<p></p><p>Since July 1 of last year, California growers added an estimated 48,000 acres of new almond orchards to the state’s production base. Nonpareil accounted for nearly 39 percent of the almond trees growers bought during that time.</p> <p>Those are two of the findings of the special California Almond Nursery Sales Survey, conducted by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, which announced the results on Aug. 1.</p> <p>Questionnaires were mailed to all known almond nurseries in California which sell almond trees for commercial production. The survey results represent responses from 8 of 10 operations. </p><p>In all, the reporting nurseries sold at least 8.33 million almond trees since July 1 of last year. That’s up 25 percent from a year earlier.</p> <p>Want the latest agricultural news each day? Click here for the Western Farm Press Daily e-mail newsletter. Based on the new planting average of 125 trees per acre reported in the Almond Acreage Survey, almost 67,000 acres of almonds have been planted since the middle of 2013. That includes more than 26,000 acres planted to Nonpareils. In addition to the 72 percent of all the trees used to plant the 48,000 new almond acres, almost 24 percent were used to replant 16,000 acres of already existing almond orchards. The remaining 4 percent sold replaced trees within existing orchards. </p><p>Results of the California Almond Nursery Sales Survey, funded by the Almond Board of California, will be used with the Almond Acreage Survey to estimate the state’s almond acreage. </p><p> </p><br><p></p>