Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation Before Planting Almonds

Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation know as ASD is an effective way to kill soilborne pathogens in almond orchards if fumigants are not an option said Natalia Ott a biological Sciences Technician with USDA ARS at UC DAVIS

“Anaerobic soil disinfestation or bio solarization is a process where you add a carbon source to the soil, and then you water the soil really well, and you cover it with a tarp and the micro organisms in the soil eat that carbon and when they do it, they use up all the oxygen in the soil,” Ott said. “And so it makes the soil become anaerobic or have a lack of oxygen.”

“And the research found different results with different methods. What we've found that's really is that in some cases it seems like the tarp is very important and in some cases the substrate seems to be more important,” noted Ott

“So in some of our trials, if you just add rice brands, the carbon source, you see as good of a growth performance from those trees as if you had tarped it, or as if you had fumigated.” Ott said. “In other cases, you need to add the rice brand and the tarp to have as good of an effect as fumigation. And then in some cases, the anaerobic soil, this infestation doesn't work as well as fumigation.”

“It's a tangled web that we're really trying to pull apart at this point,” she said.

And of course it's going to take more research.