Almonds

Introduction

The almond, known as the king of nuts among dry fruits, is a highly nutritious food. It is rich in almost all the elements needed by tile body. It is an effective health-building food, both for the body and mind and a valuable food remedy for several common ailments.

Production area

The almond cultivation in India is restricted to selected hilly areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Almond growing has gained popularity in Himachal Pradesh. However, on the whole, only around 1,700 tonnes of nuts are produced from an area of 2,400 hectares in Jammu and Kashmir and some 100 hectares in Himachal Pradesh.

Growth promotional activities

The J&K government has formulated almond development program for bringing additional 12000 hectares more area under its cultivation in a phased manner. Presently, an area of 18870 hectares is under almond cultivation with total production of 9672 metric tones. The experts have suggested strategies for increasing almond fruit set and artificial pollination with bouquets. The research has indicated that the bouquets increased the fruit set and the affected decreased rapidly with the distance even with a tree. The pollen germination tests revealed no differences between one day old flowers from cut or intact limbs. Then the bud pollination was found to be very effective as it would accept pollen from the same flower and would overcome self- compatibility and highest fruit set was 5.66 per cent in Jammu and Kashmir.

Almond Types

There are two varieties of almond, sweet almond and bitter almond. There are thin-skinned and thick-skinned among the sweet variety. The thin-skinned, known as Kagzi in vernacular, is the best for use. The bitter variety of almonds should not be used as they contain prussic acid, a deadly poison. They have, however, some commercial importance and are used for producing almond oil, perfume and cosmetics.