Key to Bountiful Harvests Geneticist Craig Ledbetter examines
the nuts of a self-pollinating almond selection in a California
test plot. California has more than 600,000 acres of almond
orchards. At the beginning of each new year, these almond trees
burst into bloom. That’s when growers will need many millions of
robust bees to ferry pollen from one cream-white blossom to the
next. Hive-rental costs to almond growers are high, ranging from
$125 to $180 per hive. But in the future, these costs may be
avoidable because bees may no longer be needed for almond
pollinating. This possibility could prove true as a result of
the work of Agricultural Research Service geneticist Craig
Ledbetter, in the Crop Diseases, Pests, and Genetics Research
Unit in Parlier, California. He has developed new and improved
self-pollinating almond trees—ones that can produce a bountiful
harvest without being pollinated by insects. A fifth instar
navel orangeworm larva infesting a Nonpareil almond. Self-
pollinating almonds are not new.