What's it all about?

This investment evaluates a range of potential new almond rootstocks and assesses their compatibility with the common almond cultivars grown in Australia and their performance under Australia's growing conditions.

Improved understanding and knowledge of the performance of prunus rootstocks will drive grower profitability by informing decision-making processes. It will also reduce the risk of adopting new rootstock varieties by making rootstock performance data available under Australian government environments.

This project builds on previous evaluation trials established at Lindsay Point and Loxton in South Australia under the Hort Innovation Almond Fund projects AL11012 and AL16006. This project continues the data collection and evaluation for the first two trial sites and establishes a third trial site in the Riverina, where soils are much heavier. The research team will measure key growth and production parameters for comparison against industry-standard Nemaguard.

The key objectives of this project are to:  

• Evaluate the performance of prunus rootstocks under Australian growing environments.  
• Establish a trial site in the Riverina to evaluate the performance of prunus rootstocks in heavy soils.  

• Develop a data package and other grower resources to communicate rootstock performance data and support Australian almond growers' decision-making.