Some in the California pistachio industry say they are very much looking forward to development of an online pistachio harvest predictor by Fresno State University researchers that would assist growers in predicting yields.

The predictor, accessible by smart phones, laptops, and desktops, went online about two months ago. “It should be useful in the early season to give yield projections,” says Clay Beck, a grower and manager with Valley Orchard management, which grows pistachios from Huron to Three Rocks on Fresno County’s West Side.

“As soon as the chill is over, we’ll have a quick calculator” that should help in planning for inputs to the crop, he says. While a standard water budget will hold, except for times when irrigation can be cut back, the tool could also help in early decisions on other inputs. Being able to estimate crop size early helps growers to plan for harvest needs and storage and to anticipate pricing.

Gurreet Brar, Fresno State plant science faculty member, says pistachios are one of the most chill-dependent orchard crops. “As our winter climate fluctuates more, the dynamic model continues to adjust, which is really important based on the crop’s dormancy sensitivity. This calculator is a perfect example of how our university can work with researchers, Extension agencies, and industry to lead agriculture in new directions.”

Brar and Shawn Ashkan, a Center for Irrigation Technology research agricultural engineer, created the free website where the calculator can be found, http:pistachio.azurewebsites.net

Ashkan brought his expertise in computer technology to the project, and Brar his knowledge of the physiology of pistachios.

A MARKETING TOOL ALSO

Chris Wylie, a partner in Wylie Brothers, which farms almonds, pistachios, and mandarin citrus in the Madera area, says the use of the technology for calculating yield is “amazing.”

Also a ranch manager for the Agri-World cooperative at Madera, Wylie says it should also serve as a marketing tool. While almond yield has been more predictable in tthe past, the calculator could help pinpoint pistachio yield, a greater challenge because of its variability in “on” and “off” years. “It’s not an easy crop to predict,” he says.

To get a predicted yield, website users enter recent chill portion totals from their orchards’ nearest or representative California Management Information System (CIMIS), the previous per acre yield, and information on whether the predicted year is a normally higher year in its naturally alternating cycle.

Ashkan says the website opens a “dynamic machine learning model that gets more accurate as people enter more and more data that sharpens the predictive algorithms.”

Just as Amazon notes recent purchases and music interests and suggests products that in which the user might be interested, the calculator does much the same thing: It learns from the user.

The model’s chill portion units are based on time and temperatures that the orchard experiences in its dormant stages from early October through mid-March. More emphasis is placed on temperatures in the 35 degree to 55 degree range, but the model accounts for temperature fluctuations as well.

EXTENSIVE DATA COLLECTION

To build the website, Ashkan and a Fresno State student assistant input weather data from 25 CIMIS stations, from Bakersfield to Merced. They also collected harvest data from area growers, with help from Brar and University of California Extension farm advisers Phoebe Gordon, Madera, and Mae Columber, Fresno. They tied the data to nearby CIMIS stations. Other information was added from 22 years of county commissioner growers data dating back to 1996.

Ashkan partnered with Mark Keith, Brigham Young University professor of information systems to design the website and its analytical formulas. The calculator is based on mature Kerman trees, but should work on other closely related varieties, Ashkan says.

The project to develop the calculator was funded in part by a specialty crop block program grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture for $120,000. Ashkan did background investigation for a grant proposal with Brar, who was then a UC Extension advisor, then submitted a final proposal when Brar returned from a one-year stint at the University of Florida to accept the university’s Rodger B. Jensen professorship in pistachio physiology and pomology.

Brar’s position was made possible with a $1.5 million grant from the California Pistachio Research Board in 2013. The position was designed to help solve industry challenges, while training students. It focuses on applied research in pistachio physiology, and includes course on fruit sciences.

California has more than 312,000 acres of pistachios that account for 99 percent of the domestic pistachio supply. The San Joaquin Valley is the state’s leading production area for the crop that was first grown commercially in the U.S. in 1976.

Growers produced a record 900 million pound harvest in 2016, and Wylie says the crop could push a billion pounds this year.