, we should be getting about 50 pounds per tree,” Barbara said.


Pistachio trees are long-lived, reaching 100 years of age British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Fall 2015


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