Photo: Ivar Leidus — CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Survives zone 7 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
The crop is the kernel, not the fruit — the hull is leathery and is discarded. Sweet-cultivar almonds are eaten raw, roasted, or ground into flour and marzipan. ⚠ Bitter-almond kernels contain enough amygdalin to be toxic in quantity; the sweet cultivars are the edible ones.
- Hardiness
- Zone 7–9
- Habit
- Tree
- Edible part
- Nut
- Ripens
- Sept
- Mature size
- Small tree 4–10 m
- Light
- Full sun (obligate)
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.0 (near-neutral)
- Environment
- Mediterranean
- Native range
- Native to the arid hillsides of Central and Southwestern Asia, particularly Iran and Afghanistan.
- Status
- Cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 3–5 yrs
- Growth speed
- moderate; reaches full size in about 3–5 years
- Spacing
- 650 cm (256 in) apart — about 42 m² (455 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 8–15 cm long, finely serrated, glossy green.
- Root system
- Worth knowing that in cultivation this is usually the rootstock's root system, not the species' — most Prunus are sold grafted, and vigour, suckering and soil tolerance follow the stock rather than the top. On its own roots the species is shallow-rooted, with the bulk in the top 40–60 cm spreading well beyond the canopy, so it dislikes cultivation underneath and competes badly with grass.
- Fruit description
- A grey-green, velvety, leathery hull rather than a fleshy fruit; it splits open at maturity to release the hard, pitted stone containing the edible kernel.
- Propagation
- Budded or grafted onto peach, almond, or peach-almond hybrid rootstock; seed propagation is used only for rootstocks or breeding.
- Pollination
- ⚠ Mostly SELF-INCOMPATIBLE — needs a partner
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Mature trees typically receive around 1 kg of nitrogen per year via fertigation or foliar spray, split between a late-summer and a spring application; potassium sulfate is added if leaf analysis shows deficiency.
Growing tips. Needs only 200–400 chill hours but blooms very early (February-March), making blossom frost the single biggest yield risk; most cultivars are self-incompatible and need a cross-compatible pollinizer, though self-fertile cultivars like 'Tuono' and 'Independence' exist; susceptible to brown rot and shot-hole disease.
Grow journal
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